It ihis s reported that Keir Starmer wants the national anthem, God Save the King, sung at the start of this week’s Labour Conference. One might call it perfomative politics.
Both verses were sung a the funeral of Queen Elizabeth on Monday and hawks have called for this at the Labour Conference (the first verse only is usually sung).
The anthem dates to 1745 but there are no authorised words. The current second verse is bowlerised from the controversial words traditionally sung. The lines starting ‘scatter his enemies’ were aimed at supporters of the French Revolution and republicans, hence making the anthem more than a desire to preserve the monarch.
E P Thompson makes the point in the Making of the English Working Class that it was not so much supporters of the French Revolution that concerned the authorities as the popular mood that developed amongst working people determined to claim their rights. One might think this is in part where the Labour Party a century later came from.
Whether the hawks who want both verses of the anthem sung have this in mind we may well find out
God save our gracious king
Long live our noble king
God save the king
Send him victorious
Happy and glorious
Long to reign over us
God save the king
O Lord, our God arise
Scatter his enemies
And make them fall
Confound their politics
Frustrate their knavish tricks
On Thee our hopes we fix
God save the king
Thy choicest gifts in store
On him be pleased to pour
Long may he reign
May he defend our laws
And ever give us cause
To sing with heart and voice
God save the king
Not in this land alone
But be God’s mercies known
From shore to shore
Lord make the nations see
That men should brothers be
And form one family
The wide world o’er
From every latent foe
From the assassins blow
God save the king
O’er him Thine arm extend
For Britain’s sake defend
Our father, prince and friend
God save the king
S
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