Land of crumbling concrete

 

I have mixed feelings about the “Last Night of the Proms.”  I enjoy the fun and games, love the music and greatly admire the skill of the musicians, even when they are playing the fool.  However, although most people participating and listening probably recognise  that the  excessive patriotism of some of the words belongs to another age, the fact that they continue to feature in this semi-official “national” celebration legitimises right wing fantasies that the outdated sentiments are still relevant.

Thus the former Tory MP Harvey Procter “tweets” that  the flaunting of an alleged preponderance or EU flags is “disgraceful . . misguided  . . .utterly vulgar and wrong.”

 We no longer need the parodies of  Sir Tufton Bufton.

 Happily a music festival is an ideal platform on which to demonstrate that our music is European, be it Byrd, Purcell, Bach, Mozart, Arne, Elgar or the Beatles.  Thanks to the “Thank EU or the Music” for encouraging and enabling participants to point it out.

The audience made another  political point.  The BBC Singers were singled out by the conductor for special appreciation, and the applause they received was prolonged well beyond the normal: a clear demonstration of support after the Governments/Arts Council’s attempt to disband them.

There’s a story that, when  at some farewell event for Lord Beaverbrook, sometime owner of the Daily Express which famously carried a drawing of an Empire Crusader on its masthead, attendees were invited to sing “Land of Hope and Glory,” most of them knew only the parodied version:

 

“Land of hope and glory, Mother of the free,

Keep on voting Tory till eternity.”

(allegedly written by R A Butler, generally regarded as the best Tory prime mInister we never had.)

 Were I still teaching I would offer to the editors of the school magazine the opening line:

“Land of crumbing concrete* . .”

to see what they would come up with.

Or maybe that would be too “woke” in today’s climate

 *A friend who reads The Times - but only on Saturdays – tells me that finance for the “rolling programme” of the repair and maintenance of schools  was cut from £7.6bn per year to £3.4bn during the period of Tory rule.   Mr Sunak, former Chancellor and now Prime Minister,  denies responsibility.  Maybe he was looking the other way.