Poor Britannia! These isles can have rarely known such peace and prosperity — but according to the British Attitudes Survey, national pride is at an all-time low. “Somewhat proud” is as much enthusiasm as most of us can summon for the land of Maria Miller and Jimmy Savile, where our sovereignty always seems to be under threat, our institutions in crisis and our generations at war.

Still, there is at least one place we can find a happy and harmonious Britain —and that’s our state broadcaster. The Great British Bake Off is the glâcé cherry on a Victoria sponge of mild propaganda delivered nightly by the BBC. If the Union does break up, it won’t be for lack of lifestyle formats.

In 2006, BBC1 and BBC2 showed 15 programmes with the word “Britain” or “British” in the title. Last year they showed 516. This week, as it celebrates its 50th birthday, BBC2 offers A Very British Renaissance, British Danger Racers, The Great British Menu, Great British Garden Revival and Great British Railway Journeys.

That’s discounting the somewhat British programmes, like The Big Allotment Challenge, which tells our island story through Dig for Victory and competitive jam-making. It’s W1A’s Britain’s Tastiest Village in all but name. It rather puts the lie to the idea that the corporation is a cabal of anti-Establishment anarchists.

It’s not that you can’t make good TV in this genre — Channel 4’s Gogglebox and One Born Every Minute both offer surprising and affecting sketches of contemporary Britain. The problem is that the BBC’s British output doesn’t simply observe. It seeks common ground — and if it doesn’t exist, it creates it.

And so BBC Britain is a moist and pleasant land of eccentrics and secateurs, bunting and voles, dry wit and white lies. The North is represented by Eccles cakes and certain views from the Settle-Carlisle railway; multiculturalism is a culinary triumph above all else. At times, you feel the commissioners will only rest when the nation is smothered under a giant Cath Kidston bedspread and Sue Perkins is winking on the threshold of Number 10.

In Scotland, many see all this Great British nonsense as an anti-SNP conspiracy. I think that’s paranoid. I see it as the BBC desperately trying to placate its Conservative critics and fulfil its national brief by appealing to the one thing that its audience loosely have in common: Britishness. But in doing so, it highlights two important points about patriotism. One is that any form of national identity is a fictional construct. Two, it’s usually less important than other forms of identity such as family, friends, profession, culture, generation and class.

Somewhere there is a tiny part of me that is somewhat entertained by twee nonsense. I think we just need to accept that if that’s all nationhood is nowadays, it’s no surprise that our feelings towards it fall on the “somewhat” scale. Somewhat proud? That sounds about right.

Scoffing on the Tube is not a gender issue

I’m concerned that the wrong conclusions are being drawn from eating on the Tube affair. Yes, it is creepy and misogynist to create a Facebook group to shame women you have covertly photographed cramming crisps into their gobs. We can all agree on that. But it does not make Tube-eating, male or female, any less regrettable. The idea of a mass eat-in — taking over a carriage for a chomping protest, as a group of righteous picnickers did earlier this week — fills me with horror. Like Camus, I must ask: What if my mother had been on that carriage? Should she have been subjected to such abomination just because some lowlife created a Facebook page?

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My heart goes out to those caught in the crossfire.

Don’t join the Hangry set

The Department of the Bleeding Obvious has taken residence in the University of Ohio this week. A study reveals that couples are far more likely to argue when blood sugar is low. If you feel yourself becoming irrationally irritable — “hangry” — and about to take it out on a loved one, the advice is to consume a burrito and reconsider.

I’ve long been mildly obsessive about blood sugar, as I used to faint a lot when I was a child. I also found regulating it was vital to giving up smoking (cigarettes send your GI all over the place) and to being able to accomplish anything at all in the afternoon. But now I worry about the wider social effects.

The Juice Cleanse phenomenon will create hordes of psychopaths. The popularity of the 5:2 diet means that you never know when you will encounter a colleague or fellow Tube passengers in a “hangry” state. Does 5:2 devotee George Osborne make up economic policy on his fasting days? We have a right to know.

Glasto calls time on footie

Sad to report that one of the great quadrennial events of British summertime will not take place. The organisers of Glastonbury have announced that, time zones being what they are, the Brazil World Cup will not be shown at the festival. Should England progress to the last 16, the match would clash with either the Saturday or Sunday night headliner.

During the last World Cup I watched England get eviscerated by Germany on a sun-scorched, skunk-scented Somerset field. At the European Championships in 2004, there was a heartbreaking act of self-sabotage versus Portugal, viewed from the Pyramid Stage. There really is nothing like the close proximity of most forms of human pleasure to put defeat into perspective.

Twitter: @richardjgodwin