These virtues aren't about arrogance or showing off. (We leave that to rivals such as Germany and France.)

Rather, they have to do with simple, honest things: pluck in the face of overwhelming odds, duty, loyalty, self-sacrifice, sang-froid and – with luck – victory snatched by the underdog from the jaws of defeat.

Zulu tells the amazing true story of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, the action in January 1879 when a garrison of just 150 British and colonial troops beat off successive attacks by a vastly superior force of 3,000 to 4,000 Zulus.

Had our chaps not held their nerve they would undoubtedly have experienced the fate of their 1,300 comrades massacred the day before at Isandlwana. Instead they held out with just 17 killed – and well over 300 enemy dead. And were rewarded with an unprecedented (for one action) 11 Victoria Crosses. 

But that was then. Now apparently we are supposed to find this episode shaming.

Or so reckons a pop star by the name of Lily Allen, who applauded a campaign by fellow Social Justice Warriors to have a cheery message commemorating the event whitewashed from history.

The message was put up this week on a billboard at Dollis Hill Tube station by a London Underground worker who happened to be an Army reservist from a military family.

“The Battle of Rorke’s Drift is quite an important day in British military history so I put it up there. I never meant to offend anyone,” he said. Headlined “On this day in history” his message sketched out the details of the action without passing any moral judgment.

Even so, complaints were made by the usual suspects and – as is the way of modern officialdom – Transport for London swiftly caved in, apologised for the sign and scrubbed the message.

This prompted a jubilant campaigner to crow on a video: “That [noticeboard] is supposed to be for uplifting comments, not for celebrating colonialism, so I'm glad you're wiping it off.”

Lily Allen shared the clip with the message “too right” – and later used her Twitter account to engage with people who disagreed. She said she found celebrating Britain's colonial past “disgusting” and mocked one critic as someone who based his history on having “watched Zulu once”.

Before we go into why Allen is so disgusted, let's first concede the tiny area where she’s right. Judged by modern values the Anglo-Zulu Wars are probably not the finest hour of British history.

Essentially they were a land grab by the British, whose administrator Sir Henry Bartle Frere pretty much started the war by exaggerating the Zulu threat.

Nor was Britain’s conduct of the campaign very impressive. The defeat at Isandlwana – which pitched trained men with rifles against natives with spears – was one of the most humiliating in our history.

And this was probably the real reason why so many VCs were given for Rorke’s Drift: as a way of distracting the British public from what an awful cock-up the war had been.

That said, you’d need a heart of stone, the imagination of a goldfish and the patriotism of a Corbynista not to feel moved and inspired by what those 150 men did that day.

They weren't even top-class troops: they were wounded, reserves and passed over officers, supposedly destined never to achieve greatness.

Lieutenant John Chard (Stanley Baker in the film) was a Royal Engineers officer who’d done nothing more exciting in his career than constructing naval fortifications in Bermuda and Malta.

Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead (Michael Caine) had been described by his commanding officer as “hopeless”.

Yet they stood and fought, knowing almost for certain that they would end up being disembowelled by the assegais of their vastly more numerous opposition.

At one point they discussed whether to make a run for it – as various small units which could have stayed ignominiously did – but decided against because that would have meant abandoning their wounded.

The film painted a stirring picture of courage and fortitude as the many Welsh soldiers stiffened their sinews with a rousing chorus of Men Of Harlech.

However, Private Alfred Hook – the VC-winning, hard-drinking reprobate accurately shown in the movie defending the wounded in the hospital – was in fact a clean-living teetotaller. But most of the film is pretty accurate.

Lily Allen – who once wrote the excruciating couplet “You’re just so racist/You can’t tie my laces" – would probably be appalled by the political incorrectness.

But let’s not forget that the black cast of that 1964 Zulu film were mostly descendants of the original Zulu warriors who’d fought at Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift. And they were proud of their involvement, not ashamed.

Most people in Britain would surely agree that Rorke’s Drift deserves to live on in our collective memory.

It’s a shame that attention-seeking Lefties such as Allen get taken seriously by organisations such as Transport for London.

They’re a shrill and annoying minority.

But they're not representative of our country – nor of the values that have made us great.