The better question — for leaders who want to win elections and for those of us who want to live in an ordered society — is what might unite rather than divide the residents of the new England.

Some politicians have tried unsuccessfully to come up with an answer, although it is generally considered in a purely British context, partly because of the current focus on whether or not Scotland will leave the United Kingdom. While I hope fervently that the Union survives, even if it does, England needs a new settlement.

The Scots seem set to get new powers for the devolved parliament, even if the country votes against full separation. In Edinburgh, the Scottish leadership class is convinced that with more devolution it will get full control of the tax system north of the border, but keep the generous UK welfare system. This incendiary proposal is likely to be highly unpopular with taxpayers south of the border. In such circumstances, answering the English question becomes ever more urgent. Proper constitutional recognition for England is long overdue, and an end should be put to the outrageous practice in which MPs from Scotland and Wales vote on legislation that affects only England.

As Prime Minister, the Scot Gordon Brown was determined to avoid such matters and he sought to counter the rise of Englishness and Scottish nationalism by trumpeting the idea of intrinsic "British values". I am not convinced that this concept is much use. There are national characteristics or tendencies, of course. But pretty quickly on Brown's measure you got down to a wish-list of the most desirable human attributes — tolerance, fairness, kinship, charity, and so on, that most civilised nations would claim they embody at their best. 

Surely, in England's case, unique institutions, such as parliament, the legal system and the monarchy are far more useful? They are valuable manifestations of the English experience which immigrants could come to cherish. In this way Prince George and his family are much more than mere newspaper fodder. They are the indispensable embodiment of continuity and national common feeling.

It will take an unusual and gifted leader to give the emerging new England practical expression. The population will be more diverse than would have seemed possible or sensible just a few decades ago. England may still have Scotland and Wales attached, in a much altered Union, or it may not. Soon it may even be outside the European Union.

On these pages last year I floated the idea, with some reservations, that Boris Johnson might have it in him to do extraordinary things in the field of national leadership. Might Boris, a man of Turkish, Swiss and German descent and both American and British nationality, be the perfect leader for this new England?