Rebellious Scots To Crush.

Lord Goldsmith has decided that we need to revamp the National Anthem, and not just because it is a dirge:

The National Anthem is insufficiently inclusive and should be rewritten, the lawyer leading Labour's review of Britishness has said.

Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general, said there was "some problem" with God Save the Queen.

He suggested the replacement of little-known verses, such as that which calls for "rebellious Scots" to be crushed

There is one problem with that, well actually there are several but just one which I'm going to highlight. Namely that there is despite a widespread myth no verse in the anthem about rebellious Scots and there never has been. Back in the 18th Century when the song was first written various ad hoc versions commemorating recent events were around and briefly in the 1740s of the century one version contained a verse:

Lord, grant that Marshal Wade,

May by thy mighty aid,

Victory bring.

May he sedition hush and like a torrent rush,

Rebellious Scots to crush,

God save the King.

This was never universal and was certainly abandoned by the time the song became recognised as a national anthem. In other words Lord Goldsmith's proposal is to remove a verse that was removed more than two centuries ago. This isn't something a layman could be expected to know but he is chairing a commission on the subject and proposing to change the words without having even looked up what the words actually are.

If the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries have passed Labour by what can we expect next, their energy commission to come up with a radical new idea to harness the power of steam?