What is really worst about all these high-patriotic outrage spectacles is the sheer degree of illiteracy. What are you singing? What is it saying? Do you believe the words you are mouthing? What is its history? The travesty of misinterpreted Blake's 'Jerusalem' is a prime example

If you want to make the case for something to remain, by all means do it. But do it with KNOWLEDGE. With historical understanding. With clarity about what it stands for or doesn't stand for.

Illiterate self-puffery is neither history nor a valid understanding of 'tradition' .

I can tell you, hand on heart, that I have far more love for 'Jerusalem' and for William Blake who wrote it, than any number of blimps screaming the words and swaying 'patriotically'.

This thread is the point at which to make the startling revelation that I am an R3 not R4 (can't bear it) listener.

And despite being in and of myself the reason to shut down British universities, I sort of know both my poetry and my Western classical music traditions.