What does Englishness even mean in a land so splintered by class, geography, language and even post-colonial neuroses that it barely understands itself? And how far back would you draw the North-South divide? To 1066? Or maybe to the Jurassic period? James Hawes, novelist and author of the riotously readable Shortest History Of England, talks to The Observer’s Nick Cohen about England’s murky past and murkier future in a new occasional series of one-to-one conversations.

“The Norman Conquests were a long, grinding and demeaning process for the English. It was the slow annihilation of a culture.”

“England hasn’t existed as a separate state since 1707… Instead you had a polyglot empire of different nations.”

“When English people stand up and say ‘We’ve lost our Empire’, well you never had one in the first place, mate.”

“We were able to beat the French because we’d created this extraordinary combination of aristocrats and businessmen that we call ‘gentlemen’.” 

“Even now, we automatically fall back into Northern gits and Southern bastards. This stuff runs deep.”

“It’s been so long since the English have had to look at the problems of being English that I can’t see it ending peacefully.”

Presented by Nick Cohen. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofrenijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production.See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices