National Anthem

According to the Guardian's Steve Busfield, England has been engulfed in debate over the anthem issue.

England claimed it's first two golds, in the swimming pool.

But was then engulfed in debate over whether Jerusalem is right to be played as the national anthem. Have your say in our poll.

My congratulations to Fran Halsall on her gold, despite her appalling taste in anthems!

Anorak: England’s National Anthem Jerusalem Plays And England Forgets The Words

The anthem4england website is being redesigned in Wordpress, hence the lack of posts here. Unfortunately the old Xoops-powered website was not 'fit for purpose' and had begun to fall apart at the seams.

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With the England's Commonwealth Games Team recently having chosen Jerusalem to be their victory anthem for the Delhi Games by a public vote, following Scotland's example, an important precedent has been set, one that we hope other English sporting organisations will follow.

The decision to allow the public to select an English anthem didn't receive much attention (the BBC covered Scotland choosing Flower of Scotland but ignored the Jerusalem story) but thankfully it was highlighted by Greg Mulholland's call for Parliament to debate England's national anthem.

It's all too late for a new anthem to inject a bit of passion into England's World Cup campaign, but we can dream that the next time they take to the field for the World Cup it will be an English anthem that sounds out in Brazil.

I just posted this table to the CEP blog.

No prizes for guessing the only country at the World Cup without its own government, national public holiday and national anthem. Still, so long as people can attach plastic flags to their cars I suppose all is well and good.

Waking Hereward has alerted me to the fact that the England's Commonwealth Games Committee is running an online poll to pick the victory anthem for English athletes at the 2012 Games in Delhi.

Mr Hereward helpfully lists the three contenders from which we must choose:

Option 1: God Save the Queen. British anthem and hence really nothing to do with England..... Gordon Brown take note: England is not Britain. Apart from that, the tune is about as uninspiring as a tune can be.

Option 2: Land of Hope and Glory. British imperialistic Edwardian anthem which gloried in the ever-expanding British Empire (especially in Africa) during the country-collecting activities of the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras. Irrelevant to England as the 'Land of Hope and Glory' referred to is Britain. Erroneously used in the past as England's victory anthem at previous Commonwealth Games - in our view totally inappropriately. It really does need to change in favour of option 3.

Option 3: Jerusalem. This scores on all fronts. For a start, it actually mentions and is about England. Also, opinion polls have consistently shown it to be by far the nation's favourite choice for an English anthem. The words by William Blake are nothing to do with invading anyone, nor are they disparaging to any of our neighbours - they just embody what a vision of England could be.

It should come as no surprise to readers of this blog that I support Jerusalem in this particular contest. In fact, for me, there is no contest. Jerusalem is the better tune and it has by far the most appropriate lyrics.

There are those who question the suitability of 'Jerusalem' as England's national anthem. They generally raise two objections:

1. Why should we be singing about Jerusalem, a middle-eastern city?
2. Isn't it a bit too Christian?

Simon Barrow of Ekklesia deals with both these objections fairly well in one short paragraph.

When writing ‘Jerusalem’, William Blake, the subversive Christian, was seeking to overturn establishment thinking. The answer to his famous question, “And did those feet in ancient time / Walk upon England's mountains green” was meant to be “no”. The question was ironic. The British Israelites had lost the plot. Turning England into a dream of the powerful was mystification. Jerusalem, the city of justice, was yet to be built. Among the obstacles were those “dark Satanic mills” – actually a reference to the upper class learning factories of Oxford and Cambridge.

If you read Wikipedia's entry on And did those feet in ancient time you will be informed that the 'dark satanic mills' are reference to the factories of the industrial revolution and not, as Simon Barrow has it, reference to Oxbridge. William Blake wrote his epic poem in 1804, before the industrial revolution was in full swing, and probably before Londoners like Blake were fully aware of the horrors of the mills of middle and northern England. So perhaps Simon is correct. Or perhaps not. It doesn't matter.

The beauty of the poem - other than Blake's verse - lies in the fact that it is so open to interpretation. Today's 'dark satanic mills' might still be factories, or maybe call centres; or they might still be those same universities, both of which still manufacture much of our ruling class (particularly Oxford), or; they could even be the Westminster or EU Parliament, both being mills of the kind that specialise in the mass production of low-grade legislation. It is still relevant.

