Some years ago, I heard a programme on BBC Radio 4 about the early life of Philip Larkin. He and his father went on a cycling tour of Germany, in the 1930s, when the Nazi Party was in power.
One evening, Larkin and his father were having dinner in a provincial hotel, and the local Gauleiter (Nazi district governor) entered the dining room. He was in uniform. All the Germans in the dining room stood up. Larkin Senior and Junior carried on eating.
The Gauleiter came over to their table. He surmised that they were British. The Gauleiter happened to speak English.
“Why do you not stand?” They looked blankly at him.
“If I came to your town, in your country, and I was eating in a dining room, and the mayor of your town came into the room, would you not expect me to stop what I was doing, and stand to attention?”
Philip Larkin answered like this:
“If you were in my town, and my mayor came in, then whether you sit or stand is up to you. Whether you sit or stand is something about which I could not care less.”
And there you have the essence of World War Two: as regards the conflict between the United Kingdom and colonies versus Nazi Germany, it was about whether people in dining areas would have to stand up when uniformed ponces came into the room.
That is what what my father fought for: not having to stand up, if you can’t be bothered.
You can take every populist, nationalist, quasi-fascist, misplaced, embarrassing gesture made by the current government, and ignore it while looking at what people in real businesses, real arts companies, real community groups, real sports teams have been achieving, in spite of the pandemic, in spite of Conservative Party austerity.
And I won’t tell you what to do with this so-called song, because it doesn’t merit an opinion.
iamhyperlexic 