I'M BEGINNING to think we English are a dozy lot.

We grumble to each other, but we can only do it to people that we trust of course, then we tut tut, shake our heads and move on, but do we do anything about it? Oh no!

We are always waiting, hoping for that magic someone to come along who will voice our worries and concerns and then in some miraculous way put it right, and we will be back to the way we were.' Well, I have news for you, that isn't going to happen.

In the meantime we allow everything we hold dear, all the freedoms, everything that was fought for to be frittered away.

This was brought home to me very strongly last week whilst visiting Butlers Hard, a small village in the New Forest where two of Nelson's ships were built, and where landing craft and lots of the small boats gathered prior to the Normandy landings.

I was talking to some Belgians and they were bowled over by our great heritage, our history, and the fact that everywhere you look in England are places that tell the story of our brave, adventurous and very clever ancestors, who went out and made the world our own.

Where are those leaders of vision today? Is it Blair, or Brown? Somehow, I don't think so.