The French have theirs, as do the Americans, the Swedes, the Samoans and dozens of other nationalities.

National mottos have been around almost as long as nation states, yet the UK has been characteristically demure about committing a spirited slogan to paper.

But is that about to change? Prime Minister Gordon Brown is so keen to assert his Britishness, the words "Britain" and "British" got 81 mentions in his speech to the Labour Party conference on Monday.

Last week, he was said to have welcomed a debate about a national motto after the Magazine's call for suggestions received a rousing response. The problem is, everyone has a different idea of what would work. So, in the interests of representing Britain in all its rich diversity, below, we present not 10, not 100 but 1,000+ of the best mottos for the UK, submitted by our readers.