Catherine Bennett: Hail Blair and let the Games commence!

The Queen, reveals a courtier, is happy. Tam Dalyell sounds happy. Even the abject Neil Hamilton, a man you might think, with little cause to exult, finds himself swept along in the general euphoria: "There really is a feelgood factor about the country". A media psychologist diagnoses an outbreak of niceness. And at home in the Peak District - where the flags flutter and the very trees, with their "leaves of a hundred shades of green", seem to be thrilling with the love of footy - Roy Hattersley goes so far as to revel "in the joy of life". "News from Japan", he told Daily Mail readers, "has gladdened all our hearts".

But there is more to this unusual experience of mass-gladdening, surely, than the news from Japan. Would our hearts now be so extremely gladdened had they not already been warmed by the concerts and processions and fireworks of the golden jubilee? And would our hearts have been so readily warmed by the jubilee had they not already been defrosted by the spectacle of the Queen Mother's funeral, an event which, as Simon Heffer has remarked, made so many people "deeply proud to be British"?

The current heights of exultatation and self-congratulation - and concomitant indifference to reality - are surely the cumulative outcome of the rolling programme of pride-inducing spectacles and entertainments we have enjoyed since the Queen Mother expired.

It has already been pointed out that this mood of distracted, exalted patriotism was exactly the kind of thing Tony Blair and his buffoons have tried, but failed to achieve, not only with their unspeakable Dome, but with his endless speeches putting diffuse notions of spiritual rebirth and renewal before practical schemes of improvement. Still, maybe it's not too late for him to learn. British spirits are not so difficult to lift after all. A country where one million people will turn out for the privilege of seeing Brian May capering, solo, on the roof of Buckingham Palace cannot be described as hard to please.

Indeed the speed with which grumpy, self-flagellating Britain has recently been transformed into gladsome, tail-wagging Britain suggests not that we are suspicious of attempts to entertain us, but on the contrary, that we are a people so unutterably bored with our usual diversions (telly, going to the doctor's) that we will respond to almost any offering of spectacle, marching, music, sporting prowess. The one bit of the Dome everyone liked, remember, was the thrilling, highwire acrobatic show: what everyone hated was the patronising, sponsored acres of bilge about adult learning and community, health matters and rubbish recyling. If Blair wants to perpetuate the current mood of carefree excitation, he should stop preaching and remember what Juvenal once said about bread and circuses.

Although it is not in Blair's power, even as saviour of the world, to increase the frequency of international football tournaments, golden jubilees, or deaths of well-loved monarchs in their 102nd year, that is not to say he cannot find other ways of endearing himself to the populace, as the Caesars once did to the plebs with chariot races and gladiatorial combat, comedies and boxing matches.

By means of entertainment, wrote Jérôme Carcopino in his captivating Daily Life in Ancient Rome, "the empire preserved its existence, guaranteed the good order of an over-populated capital, kept the peace among more than a million men". All the emperors "vied with each other to enlarge the programme of the traditional games, lengthening them sometimes till sunrise, and duplicating them with innumerable extra shows not in the calendar".

By the time of Claudius the result of this rivalrous provision of amusements was that "the Roman calendar contained 159 days expressly marked as holidays, of which 93 were devoted to games given at public expense". Romans, he concluded, enjoyed at least one day of holiday for every working day. In return for these favours, the Caesars obtained both the adulation and quiescence of the mob.

Although recent acclaim for the Queen and her family, after she arranged an extra day's bank holiday, fell short of actual worship, it was plain that she mightily enhanced her reputation through this perceived generosity, and public contact with her subjects, as each of the Caesars did before her: "The moment he entered the circus or the theatre or the amphitheatre, the crowd leapt spontaneously to their feet and greeted him with a waving of handkerchiefs". Once the fighting began, Carcopino goes on, the crowd shouted things like "Verbera" (strike); "Iugula" (slay); and "Habet" (that's got him!).

Today, jubilees and football knock war, famine and politics off the front page: once the Roman shows "occupied the time of these people, provided a safety valve for their passions, distorted their instincts, and diverted their activity". Much later, the Nazis were among those who also attempted to seduce the masses with spectacles and games. The historian Michael Burleigh records how, in the 30s "the content of newspapers was increasingly dominated by the exciting events with which the regime sought to replace the inherited calendar and passage of the seasons".

After escaping Germany, Sebastian Haffner remembered these events as incessant interruptions of reality: "one was permanently occupied and distracted by an unending sequence of celebrations, ceremonies, and national festivities... The colossal emptiness and lack of meaning of these never-ending events was by no means unintentional. The population should become used to cheering and jubilation, even when there was no visible reason for it... Was it not wonderful to celebrate in the spring sunshine, in squares decked with flags".

And isn't it just? Even before the World Cup came along, the grateful effusions that followed the Queen Mother's funeral and the subsequent palace parties demonstrated how much the British public prefer a nice military band or stimulating pageant to the latest dreary update on the NHS. Blair's consolation should be that, even if he was elbowed out of the show, so too were many unwelcome bulletins on his government's incompetence.

Besides, if the British are such an emotional pushover, he has only to surpass the Queen in the provision of new spectacles, of flags, fireworks and public holidays, to find himself the new Augustus. With some innovative thinking there is no reason why the Blair games should not be every bit as cruel and unusual - in an up-to-date kind of way - as the tortures laid on by the Caesars.

If animal lovers now refuse to endanger the health of wild or rare beasts with a diet of Blairite politicians, the men could at least be made to fight one another for political survival, with Black Rod set upon Campbell, Darling on Birt (the winner getting control over the transport department), and in the end, Brown on Blair.

A little less dignified than the usual selection procedure, perhaps, but wonderfully entertaining and - above all - infinitely more humane. Habet!