Not since the victorious end to the Second World War 60 years ago has this country had a better chance of establishing a sense of national purpose and what so many yearn for - a renewal of the feeling "British and proud of it".

In 1945 we were broke, rationed as heavily as at any time during the war, about to dissolve an empire and nervous about the post-war intentions of the Soviet Union. It was no time for singing Land of Hope and Glory.

Since then, we have indulged various fantasies about our role in the world. Harold Macmillan dreamed of us holding simultaneous links with Europe, the Commonwealth and the United States. Winston Churchill's "Let Europe unite" became the chosen course, though with different intentions from those of the Community today.

With his unique experience of both world wars, Churchill believed that a third conflict would wipe us off the map. His call won the support of my generation. How could it be otherwise? Over and again I wrote to my wife from the battle in Europe, saying "somehow we must find a way of avoiding our son, rising two, from having to go through this again."

Europe then widened its intentions in ways which required an ever increasing degree of conformity, and took from sovereign parliaments some of their powers and prestige. The controversy aroused by this contributed to the rejection of a proposed European constitution by two founder members of the Community. We're back at the drawing board there.

With some experience of government, I am sceptical about the human capacity to govern a federal Europe successfully. The United States of America grew up the way it is now. A Europe of perhaps a score of members, differing widely in wealth and culture, would be a much tougher proposition, unmanageable in my judgment. Nothing happening in Brussels, including corruption comparable to anything going on in Africa, makes me less sceptical. We should push hard for a re-think there.

The second influential trend in our post-war lives has been our policy - or lack of it - on immigration and our belief in the blessing of a multiracial society, left free to hold whatever allegiances it pleased. There we are undergoing a shock, discovering with cruel suddenness that we have incubated some who hate us, and hate us so much they are willing to die in exterminating some of us.

This is a sobering thought and will compel us to think afresh on the complex issue of allegiance. We cannot, I think, expect to draw that enviable degree of unity America draws from its diverse society, respect for the flag and so on. America today is top of the world pack. For all the criticism, its citizens have much to feel proud about.

But so in a different way has this small island. Our trouble is not lack of achievement but - pray God a short-lived - radical culture which prefers to dwell on what it sees as our sins rather than our virtues. Queen Elizabeth is an illustration of this. Cast an eye over the history book and those who have reigned over us. You will not find a sovereign who has given us more faithful service.

She makes people of my generation proud to have such a person as our head of state and proud to be British, for no other country has anyone as good. She is, furthermore, the only person in history who has turned a former empire into what we now call the British Commonwealth of Nations. You think it's tiresome? So do some of the politicians who have not given the Queen much encouragement.

She thinks it valuable to have these people as friends rather than enemies, and she is right and knows them by their Christian names.

But what do we find? Modernisers, some of them led by the nose by that implacable republican Rupert Murdoch, want us to have a president rather than a hereditary sovereign. They do not attack the Queen directly but dwell on how much she costs, on the follies of her descendants, the stupidity of her advisers.

To much of the news media, including the BBC, the National Anthem is anathema, the Union flag a joke. I have been in the news media all my working life and I love it, but I cannot deny that it consistently lays before us more to be ashamed of than to be proud about. Bluntly, bad news sells best.

But, of course, it goes wider than that. Crossing the old battle lines in Europe the other day, it dawned on me how much the sheer destructiveness of those world wars had given the nation state a bad name, developed a passion for internationalism and made patriotism sound dangerous. We haven't reckoned enough on the indirect influences on our culture of those two wars.

I thought, too, as we travelled over Europe, of what, notwithstanding the wars' horrors, made us proud to be British at that time. It was because something was being asked of us and we were responding. We were giving our country something, not making demands of it.

Nothing is asked of us today - except to pay taxes and local rates and obedience to a swelling bureaucracy. Politicians seek to win power by doing more for us. Our degree of dependency on the state for different services has become degenerating. It puts more votes into Mr Blair's pocket, but it makes being proud to be British a degree harder. No, I am not suggesting any new form of national service. It's not the right way to go about it and it would not work.

This has got to come from within. It would help if those at the top spoke more about the citizen's obligations and less of his rights and encouraged us to do more service to this country. Too much emphasis on human rights is a deadly creed. And why do they have to keep putting an Army, of which we can be proud, in the shit? I cannot believe it is serving justice or our capacity to defend ourselves.

The reputation we have in distant lands, I have learned in my travels, is higher than we give ourselves. They admire us for our social stability, our parliamentary and diplomatic experience, for fair play, for tolerance, for a willingness to help lame dogs over stiles, as well as for some of the qualities Shakespeare sang about in his plays. Some of these qualities have taken a bit of a bruising of late, but they are still there. The "in yer face" style is a silly, passing phase we shall move on from.

During the last 200 years of relatively modern history, we have suffered all manner of vicissitudes, made our share of mistakes, pulled round, remained much as we always have been, and, when the call came, responded - just as our policemen and policewomen did when London was under attack this month. It's our durability they admire in other lands. We've always been a rude island race. We're survivors. That's what makes me proud to be British.