Do not be ashamed of what you are, but more importantly: do not be ashamed of what you used to be.

Last night, in New York, the president of Argentina Cristina Fernandez made a speech criticising what she sees as a British occupation of the Falklands. On the same day in London, the cabinet minister Eric Pickles raised a flag to celebrate the liberation of the islands in 1982. Two different parts of the world, two different views of what used to be called the British Empire. Ms Fernandez says the British should be ashamed of what she calls colonialism. Mr Pickles says we are protecting British sovereignty and the British way of life.

I agree with Mr Pickles. Not only should we be proud of our record in the Falklands, we should be proud of the Empire too. The Empire was an astonishing institution built by buccaneers, eccentrics and a few criminals. It built bridges and roads but it also spread education, medicine, law and democracy (which is why we're still in the Falklands).

And there's another, longer-term legacy which I saw for myself when I was in Bangladesh this year. Mistakes were certainly made in that region as the Empire came to an end, but today there is a network of British humanitarian workers all over Bangladesh, as there is in all the former colonies. It is the Empire as a benign and positive influence.

Jeremy Paxman makes a similar point in his book Empire, which is just out in paperback. If you are going to be colonised by anybody, he says, better to be colonised by the British.

And remember another thing too: no-one took to Empire with greater enthusiasm than the Scots. Don't be ashamed of it. Don't apologise for it. Be proud of our bloody, but brilliant history.