Perhaps we could have our children pledge allegiance to a national motto. So thick and fast tumble the ideas about Britishness from the Government that the ridiculous no longer seems impossible. For the very debate about what it means to be a British citizen, long a particular passion of Gordon Brown, brutally illustrates the ever-decreasing circle that new Labour has become. The idea of a national motto has already attracted derision on a glorious scale-and there's nothing more British than the refusal to be defined. Times readers chose as their national motto: No motto please, we' re British.
   Undaunted, here comes the Government with another one: a review of citizenship, which suggests that schoolchildren be asked to swear an oath of allegiance to the Queen. It would be hard to think of something more profoundly undemocratic, less aligned to Mr. Brown's supposed belief in meritocracy and enabling all children to achieve their full potential. Today you will hear the Chancellor profess the Government's continuing commitment to the abolition of child poverty, encapsulating a view of Britain in which the State tweaks the odds and the tax credit system to iron out inherited inequalities.
   You do not need to ask how this vision of Britain can sit easily alongside a proposal to ask kids to pledge allegiance to the Queen before leaving school: it cannot. The one looks up towards an equal society, everyone rewarded according to merit and not the lottery of birth; the other bends its knee in obeisance to inherited privilege and an undemocratic social and political system. In Mr. Brown's view of the world, as I thought I understood it, an oath of allegiance from children to the Queen ought to be anathema, grotesque, off the scale, not even worth considering.
   Why then, could No 10 not dismiss it out of hand yesterday? Asked repeatedly at the morning briefing with journalists whether the Prime Minister supported the proposal, his spokesman hedged his bets. Mr. Brown welcomed the publication of the report; he thinks the themes are important; he hopes it will launch a debate; he is very interested in the theme of Britishness. But no view as to the suitability of the oath. It is baffling in the extreme. Does this Prime Minister believe in nothing, then? A number of things need to be unpicked here. First, to give him due credit, the report from the former Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith contains much more than the oath of allegiance. That is but "a possibility that's raised". The oath forms a tiny part of a detailed report about what British citizenship means, what it ought to mean and how to strengthen it.
   It is a serious debate that Mr. Brown is keen to foster about changing the categories of British citizenship, and defining what they mean. But it is in him that the central problem resides: the Prime Minister himself is uncertain what Britishness is, while insisting we should all be wedded to the concept. No wonder there is a problem over what a motto, or an oath of allegiance, should contain. Britain is a set of laws and ancient institutions— monarchy, Parliament, statutes, arguably today EU law as well. An oath of allegiance naturally tends toward these.
   It wasn't supposed to be like this. In its younger and bolder days, new Labour used to argue that the traditional version of Britain is outdated. When Labour leaders began debating Britishness in the 1990s, they argued that the institutions in which a sense of Britain is now vested, or should be vested, are those such as the NHS or even the BBC, allied with values of civic participation, all embodying notions of fairness, equality and modernity absent in the traditional institutions. Gordon Brown himself wrote at length about Britishness in The Times in January 2000: "The strong British sense of fair play and duty, together embodied in the ideal of a vibrant civic society, is best expressed today in a uniquely British institution— the institution that for the British people best reflects their Britishness—our National Health Service."
   An oath of allegiance to the NHS? Ah, those were the days. They really thought they could do it; change the very notion of what it meant to be British. Today, ten years on, they hesitatingly propose an oath of allegiance to the Queen. Could there be a more perfect illustration of the vanquished hopes and aspirations of new Labour? Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair. Ah, but I see there is to be a national day as well, "introduced to coincide with the Olympics and Diamond Jubilee—which would provide an annual focus for our national narrative". A narrative; a national day, glorifying the monarchy and sport? Yuck. I think I might settle for a national motto after all.

Which of the following does not support the motto "No motto please, we're British"?

(A) It is more or less paradoxical and satirical.
(B) It has been accepted by the whole nation.
(C) It shows a refusal of the definition of Britishness.
(D) It displays the nature of British values.

The word "tweaks" in the expression "encapsulating a view of Britain in which the State tweak the odds and the tax credit system to iron out inherited inequalities" (para. 2) can best beparaphrased by ______.

(A) changes

(B) indicates
(C) imitates

(D) exemplifies

According to the author, the central problem of the oath of allegiance or a national motto
towards Britishness is ______.

(A) the allegiance toward the ancient British institutions
(B) how to implement the National Health Service
(C) how to define Britishness
(D) the British sense of fair play and duty

In writing the essay, the author demonstrates an attitude of ______ towards the issue of
Britishness.

(A) indifference

(B) enthusiasm
(C) patriotism

(D) irony

When the author writes the rhetorical question "An oath of allegiance to the NHS?" (para. 8),
she is trying to express that ______.