Yes, William Blake was a Christian, and his poem is redolent with Christian imagery and myth. But as a non-Christian I have no problem with that. England was built on the Christian faith and is largely still a Christian country. For his time William Blake was a radical Christian, scornful of the ideas that the British Israelites - people like Richard Brothers who declared that the English were the true heirs of ancient Israel - and questioning of the myth that Jesus (the Holy Lamb of God) visited England. He sought to challenge contemporary ideas, he was a radical.

Blake created a whole mythology of his own, in which Jerusalem was metaphor rather than place.

SUCH VISIONS HAVE APPEARD TO ME
AS I MY ORDERD RACE HAVE RUN
JERUSALEM IS NAMED LIBERTY
AMONG THE SONS OF ALBION

Blake's vision of Jerusalem, and of building it again in "England's green and pleasant land", is one that can be shared whether you not you share his particular faith - it is adaptable.

[Jerusalem] stands for the glory of humanity as it was meant to be, and as it was when the divine presence dwelt in it. More specifically, Jerusalem stands for Liberty in the highest sense, the prerequisite of everything else. The divine presence was most fully manifested in Britain, from which all wisdom flowed. Then came the fall (not the biblical one). Humanity was divided outwardly and inwardly, declining into error, spiritual and mental impoverishment, violence. But all was not lost for ever. - Geoffrey Ashe, Offbeat Radicals

So do please vote for it here.

Before discussing the IPPR's investigation into MPs' attitudes towards 'The English Question' it is worth noting that only 114 MPs replied to this survey. Of those that replied 49% were Labour, 28% Conservative, 16% Liberal Democrat and 7% 'other'.

IPPR note that 'MPs divide along lines determined by their party’s interest in their perception of the so-called ‘West Lothian’ question', and that 'political expediency rather than constitutional principle appears to determine party attitudes to this vexed issue'. Sadly true. However, IPPR make no mention of the nationality of the respondents, nor the nation in which they were elected, both of which are factors that may also be important determining factors. At the Westminster bear pit the West Lothian Question is undoubtedly a question of party politics, but on a personal level it is also a question of territorial politics and nationalism.

As we do not know the identity of the respondents we cannot speculate as to how many of them will still be in the House of Commons after the next general election. It is probably safe to assume that there will be a large influx of new MPs at the next general election, and that by far the largest number of those will be Conservative MPs. The timing of this survey is unfortunate to say the least.

In the IPPR survey only one Tory MP (2.5%) supported an English Parliament, with by far the most popular option being 'English Votes on English Laws' (60% among Tory MPs). Not one Tory MP supported 'regional government', and localism - as an answer to The English Question - was less popular among Tory MPs than it was with Labour and Lib Dem MPs, leading the IPPR researchers to conclude that there was a 'lack of enthusiasm among current Conservative MPs for one of David Cameron’s flagship policies.

A recent Conservative Home survey featured in the Times (30th April, 2009) polled 148 Conservative candidates and found that 20% favoured an English parliament. So it may be the case that the new intake will be less jaded, less Establishment in their thinking, and more radical.

Most encouraging about this survey is the MPs attitudes to St George's Day. 44% agreed that St George's Day should be a public holiday while only 24% disagreed. Gordon Brown has stated that "As far as St. George's day is concerned, it is a matter for public debate on whether this is going to be a holiday" (Hansard, 23 April 2008) but as yet he has failed to take part in any public debate on the matter, presumably because he is Scottish and/or an anti-English bigot. Perhaps the issue of an English national holiday is something that an English Conservative government can take the lead on, if only to help compensate for all their failings in respect of English democracy.

A Conservative government would appear to offer less hope in the quest for an English national anthem. One in four MPs agreed that ‘God Save the Queen’ should be replaced by a specifically English anthem when English sporting teams compete. But this figure fell to just 19% among Conservative MPs.

For Alex Salmond the most exciting finding of IPPR's survey will be the revelation that an overwhelming majority of Conservative MPs believe that the Barnett Formula is unfair (no Tory MP believed that the funding arrangements are fair). This will be an extremely delicate issue for a future Cameron government whilst Alex Salmond is still in power in Scotland. And if the Barnett Formula is abolished in favour of a funding mechanism that does not use English spending as a baseline for Scottish spending, then the only legitimate reason for Scottish MPs to vote on English legislation is removed.

