Jon Cruddas, champion of the Labour left, has written in support of Jerusalem as England’s national anthem in today’s New Statesman:
Labour has attempted to tackle the question of national identity before. In 1995 Blair described living in “a new age but in an old country”. Then, in 1997, the opportunist branding exercise of “Cool Britannia” took hold. In Brown’s jaded administrative appeal to Britishness a decade later, the search for an overarching national story reappeared. These were all elite expressions of nationhood concocted in Westminster. This time, Labour has to go to the streets. Let’s debate the idea of an English parliament in, say, York. Why not have elected mayors and parliaments in our major cities and give them back their civic identity and vitality? We are a footballing nation – let’s elect the manager of our national team. Then Labour could campaign for a new national anthem – “Jerusalem” – and allow the English to stand tall again.
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification. The word hymn derives from Greek ὕμνος (hymnos), “a song of praise”.
In recent years the Church of England has appeared divided over the suitability of Jerusalem for religious occasions, mainly on account of the fact that it is not – in the view of many people – a proper hymn. However, as reported in today’s press (see the Telegraph and Mail), the Church of England have now come down in favour of the singing Jerusalem at weddings, a decision that will be a relief to a great many couples given that Jerusalem is the fifth most popular choice of for CofE weddings. The following is taken from the Church of England website:
Sung in churches, used by various organisations, and having been selected by the England Commonwealth Games team for their ‘victory anthem’, the hymn Jerusalem is liked by many but not all.
The Bishop of Wakefield, the Rt Revd Stephen Platten, said: “The runaway success of the planner shows the popularity of liturgy and hymns and what can happen when planning a service is made user friendly. These hymns, all firmly fixed in our hymn books, are much loved and have a rightful place in Church of England worship and in the online ceremony planner.”
A factsheet by the Revd Peter Moger, National Worship Development Officer, called Singing Jerusalem at Weddings, has also been released, as a guide for clergy. It highlights various ways to build on the hymn’s enduring popularity with churchgoers, various organisations and sports fans to “make a marriage special” and “forge a positive and lasting relationship with wedding couples”.
Whether this is a victory for common sense or a case of the Church bowing to popular and commercial demand is unclear. It’s most probably a bit of both. And frankly, who cares?
On St George’s Day 2010 Commonwealth Games England announced that they would let the nation decide which anthem is to be played at this year’s Commonwealth Games in Delhi by allowing the public to vote for the song of their choice.
Voters were able to choose between God Save The Queen, Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory – with Jerusalem beating the both the national anthem and the anthem previously used for English athletes competing at Commonwealth Games. The new official anthem of the England Team will be played for English athletes on the podium in Delhi when a Gold medal is won.
England athlete Dean Macey, who won Gold at the 2006 Games in Melbourne, welcomed the new anthem, saying: “Jerusalem’s awesome for getting you pumped before competing. Couple this with the huge pride that comes in wearing the red lion and you’ve got the perfect anthem for England’s Commonwealth Games’.
Duncan Lewis, Marketing Director for Commonwealth Games England, said, “The nation has spoken and we are delighted to accept Jerusalem as the anthem for England athletes in Delhi. The response from the public has been absolutely fantastic and I hope they will carry on this level of enthusiasm in supporting the team in Delhi this summer.”
Survey by YouGov of 1,896 entrants
Results –
1. Jerusalem: 52.5%
2. Land of Hope and Glory: 32.5%
3. God Save The Queen: 12%
Which is the only nation competing to qualify for the 2010 World Cup that, when the two teams line up ahead of kick off, doesn’t have an anthem to call its own? Easy! Easy! England of course. Whatever the Scots, Welsh and at least half the Northern Irish’s view of the Royal Family, God Save the Queen is as much their anthem as ours, so why on earth doesn’t England get a tune that belongs to us?
