MINISTERS have called for a national "Britain Day" in an attempt to boost patriotism, while admitting that English identity needed to be revived.
Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, and Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, said in a pamphlet on Britishness that bolstering English identity should also be a "priority".
Their proposal echoes the calls from Gordon Brown to celebrate common
British values and the Union.
But Alex Salmond, the First Minister, criticised the idea during a Cabinet meeting yesterday, telling ministers the proposal appeared vague.
And he reiterated his call for St Andrew's Day to be a public holiday north of the border to herald the start of a "winter festival".
This would offer season-long "opportunities to make Scotland the premier tourist destination", a spokesman for Mr Salmond said.
The pamphlet by Mrs Kelly and Mr Byrne - written for the Fabian Society, a Labour-affiliated think-tank - also floated the idea of greater devolution for England.
"A parliament in Scotland and assembly in Wales and Northern Ireland shine a light on how England remains comparatively centralised," it said. "The reforms currently going through parliament free-up local government and empower local leaders. But they should be the beginning, not the end of England's devolutionary journey."
Reviving local civic governance and identity within England should be one of the government's priorities in the coming decade, it added.
But Mrs Kelly and Mr Byrne stopped far short of advocating the dissolution of the Union in the pamphlet.
"Our task in Britain, in the coming decade, is not to plan a separation," they said. "Nor can it be about assimilation into a mono-culture. Instead we must develop a meaningful sense of what we all - whatever faith, ethnicity and wherever in Britain we are from - hold in common."
They warned that there was no clamour to break up the United Kingdom. "There seems to be little real appetite for independence in either Wales or Scotland; support for independence has not shifted since devolution."
The ministers' proposals also include a system of "earned citizenship", making it easier for migrants to settle if they have carried out community service, as well as cash top-ups linked to the Child Trust Fund or reduced tuition fees for those who are "good citizens".
David Cameron, the Conservative leader, also entered the Britishness debate, telling Muslim scholars that the UK should take a leaf out of America's book when it came to teaching citizens "what it means to be American".
Mr Cameron called for history to be taught in a way that celebrated Britain's positive achievements, both at home and abroad.
And he said it was essential new immigrants learned English so they could communicate with the rest of society.
Polls show that most Scots consider themselves Scottish rather than British, and only half of English think of themselves primarily as Britons.
SENSE OF IDENTITY
MARK HORTON, presenter of BBC series Coast: "I think the idea of a day when we celebrate community and get involved in community projects is excellent. But it seems people want to mix it up with some notion of Britishness as a sense of identity, and to me it has all the hallmarks of a political bandwagon in which people are trying to find a term that defines multiculturalism. But the very term itself, 'Britishness' - with all the unpleasant undercurrents it can have - could be seen as excluding the Scots, the Welsh, even the Cornish. Until there's a public acceptance of what British identity is, any notion of a day to celebrate it seems strange."
DEVELOP DIVERSITY
ALI JARVIS, Director, CRE Scotland, said: "We would embrace efforts to bring people from different communities together. Shared understanding and familiarity are the first steps to developing collaborative approaches to common concerns that will deliver real changes in local neighbourhoods.
"Opportunities to reflect on and value society's diversity should be seized with both hands as a proactive way to build communities.
"[But] there is a danger in getting fixated on a notional one-off day ... at the expense of the real challenge of harnessing local, national and GB-wide benefits of stronger community links."
'DESPERATE GIMMICK'
CLIVE FAIRWEATHER, former chief inspector of prisons in Scotland, said: "There are quite enough public holidays already and other things to celebrate. I am in favour of the Union and all it stands for, but to be quite honest I think this is nothing short of a desperate gimmick by the government. Every day in this country is Britain Day, but the concept of marking it annually is a very un-British thing to do.
"We do have a more diverse population in the country these days and perhaps more attention needs to be paid to that, but not this plan. I cannot even think of anything meaningful and appropriate to do on such a day. To be honest, my mind boggles at such a ridiculous proposal."
SCOTS STAND APART
PETE WISHART, SNP MP, said: "Most Scots have dispensed with any notion of being British and are happy to be described exclusively as Scots. Somehow I just can't see the Scottish public reaching for their Union Jacks to cheer on the Chancellor on Britishness Day."
DAVID MUNDELL, the Shadow Scottish Secretary, said: "I find the whole thing ridiculous given that Gordon Brown and the Labour government failed to bring forward any celebrations for the anniversary of the Act of Union earlier this year. That was effectively the creation of Britain and we should have celebrated that."
'STILL IN DENIAL'
SIR ANDREW GREEN, chairman of Migrationwatch, which campaigns against mass immigration, said: "The government are at last realising there are serious consequences to the mass immigration that they have permitted, indeed encouraged.
"Some of these ideas will help, but they come after 10 years of the government turning a blind eye to immigration running at enough to fill a dozen double-decker buses every day - nearly 600 people.
"The first task is to get the number of immigrants down to manageable proportions. The government is still in denial about the need for really effective action on this front."
PATRON SAINTS' DAYS
SIMON BENNETT, campaigns director for the England First political party: "This is just another gimmick from the government. It disregards that there should be a separate day for each of our nations, celebrating the patron saints.
"This is no solution to religious extremism. People have strong views and a British Day imposed on them by the government would not erode these. We have a government on its knees ... this sort of thing smacks of desperation.
"Our migration policy should be more restrictive to begin with. Migrants should want to learn about Britain anyway; they should not be offered some sort of reward for that."
