Government moves to review whether the teaching of "core British values" should become part of the National Curriculum should have only one outcome. In fact most people will probably be surprised that such values are not already enshrined in that curriculum.

Those critics who say such measures cannot in themselves prevent extremism are probably quite right, but they would certainly go a long way towards helping all those who live here (which includes whites as well as the ethnic minorities) to understand the values that this country traditionally holds dear.

In fact many people from different ethnic backgrounds and of different nationalities, including parts of Europe as well as the Indian sub-continent, choose to live here because of those values and don't need to be told that it is a place that believes in justice, freedom of speech and equality of opportunity.

Surely the point of the teaching of these values being added to the National Curriculum is to fill in the gaps in the education of all our children who for too long have been prevented from learning about such issues by a perverse kind of political correctness which has suggested there is somehow something wrong or inappropriate about being British.

We should be proud to be British whatever our faith, culture or background. We should be happy to celebrate the kind of values that have made our nation such an important player on the world stage and one which so many others across the world eye with envy.