Maybe it's better he hears it from someone else

David Trimble and his party, the Ulster Unionists, have no identity problems. They are Simply British. Like a plate of Fish and Chips, one of the new party symbols. It's odd then that another person whom the Unionists would surely consider British has some problems with the concept. Consider this sentence from Geoffrey Wheatcroft's WSJ review of Peter Ackroyd's exploration of Englishness, Albion:

The name [England] has a potency quite lacking in "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland," of which my passport tells me I am a citizen, or of "Britain," a journalistic and political usage that, properly speaking, refers to a province of the Roman Empire before the arrival of Germanic tribes some centuries after Christ.

This encapsulates the Unionist dilemma. They could never claim to be "Simply English" and so instead up looking like a person who applies for asylum in a country that no longer exists. We're not aware of groups describing themselves as "Simply Hibernian" or "Simply Caledonian" (except perhaps fans of football teams with those names in Scotland), and even Trimble's beloved Fish and Chips has surely been replaced by Chicken Vindaloo as Britain's most popular take-away meal. Maybe it's no wonder the peace process is proving to be so complicated.

UPDATE: One thing is clear -- the Ulster Unionists are going to regret their choice of slogan. It's just too ripe for mockery, such as this example from Peter Robinson, occupying the more reactionary end of Unionism:

"Their new slogan should not be 'Simply British'. I think it should be replaced by 'Simply Stupid"'.