That's one of the many, many commentaries it draws. A very, very difficult watch, but an essential one, in our current political climes.

Its commentaries on imperialism, jingosim and nationalistic narrative in general are stark, pitiless and without ambiguity: Such things destroy us. They lead us to destroy ourselves. They drive us mutually mad and con us into celebrating that madness.

This is ours too; we have a concept of Britain that's so much more historically valid, culturally fluid, deviant and progressive than you can conceive, and we do not allow you that imagined territory.

No, it dares to say: We should not cede national narrative and mythology to right-wing forces. We do it too often instead of telling them:

It's an amazingly transgressive piece of work (Stephen's fantasies about the local milk man become quite lurid at points), with a set of core principles that are absolutely essential in today's climate:

A spirit and demon-haunted realm closer to the Britain of Blake and Elgar (and, by the by, far closer to genuine history than the myths contrived by conservative forces).

However, as the plot rolls on, he finds every assumption and delusion of his identity broken down, piece by piece: He's nascently homosexual, adopted and discovers a concept of Britain that's entirely at odds with reactionary narrative:

It features one of the most incisive deconstructions of prescribed nationalism and conservative narrative I have ever seen in fiction. Protagonist Stephen starts as a hyper-conservative reactionary, a shrill and blinkered creature who can't stand for the myths he cleaves to to be challenged.

And boy, do they hate that. It reveals something fundamental in their souls that they truly are ashamed of. They get petulant and nasty in the way of a spoiled, entitled child trying to shift blame or divert attention from their behaviour.

They just gift themselves gratis, because they affect the right songs, target the right scapegoats. It's pathetic. I just call them serfs now, because that's what they are; authoritarian little serfs who masochistically love the feeling of Master's boot in their faces.

Sincerely, it's the kind of response that makes me think: These people deserve Farage. They deserve to be fleeced to the fucking marrow by the monsters they don't even sell themselves to, because they're not getting anything back:

But, on a wider note, their logic is that of an infant: "We jumped in this cesspool and didn't like it. We jumped in this cesspool and didn't like it. So, let's try jumping in this other, deeper, more toxic cesspool and see if we like that better."