The European Championship Final defeat is a victory for decency, thoughtfulness and diplomacy; it is a victory for Gareth Southgate, Marcus Rashford and free school meals; it is a victory for Owen Jones and Ash Sarkar, patriotic pints aloft; it is a victory for first world war soldiers playing a Christmas friendly; it is a victory for suffragettes, Swampy, and the Greenham Common women; it is a victory for David Attenborough and public broadcasting, for Clangers, Wombles and Pogles; it is a victory for
Grange Hill,
Rastamouse,
Horrible Histories,
Ghosts and
Bing; it is victory for great crested newts, red kites and the baby beaver of Exmoor; it is victory for Alan Turing,
Julia Grant and Dusty Springfield’s mascara; it is a victory for
I, Daniel Blake,
Cathy Come Home and Danny Boyle’s Olympics ceremony; it is a victory for William Blake, Simeon Solomon, William Langland and
Viz; it is a victory for
Laura Knight, Betty May,
Shirley Collins and Nina Hamnett; it is a victory for Tom Robinson; it is a victory for Alexei Sayle; it is a victory for Sathnam Sanghera and Baroness Warsi; it is a victory for Judith Kerr and
Nigel Kneale; it is a victory for Alien Kulture, the Angelic Upstarts, Misty in Roots and Rock Against Racism; it is a victory for Lady Leshurr, Shabaka Hutchings and Dry Cleaning; it is a victory for the communal house share from
Rock Follies and for Lindsay Cooper’s Feminist Improvising Group; it is a victory for the overlooked second Selecter album,
Celebrate the Bullet, and for the overlooked third Specials album,
In the Studio, and its attendant singles, Racist Friend, (Free) Nelson Mandela and the 10-inch remix of War Crimes; it is a victory for Stonehenge, Wayland’s Smithy, morris dancing and Pendeen Vau; for Alan Moore, Leo Baxendale, the Cooper’s Hill cheese-rolling and Hawkwind; it is a victory for David Olusoga, Jo Brand, Lenny Henry and the Romany singer Freda Black; it is a victory for
Babylon and its Dennis Bovell soundtrack; for Cornish pasties and Jamaican patties; for Brick Lane bagels and Birmingham baltis; it is a victory for the wives from the 70s sitcom
Love Thy Neighbour and it is defeat for their husbands; it is a victory for Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and for Scottish independence; it is a victory for asylum seekers, Kent Refugee Action Network and those Sikhs who fed those lorry drivers; it is a victory for
John Barnes’s rap on New Order’s World in Motion, for Michael Rosen and for his eternal bear hunt and for every reviled community peace mural in the land; it is a victory for Jadon Sancho, Bukayo Saka, Paul Ince, Darren Beckford, Mark Stein, Andy Cole, Let’s Kick Racism Out of Football, and, finally, for Jason Lee, forsaken.