(A) even the Labour Party today will not accept this as an oath of allegiance
(B) the definition of Britishness could finally be settled
(C) such an oath of allegiance should be accompanied by a national day
(D) such an oath of allegiance would be accepted when NHS was first implemented

Over lunch, a writer outlined a new book idea to his editor. It was to be a niche concern but promised much. The writer left the restaurant with a glow and decided to get an outline over soon. But days and weeks of being too busy turned to months and then, eventually, came the shocking discovery that his editor has been rather elusive of late for a reason: he has been busy crafting a book based on the writer's idea, and it was now in the shops. An apocryphal tale, maybe, but it will send shivers down any writer's spine. What's more, if the writer were to turn to the law in such a dread scenario, the law would be of no use to him at all.
   Phil Sherrell, a media lawyer with Eversheds, explains: "Intellectual property law protects the expression of ideas, not the ideas themselves." Sherrell agrees that "the distinction is not always satisfactory," but says that there needs to be a limit to the protection conferred on creativity by the law. "To extend the ambit of copyright protection to embrace ideas would be difficult in practice—how would the artist prove that they have conceived the idea if it has not been reduced to a tangible form? It would also open the door to undesirably wide monopolies."
   But copyright's 300-year pedigree might be a cause for concern rather than veneration. The means by which we communicate has changed out of all recognition from the time when copyright was invented. Today, in the post-modernist world, what constitutes an artistic, literary or musical work is radically different, not least in the field of conceptual art. Here, copyright's time-honoured reluctance to protect ideas is of dubious merit, according to Hubert Best, a media lawyer with Best ＆ Soames.
   "If you look at Martin Creed's [art installation] Work No. 227, The Lights Going On and Off, where is the work?" asks Best. "Is it in the fact that a light bulb goes on and off, or in the concept? I suspect it's the latter. But old-fashioned copyright law does not cover this kind of thing." Creed's Work No. 227 was an empty room in which the lights periodically switched on and off. It won the Turner Prize in 2001 to a predictable chorus of controversy. This goes with the territory in conceptual art, but other artists have found their work inspires not merely lively debate but accusations of plagiarism.
   Last year, three weeks after he unveiled his diamond-encrusted, ? 50m skull, Damien Hirst was alleged to have stolen the idea for the work from another artist, John LeKay. In 2006, Robert Dixon, a graphics artist, said that Hirst's print, Valium, was too close for comfort to one of his circular designs in The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Geometry. Hirst had another brush with intellectual property law when Norman Emms complained about a ? 1m bronze torso which, he said was copied from a ? 14. 99 plastic anatomical toy. Emms later received a "goodwill payment" from the artist.
   As one of the world's wealthiest artists, Hirst is well-placed to fight such battles, but due allowance should be given for art's intertextual essence. Writers borrow plots and embed allusions to their forebears, artists adapt well-known motifs, musicians play each other's songs and sample existing riffs and melodies. But there is a fine line between plagiarism, and creative allusion, and it was considered by the courts in the case of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. The Court of Appeal upheld the initial ruling that Brown had not reproduced substantial content from The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. The decision was also widely seen as confirming English law's disinclination to protect ideas.
   Yet if ideas can't be protected, where does that leave the writer aggrieved by the appearance of his idea in another's book? "It sounds harsh," says Sherrell, "but unless a writer has gone some way to creating the work—by way of an outline and perhaps a chapter or two—there is no remedy if the same idea appears under another author's name. However, given that everything is done on computers these days, it would be relatively easy to prove first creation by looking at the hard drive. Other than that, anyone in the creative arena should keep full and dated records to evidence their work. "
   There is another thing that can be done. "You can impose a confidentiality obligation on those with whom you want to discuss your idea," says Best. "Non disclosure agreements (NDAs) are often used in the corporate world to give a contractual remedy for breach of confidence if an idea is stolen. But the trouble is that a writer, musician or artist who comes into a meeting wielding an NDA isn't likely to make friends. It's a fairly aggressive way to proceed." Best is doubtless correct when he says. "You've just got to get on with it and do it. Once your work exists, in material form, you can sue if anyone steals it."

The story told at the beginning of the passage ______.

(A) shows the difficulties of turning an idea into a book
(B) described how the writer entertained the editor to get the book published
(C) demonstrated how the editor betrayed the promise he had given
(D) indicates the tricky issue of the protection of intellectual property

The word "ambit" in the sentence "To extend the ambit of copyright protection to embrace ideas
would be difficult in practice" (para. 2) can best be replaced by ______.

(A) ambition

(B) restriction
(C) range

(D) margin

The passage introduced the artist Martin Creed's Work No. 227 ______.

(A) as it was most severely criticized by the media lawyer Hubert Best
(B) because it displays the dubious nature of some contemporary works of art
(C) because it won the Turner Prize in 2001 to a chores of controversy
(D) as it was an example of conceptual art which causes accusations of plagiarism

Which of the following CANNOT be true about Damien Hirst according to the passage?

(A) He is one of the wealthiest artists in today's world.
(B) He paid Norman Emms to settle the issue of accusation of "copying".
(C) He was said to have stolen the concept for his work of diamond-encrusted skull.
(D) He is ready to fight all those who have accused him of plagiarism.

The concluding paragraphs mainly tell us that ______.

(A) non disclosure agreements can be used to protect ideas
(B) confidentiality obligation is the moral standard
(C) the best way to prove first creation is to use computer
(D) there is no other way to protect ideas unless the work exists