Friday Question: Should England have it's own national anthem?

[Captain Tancredi]

Given that Jerusalem is also a bit of a sore point between the Israelis and the Palestinians, perhaps we'd better restrict ourselves to one can of worms at a time.

I spent yesterday evening at a concert in Liverpool- billed as a Classical Spectacular, it was quite heavy on the flag-waving favourites like 'Land of Hope and Glory' and I have to say that I felt quite out of place in among the little old ladies standing up and waving their paper flags as if their lives depended on it.

The best demonstration of how certain songs can upset people came with the encores, however. In the last 10-15 years, it's become popular for orchestras to play a piece of music associated with their home city as one of their encores- the Dallas Symphony Orchestra play the theme from 'Dallas', for example, and the Berlin Philharmonic play a piece called 'Berliner Luft'. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra play 'You'll Never Walk Alone', at which point a substantial minority of the audience remembered that they had a bus to catch...

[Rob McCow]

I would say no, but then we'd have great fun choosing one.

Actually, I think England should have a National Anthem of MY choosing. And I choose - "War - (What is it Good For?)" by Edwin Starr. The football team should be able to remember the words to that one. And there's a mention of god, so that'll keep the church happy.

[MinaHarker]

I would vote for Rule Britannia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule,_Britannia!

A few years ago our local football team got into loads of trouble for playing that before a match, because it's "racist".

[WhiteCrowNZ]

I think the problem with Rule Britainnia is it's a song which harks back to our British Imperial past, so is divisive because of that.

Amusingly I've tripped over this link ...

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/ar...l-anthems?bn=1

[Captain Tancredi]

'Rule, Britannia' is what happens when you get the top composer of the day and the top poet of the day to collaborate- this being the eighteenth century, we're talking about Thomas Arne and James Thomson, but over its length there are some good sentiments to do with foreigners turning to tyrants in envy of Britain, as well as the lines "The Muses still with freedom found/Shall to thy happy coasts repair" - it's not often you get the prospect of artistic renewal.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Having had some time to think about it - I think we should keep God Save The Queen ... but change it to the Sex Pistols version!