Of course the Scots and the Welsh have decided that while God Save the Queen is good enough when the Union Jack is run up the Olympic Flagpole for their Gold Medalists Chris Hoy and Nicole Cook, when their football or rugby teams are competing in the colours of Scotland or Wales its time to belt out Flower of Scotland or Land of My Fathers. OK, so Northern Ireland has opted for no anthem of their own, though at Stormont they do at least have a Parliament they can call their own, a subject for another debate.
‘Happy and Glorious’ God Save the Queen goes, and ‘long to reign over us’ a line later. Nothing could sum up English subjecthood better. Of course the Royal Family are happy, because they reign over us at our expense, but the argument for an anthem to call our own cannot be reduced to making the case for English Republicanism. However, a song that celebrates being ruled by others put in place simply by accident of birth, and which in not one stanza ever actually mentions England is surely not a fitting tune.
After World Cup 2002 the FA quietly ran a poll amongst England supporters on whether an alternative to God Save the Queen should be considered for international matches. With zero campaigning, and no alternatives offerred, an astonishing 36% voted for change. Nothing came of it, the opportunity to inauguarate the new Wembley with an anthem to call our own squandered, but there remains significant popular support whenever the argument is made not in terms of knocking God Save the Queen but simply pointing out that England should have its own anthem.
And the contenders? Well it would be very New Labour to commission Simon Cowell and Andrew Lloyd Webber to come up with ‘Anthem Idol’ wouldn’t it? It’s just the sort of thing Blair-lite Cameron might favour too. But twenty-first century manufacturing of tradition could never match the heritage of the songs we have on offer to choose from.
Each will have their favourites. If I was asked to plump for a modern classic I’d choose The Jam’s English Rose. Haunting, full of longing for a country. But that’s probably too up-to-date for most tastes. I Vow To Thee My Country has probably the best tune of the lot but I’m not sure that words written by a Yank entirely fit the bill – although music provided by a Swedish immigrant born in Cheltenham is rather neat. Rule Britannia is rousing enough yet is clearly a British anthem, not an English one in any obvious sense. Some will differ but I also find the singing of ‘Britons, never, never will be slaves’ more than a tad dodgy when the team we’re supporting on the pitch is made up of a fair number of players whose great grandparents were precisely that, slaves. Land of Hope and Glory fails for me on similar counts. Again, with no actual mention of England it is a celebration of the Britishness of Empire, not England. And do we really want a tune that marks England’s fate after Empire ‘By Freedom gained, by Truth maintained, Thine Empire shall be strong’.
No there’s one runaway contender, presuming Cowell and Lloyd-Webber failed to find their anthem-factor. Jerusalem. Words by one of England’s greatest cultural figures, William Blake. Artist, poet, thinker. Music by an English composer. The words actually mention England. A bit too Christian? That might put off some, attract others. But of course the Jerusalem Blake was writing about was a better, brighter society we could call England. A bit political? Come off it, who doesn’t want a better England, the argument is only what we might mean by better.
Will it ever happen? I mean an anthem to call our own, not the better England! I entirely back the idea of an English Parliament but right now I would put the anthem, and a day off for St George’s Day too, right at the core of campaigning for England’s place in the break up of Britain. These are hugely popular issues, they carry none of the trappings of Westminster politics currently mired in scandal and disrepute. Yet they codify our difference, our independence and have the potential to appeal to all who call England their home.
Mark Perryman is the editor of Imagined Nation : England after Britain and co-founder of philosophyfootball.com. The company poduces a T-shirt with the words to Jerusalem forming a St George Cross, and on the back for fans of cult 70s sci-fi… well what other squad number could you give William Blake apart from ‘7’. Available from philosophyfootball.com
No. ‘Jerusalem’ is not a hymn for England, still less the Little Englanders…
Yes, I can well understand why the English feel taken for granted, and that the McMafia are taking the mickey. But an English national anthem will not help. We already have a national anthem — one that celebrates the monarchy, one of the few institutions that still binds us together as a nation. Yes, it is official in so far as we call it our ‘national anthem’, but there’s no law that enshrines its status. It’s part of the wonderful jumble of unwritten customs and traditions that make our constitution. Give England an official anthem, recognised by Parliament, and before long we will begin to unstitch another seam of our not-so-green and pleasant land. You can be English and you can be angry. But if we surrender ‘Jerusalem’ to the Little Englanders, those who believe in the United Kingdom would truly cease from mental fight.
