David Blunkett is urging the English to stop being "apologetic about our history" and to positively celebrate St George's day next month.

The former home secretary said yesterday that he wants to "reclaim the patriotic mantle from the right and forge a new English identity for the modern age".

In a lecture to the Institute of Public Policy Research today, Blunkett will also warn: "There is a real danger that if we simply neglect or talk down national identity - people's sense of common belonging and shared values - we risk creating a festering, resentful, national identity, an identity based not on confidence, but on grievance."