Mottos

Gordon Brown's first speech as Prime Minister yesterday climaxed with the words:
"On this day I remember words that have stayed with me since my childhood and which matter a great deal to me today. My school motto: I will try my utmost. This is my promise to all of the people of Britain."

Radio 4's Today program this morning picked up on the theme of mottos. Someone commented that he preferred mottos to mission statements. Mission statements have their place of course, but what's so great about mottos is that they're directed inwards; they're reminders to ourselves of who we want to be, rather than what we tell our clients we are. They can thus be more candid and cautionary. That's what I think of as the best sort of motto. My favourite is that of Oliver Cromwell, which Paddy Ashdown also adopted:

"Know what ye stand for, love what ye know."

Mottos can also of course be a pile of crap. I'm thinking of the sort that's stuffed with bluster and vainglory, like another one that featured on the Today program this morning. After the piece on mottos, there was an interview with Alistair Darling, who everyone's assuming will be Chancellor of the Exchequer. They couldn't help raising the old school mottos issue of course, and he recited his:

"Spartam nactus es, hanc exorna" (You have inherited Sparta, be worthy of it)

Well I mean. It's all glorifying cold showers, wearing shorts in the Scottish midwinter, no heating and wide open windows in the aforementioned seasonal conditions, rugby on frozen pitches, no girls, no telly, no sweets and watery porridge. Isn't it? (The answer is yes. I went to the same school. Can you guess?)

Imagine if Alistair Darling takes over from Gordon Brown. "You have inherited Sparta. Be worthy of it. This is my promise to all of the people of Britain."

ARRGH! To my horror, I've just realised that my old school motto exhorts me and all my schoolfellows past and present (including Alistair Darling) to ape a warrior society that engaged in a brutal war with the Persians (who we now call Iranians) to defend democracy. Uh oh.

The school's Victorian founder can't have had the War on Terror and the Axis of Evil in mind, surely? Maybe not. But then again, I've never really noticed before how ingeniously and completely it combines the twin doctrines of personal hardiness and 19th century imperialism. Gosh, there's some food for thought.