PLANS drawn up by a Hampshire MP to help communities celebrate St George’s Day were torpedoed by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, it has been revealed.

Former Communities Secretary John Denham, Labour MP for Southampton Itchen, said his “modest proposal” for local celebrations of England’s patron saint was given the thumbs-up across Government until it was blocked by Number 10.

It is thought that Mr Brown was against the idea because it might have provoked a backlash against Labour from Scottish voters.

Mr Denham was reported saying: “Was I put out? I was driving when I found out, so I didn’t actually break anything.”

He said while he did not believe Labour lost the election “for lack of St George’s Day flags,” the decision illustrated the gap between the party leadership and the popular culture.

He added that Mr Brown “wasn’t suited to the modern media world”.

Mr Denham has long championed the rights of the English to celebrate their national saint, who is rather more quietly acknowledged than Ireland’s St Patrick, Scotland’s St Andrew or Wales’ St David.

Back in March, the former minister gave a speech in which he identified promoting a “positive English cultural identity” as a “pressing challenge” – and called for the festival of St George’s Day to be developed.

Mr Denham pointed to a survey showing increasing numbers of people were choosing to identify themselves as English rather than British. And four out of five of the English population were saying they felt a strong sense of belonging to England.

In the speech, to the Smith Institute in Westminster, he said: “The English national identity is the most neglected of the national identities of these islands. Less developed, and having had less effort invested in it, not only that of the national stories – most recently of Wales and Scotland – but also in the nationally focussed or nationally derived identities of many of Britain’s newer communities.

“This neglect is increasingly becoming a point of contention. One which we need to address.”