Coming, as it does, at the fag-end of a disgraced Parliament, with an unnatural (for England) gerrymandered Labour majority, the timing of this IPPR report is unfortunate. It tends to raise more questions than it answers. I do hope that IPPR will repeat it after what might be a record-breaking new intake of MPs after the next general election, possibly during the successful 2010 England World Cup campaign ;-)

References

• The English Question: The View from Westminster
• Ten years on from devolution MPs across all parties support change to way England is governed

I'm sure that I speak for everyone involved with anthem4england in congratulating Dean 'Machine' Macey for winning decathlon gold at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. For me it was the highlight of the Games. 'Well done my son', as they say in Essex.

I often wonder what it means for the UK's althetes to compete for their home nations, as opposed to Great Britain. Certainly it's the case that the supporters of England, Scotland and Wales are far more passionate about supporting their teams and althetes than they are about supporting 'Team GB' - whoever heard an anthem sung with such gusto in support of a British sport?

If devolution is a good idea off the field of play why does the government have no passion for it in the sporting arena? In 2004, and again in 2005, we were treated to the spectacle of a Tour of Britain cycle race that included teams from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Britain. There was no team England. The sporting federations, councils and government bodies of Scotland and Wales gave their full support to the respective Scottish and Welsh teams, but when it came to England the UK Government body in charge of English sport expressed the view that "Sport England does not believe that supporting an England team would be an appropriate use of public funds". Sport England also told us that an English team "would not be competitive either individually or collectively", a view that was rubbished by the performances of English cyclists at both the Manchester and Melbourne Games.

It's not about sport, but about money, and how much sporting success you can buy for that money. English basketball has been fighting for funding - and its very survival - in the last few years. You would expect that an English bronze medal in the men's basketball event would make Sport England dig into their pockets to help fund a successful grass-roots sport. Not a bit of it. Instead the English, Welsh and Scottish basketball federations must now come together and start applying for UK Treasury money to enable them to compete as Team GB at the Olympics. The England basketball team won't get to build on their success because, in sport, the Government does not like devolution; it's too tribal, and makes us forget that we are, after-all, first and foremost, British.

Richard Caborn, Minister for Sport, would tell you that 'that's just the way it is' and that we must compete as Great Britain because that is how we are recognised by international sporting federations, most notably the International Olympic Committee, but in the case of cycling the International Union of Cyclists. But that's just tradition, neither the IOC or the UIC have any rules that would forbid UK athletes competing on behalf of their home nations and national federations.

In the Daily Mirror (10 Aug, 2000) John Cross wrote an article entitled 'Proud to be British ...but gold for your country is better; SYDNEY 2000: The last time we will ever see a Great Britain Team at the Olympics.'

...as devolution - the break-up of the British political system - takes hold, every athlete will be able to proudly wear the colours of the land of their birth.

Who would Colin Jackson, the 110metres hurdles gold medal prospect at this summer's Sydney Games, really prefer to be running for - Great Britain or Wales?

It also means the nearly men from other nations would get a chance to represent their country instead of being forced out of a British team.

Edinburgh-born Wells won 100m Olympic gold at the 1980 Games and went from being a flying Scotsman to a British hero.

There may have been an American boycott, but that still could not reduce his achievement at winning sprint gold.

Wells said: "Nothing could compare to winning gold at the Olympics and I felt very proud to win it for Great Britain.

"But I'm a Scotsman first and foremost. That's my country and most Scots are deeply patriotic. It means everything to them.

"I would love to see more Scots on the medal podium and enjoying that success. It makes everyone feel so proud."

Mary Peters, who was born in Manchester but raised in Belfast, is a sporting legend in Northern Ireland after her pentathlon gold in the 1972 Munich Olympics and went on to found the country's Sports Council.

She said: "You feel immensely proud to be British, but the achievement is incredible for everyone at home."

Even Essex-born decathlete Dean Macey, one of Britain's best medal prospects in Sydney, believes Olympic sporting devolution is a good idea.

Macey said: "We'd have more people going and there are outstanding athletes from Wales and Scotland who may not go to the Olympics because of the current system."

With deadly accuracy Macey nails it; we should compete as separate nations in order for the Scots and Welsh to get a look in. That's the reason we had political devolution; why not apply the same principles to sport, and indeed anthems? Maybe then we can have an English sports council committed to supporting English, rather than British, sport, and maybe then we can start singing for England too.