Pick a British motto: see our top ten contenders and cast your vote here

Today The Times seeks, as it has done every so often across four centuries, to make history. It invites readers to join in a cause so earnest, so noble, that the very future of Britain is at stake.

It is an enterprise close to the heart of our Prime Minister, yet it need not divide him from his political opponents. To take part will be an act not of partisanship, but of patriotism.

The quest is simple: to help Gordon Brown to choose a motto for the new Britain that he wishes to build.

The stakes are enormous: the motto, should he embrace it, would encapsulate the statement of British values that he believes are essential to our sense of national purpose, to rebuilding our democracy itself.

The ultimate prize shimmering today before every Times reader is to find a motto so fine, so fitting that it becomes the cornerstone of a new British Bill of Rights. Already it is an exercise that has captured the imaginations of countless readers of The Times. Since Comment Central appealed for online suggestions — of no more than five or six words — for Mr Brown’s national motto, the response has been extraordinary, historic even.

In nine days 1,049 entries were posted on the site, several with multiple suggestions. Another 231 were posted as comments to a Times Online article reporting on this unique experiment with parliamentary democracy.

They range from the whimsical, the patriotic, the pithy and the playful to larger numbers that are sporting, satirical, sceptical, scornful, savage. Some talk Britain up, others run it down.

Now for the real innovation in interactive democracy. From this multitude of mottos and, after much agonising, Daniel Finkelstein, the editor of Comment Central, has selected a shortlist of ten. It was a lonely task, but someone had to do it.

From these ten, displayed here, readers of The Times are invited to pick their favourite for Britain. Voting is online at Comment Central.

The winning motto will be passed, with due solemnity and sense of occasion, as a formal submission to the Government’s consultation on the reform of Britain’s constitution. Some of the finest minds at The Times are still considering whether the chosen entry should be submitted carved upon a tablet of stone, engraved on silver, inscribed on vellum or — in the spirit of e-democracy — pinged over to the Ministry of Justice in an e-mail.

The timing could not be more apt. Michael Wills, the politician charged by Mr Brown with guiding a “national conversation” on reform, is about to convene a “citizens’ summit” on this very issue. He protests that he never actually mentioned a motto. But the idea has emerged, organically, democratically. He cannot but listen.

The Minister for Mottos, as we shall inevitably come to know him, wants to entrust the task to 1,000 citizens, selected at random to agree a “statement of British values”.

Here is another way, a better way. The astute among you will have realised that, with 1,280 motto suggestions posted and more popping up by the hour, our online endeavour has already eclipsed the sample size of the threatened citizens’ summit.

Let them turn to The Times and its diverse family of online readers. Let us save Gordon Brown the bother — and taxpayers the burden — of such an old-fashioned, 20th-century form of consultation. Scrap the citizens’ summit! Let us decide for Britain.

Should we have a motto? Which? Readers, lift down your laptops, bring out your BlackBerries, key into your computers. Choose. The nation awaits.

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