The majority of young people do not feel proud to be English, a major survey has found.

18-24-year olds are more likely to be embarrassed about their English heritage than those from older generations, according to a YouGov poll of over 20,000 adults.

Among the younger age group, 55 per cent said they not feel proud to be English, almost double the proportion of those aged 65 and over.

Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of Sociology at Kent University, said that schools were to blame to failing to teach children to have a “sense of pride in the country’s past”.

“In schools they have [practically] stopped teaching history, and the history they do teach tends to be very sceptical of Britain’s past,” he said. “Instead of seeing the Victorian era as the height of progress, change, industry and the abolition of slavery, it is seen as very negative. Even the Magna Carta is presented as a bunch of feudal lords.”