The government has responded to the petition requesting that the English national Anthem be changed to Jerusalem, by stating that they will not do it. You can read the response here, but it is copied below
The national anthem of the UK ‘God Save the Queen’ only has that status by convention. It has no official status either by legislation or royal proclamation. Similarly, ‘Flower of Scotland’, although it is regarded in some quarters as the Scottish national anthem, has no official status. Insofar as a anthem for England is concerned, ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ is often played when England play in sporting competitions (such as the Commonwealth Games) against other countries of the UK. However, this too has no official standing. The Government has no plans to legislate on this issue.
So it appears that the United Kingdom has no official anthem.
Thank you for your letter of 21st and 31st October about Daniel Kawczynski’s Early Day Motion on the adoption of ‘Jerusalem’ as the National Anthem of England. I did not support this Early Day Motion.
Personally, I see no reason for there to be a National Anthem for England when there is a National Anthem for the United Kingdom.
However, it does seem to me that any decision on this matter needs a far fuller debate than simply taking sides over a Parliamentary Early Day Motion.
Personally, while I quite like the Poetry of William Blake and find ‘Jerusalem’ a stirring poem, I suspect that there might well be other supporters of the notion of an English National Anthem who might not be happy with that role being taken by a Poem which when it appeared as part of Blake’s longer work Milton, was an attack on the Church, Academic and Literary establishment of his day by a mystic Christian who, it has been argued, subscribed to the Manichean Heresy.
I note that seven days after Mr Kawczynski put down his Early Day Motion another Conservative MP Peter Luff put forward an amendment to replace ‘Jerusalem’ with ‘I Vow to Thee My Country’.
Clearly, both the principle of whether we need an English National Anthem and the details of what that Anthem should be are matters which need more debate by those who feel this is an important issue.
Yours sincerely.
David Lepper MP
Peter Luff’s amendment is here, signed by just Peter Luff. Daniel Kawczynski’s original motion is here, with just eleven names. We face an uphill battle!
Philosophy Football are in favour of England adopting Jerusalem as the national anthem -
Whenever England play Scotland or Wales at football and the teams line up for the National Anthems something a bit weird happens. The Scots have their anthem, Flower of Scotland and the Welsh theirs, Land of My Fathers but the English don’t. Instead we join in with the BRITISH anthem, God Save the Queen. And whatever our differing views on the perilous state of the House of Windsor everyone knows their realm isn’t just this particular part of these islands.
The Commonwealth Games in Manchester muddied the musical mystery still further with England’s Gold Medals being awarded to the tune of Land of Hope and Glory. Meanwhile the Ashes victory (won of course by a team calling itself England but actually representing England AND Wales) was celebrated by the singing of Jerusalem.
To our mind Jerusalem is the number one choice for an English National Anthem, and the sooner it is adopted the better, and fairer. Our Jerusalem shirt is a contribution to the cause. Why Jerusalem? It is traditional, it actually mentions ENGLAND in the words (something surely any NATIONAl anthem has to do, and God Save the Queen does not), combines the rural and the urban, and is a song of desire for a better life. Christian? Certainly in inspiration, yet secular in its ambition.
Voters were able to choose between God Save The Queen, Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory – with Jerusalem beating the both the national anthem and the anthem previously used for English athletes competing at Commonwealth Games. The new official anthem of the England Team will be played for English athletes on the podium in Delhi when a Gold medal is won.
Mark Perryman is the editor of Imagined Nation : England after Britain and co-founder of 
