The patron saints are one of the few cultural subjects covered in the British citizenship test, however this news highlights how irrelevant the test’s content is.

We’re working to create a new citizenship test that truly reflects real knowledge about life in the UK. Click here to contribute your own questions and vote for your favourites.

Here’s a multiple choice question for you to ponder.

What should prospective citizens to do in order for them to become British?

• Sign up as a volunteer for local charity
• Pass a British history test
• Be able to read and speak English
• Know the words to “God Save the Queen”
• None of the above, just pay taxes and obey the law

I’ve made some of choices these up, but some of them are actual proposals by the Home Office in their new points based citizenship consultation. If you’ve strong feelings about this (and I would hope you do!) then you can submit your opinions to the Home Office online.

Here’s something else to think about. Should these requirements apply to British born citizens as well? Personally, I think they should. This simple but effective test for evaluating whether proposed changes to citizenship requirements are reasonable or just political nonsense.

The BBC reports that Prime Minister Gordon Brown is planning to spend part of his summer break doing voluntary work in his Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. A spokesman said:

The prime minister will be undertaking some community voluntary work during his time in his constituency. For obvious reasons he has agreed with the organisations concerned that any work he does will be private.

Seems a bit odd to me. Does this pledge have anything to do with the recent news to encourage would-be citizens to do voluntary work? It seems too much of a coincidence for it not to be.

The Guardian reports that the UK’s new ID cards will not display the Union Flag or even the EU flag. The rationale being that they wanted to respect the “identity rights” of Irish nationals living in Northern Ireland.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said ID cards had been unpopular for so long that few remembered their genesis. “They were part of a clumsy cohesion agenda to unite us around flags rather than values. They were to fight the multiple identities that make up modern Britain by forcing us to choose between the various ties that bind us. Ironically, in forgetting the very ‘un-Britishness’ of ID cards, the government has united the country against them.”