It’s your very own independence day, England. Here’s how to improve on the US edition

Happy Independence Day to my American readers, and happy independence day to my English ones! Just as the former were liberated from the British sovereign 244 years ago, so the latter were (mostly) liberated from the government’s lockdown rules today. To quote one of the founding fathers of my music collection, George Michael, “Freedom! I won’t let you down. Freedom! I will not give you up.” Also on the theme of enjoying one’s independence, George Michael once sagely asked, “So why don’t we make a little room in my BMW, babe, searching for some peace of mind?”

I’m a little confused about what, exactly, we are allowed to do in England today, and it’s possible that sex with a stranger in your car is not yet fine. But one of the first things we were allowed to do when lockdown started to be less locked down was visit a car dealership, and, truly, the nation breathed a sigh of relief over that one. So you probably can now have as much car-based shagging as you like, but only in a BMW showroom. Go on, treat yourself.

When I was growing up in the US, my mother would make a flag cake on the Fourth of July, a chocolate cake decorated like an American flag thanks to the judicious deployment of strawberries, icing and blueberries. Eating the flag is almost certainly an act of treason, but one of the tastier ones. As much as I loved the Fourth of July, I thought about its origins as much as I thought about the pilgrims at Thanksgiving, which is to say, not at all. On Jewish holidays, you do nothing but think about the miserable past, because that is how we Jews treat ourselves. But unless you’re a person who spends your weekends in a tricorn hat doing re-enactments of the US civil war, American holidays tend to focus more on the present trappings (flag cakes, turkey) than their less than festive roots (slaughtering the British, killing the Native Americans).

Americans could do a lot more with the Fourth of July, and I don’t just mean singing the first act of Hamilton, which all right-thinking people do on a daily basis anyway, surely. It should be a kind of New Year’s Day for the US, with Americans making resolutions every year about how they want the country to be. You might think the constitution serves that purpose already, but the constitution is showing its age these days. It needs to get some retinol, which is constitution-speak for redrafting the second amendment.

The UK doesn’t have a constitution, but what better time to write a shiny up-to-date one than on independence day? After all, look at the mess the US is in, with the president and the electorate pinballing from one culture war to the next, minute by minute. Britain, you don’t want this; you need to keep a calm focus on the big picture, and as your mum always told you, the best way to do this is to write a list (or, to use its fancy word, a constitution).

When lockdown started, many noted how nice the air was without all the car pollution. But our concern for the collective good has slipped away as the national mood has turned crotchety and febrile. Still, it was amazing what a difference it made, even just psychologically, to take my kids to the park without having to fight through plumes of smoke, as if we were Kurt Russell and Billy Baldwin in the 90s classic Backdraft (the world has changed, but I’m still here with my cutting-edge references). So car-free days should definitely be added to the constitution.

Related: Big graduation moments? They're totally bogus. Take it from an expert | Hadley Freeman

I would also like Britain to be a place where libraries, nightclubs and pubs aren’t sold off to luxury-flat developers, because of all the things this country has too much of – betting shops, estate agents, news programmes featuring Nigel Farage – “luxury flats” are definitely number one. The deranged fetishisation of the second world war, in which everything from the idiocy of Brexit to the hideousness of coronavirus is compared to the Blitz, also needs to end; aside from everything else, it’s quite weird for us Jews how much you guys get off on that war. Also, for the love of God, can you all stop sniping at the BBC? Have you seen American TV? Seriously, you don’t want that.

Obviously, there is much to be written in our constitution about the NHS, our schools and the welfare state, and I’ll leave it to the experts to detail that. Sticking with my own areas of expertise, I would like someone to record the definitive meaning of “sorry” in England. It’s not actually true that the Inuit have 50 words for snow, but in England, the word “sorry” has at least 500 meanings, ranging from “I am not sorry” to “You just rammed your shopping trolley into my ankles, you idiot”. This needs to be spelled out as it is incredibly confusing to foreigners (which, admittedly, may be the point). Finally, Britain must become a place where the American snacks Twizzlers and Chex Mix are widely available, as opposed to sold only at very overpriced tourist shops near Oxford Circus (so I’ve, um, heard).

Life is starting anew, and it’s ours to shape. We are the change that we seek, as Barack Obama said. Or, as I say, take this independence day seriously, by which I mean, write a constitution and make a flag cake. Believe me, the future will look better already.