The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

Link: BBC NEWS | Magazine Monitor.

The linked page cheered us up over our breakfast toast. Readers of the BBC Website posted a thousand suggestions in response to El Gordo’s suggestion that the United Kingdom needs a national motto like France’s Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite or the United States’ In God We Trust.

Of course a few are sickeningly right on, featuring such hypnotic triggers as "diversity." Many, however, confirm that our national sense of humour survives. Others confirm that the Paines are not alone in their anger about the state of our nation.

Our personal favourites were;

Come and have a go if you think you’re ‘ard enough

(a football chat in the spirit of Scotland’s national motto, nemo me impune lacessit), and

May contain nuts

For my part, I am quite happy with the UK’s existing motto (has Brown never looked at his passport?)

Dieu et mon Droit

but I am quite tempted by Steve of Cambridge’s sourly spot on suggestion;

Quidvis

which he translates as "whatever."