The state's failed Gen Z! I'm amazed they're not more angry

As he delves enthusiastically into long-forgotten events for a gripping new podcast, David Olusoga takes aim at what he sees as the broken social contract’ that has left many younger Britons adrift from their country, hails the joys of genealogy and reveals why we may be at a hinge point’ in history

- By Matt Nixson

RECENT headlines claiming young Britons would not fight for their country caused a wailing and gnashing of teeth among sections of the commentariat.

Polling last month suggested half of Generation Z those born between the mid-90s and mid-2010s saw the UK as a “racist country” while just one in ten would defend it if it came to war.

Military and political figures described the YouGov findings as a “wake-up call”, while pundits fell over themselves to blame decades of high immigration and failing community cohesion, plus a vogue for “Britain-bashing” in schools and academia.

One of the UK’s best-known historians, David Olusoga has never shied away from difficult truths. Indeed, he feels passionately that the very point of history is to challenge preconceptions to foster a broader understanding of our national story.

“Rewriting history is not an attack on history, it’s the job of historians. It’s what we do to expand the horizons of what we know,” he tells me, as he offers another explanation for the figures.

“This presumption that every other generation was bursting with a sense of patriotism, and that’s why they served - I think that’s historically ignorant. They often did so out of a financial sense. They did so because it was a way of seeing the world.

“One of my ancestors fought in the Scottish Highlanders Regiment. It was that or being a landless labourer.”

Neither, he says, should we point the finger at recent attempts, sometimes condemned as “woke”, to take a more rounded view of Britain’s endeavours.

“It’s such a self-serving interpretation of that survey to say it’s to do with being honest about our history,” he continues.

“It’s taking information and deploying it in culture wars!”

So why are young people such reluctant patriots, especially against the background of a rising threat from a resurgent and bullying Russia already brutally on the march in Ukraine and an expansionist China?