It just isn’t done, even today (or perhaps that should be especially today) to criticise your country. Patriotism seems to be on the rise, rather than as one might hope, declining as people achieve wider world-views and realise that there is more to human life that binds than divides, everywhere.

I’ve never had an issue with pride in things that genuinely warrant it – but that is very different from the mindless, drum-banging jingoism that seems to be re-awakening. I am entirely serious about this: I recall one occasion when we took parents to a ‘replica’ Last Night of the Proms at the Albert Hall (sponsored by the Daily Telegraph, which had thoughtfully provided every seat with a branded, plastic Union Jack to wave at the appropriate moment). It was an uncomfortable experience, when that moment arrived, for my wife and me to be the only people in the Hall who felt unable to surge to our feet in what felt like an outpouring of cheap, plastic, branded jingoism – or more likely, a worryingly easily-induced expression of the national herd mentality. In fact, it was almost scary to be the refusenik couple in a crowd of several thousand – but I hope this incident in a small way vindicates the sincerity of my position – my national pride needs to be justifiable.

At present, it feels anything but. Britain is currently rocketing up my list of the world’s nasty countries. With yet another improperly-sanctioned military outing, this time in Syria, the Windrush scandal – not to mention the institutionalised, exceptionalist arrogance which still dominates relations with the rest of Europe (if not the world), it is very easy to come to the conclusion that this is a bellicose, toxic, hawkish nation, for all that it hides it beneath a supposedly-mild manner.

For anyone doubting the wider significance of all this, I suggest a read of Aeron Davis’ new book Reckless Opportunists: Elites at the end of Establishment. Davis is Professor of Political Communication at Goldsmiths, London. He has had over thirty years’ access to top people in the worlds of finance, business, politics and the media.

The book describes the vacuum behind the power-elites in current British society. The reviews on the rear cover accurately describe his findings as ‘terrifying’. What he describes is the utterly cynical way in which everything from hedge funds to government now function, the purpose of delivering meaningful services and support to wider society long ago having been subordinated to achieving and retaining power for its own sake. Almost as alarming are the changes that have taken place well out of the public eye in recent decades, which completely transformed the way the ‘system’ operates, from a moderately benign if elitist old-boy network, to something altogether more rapacious and vacuously short-termist.

Davis is clearly not without his own political stance, but I think it is visible enough to be allowed for, and I still find his accounts and conclusions deeply concerning. In any case, I am more inclined to trust a senior academic than the spin-doctors at the Mail, Express or Telegraph. Even for those who tend to support the status quo, the book’s strap line ought to be worrying, for he shows how in addition to everything else, the current arrangements risk destroying much of the system that supports it. Personally, I wouldn’t be especially concerned about that – provided it was possible to replace it with something more transparent and less toxic. But, if only for the fact that my patriotism simply takes a different form from normal, I would be extremely concerned that its collapse would drag the rest of us down with it as so nearly already happened in 2008.

The sad thing is, there has never been more coverage of the more benign conditions in other comparable countries. There is really nothing to stop Britain taking on the enlightened views of the Dutch, Swiss, Scandinavians or Canadians. Nothing at all to stop its hawkish drum-banging on the world stage, and to start it on a route of genuine social improvement. Except the self-important, puffed-up national mindset, and the corrupt systems that feed it, and on it.

It is not unpatriotic to face up to one’s country’s shortcomings: in the case of Britain, the worst of all is the delusion that it really is a proper, well-functioning democracy, when what we actually have is something between an oligarchy and an elective dictatorship .

Until this country changes to become a proper liberal, social democracy, with decent standards for all, adequate social and environmental protections, a less punitive attitude towards the majority of its own citizens, a more reasonable relationship with neighbours from whom it might actually learn a lot – and a more forward-looking approach to its problems, I am afraid I will not find much to feel genuinely proud of about Britain, no matter what the group-think might require. And no, appeals to history, even if justified, are not enough.

Strongly recommended reading for anyone wanting to know more about the way power now operates in this country.