For years, Rule, Britannia! has had a divisive presence in the festival. It should make way for other anthems of national identity
Here we go again: Britannia will continue to rule at the Last Night of the Proms. Unveiling a wide-ranging programme for this year’s festival, Sam Jackson, controller of BBC Radio 3 and also director of the Proms, assured audiences that the jingoistic 18th-century anthem would take its customary place at the climax, despite calls for it to be dropped.
A dignified and unhectoring case for standing the song down was made on Desert Island Discs by the cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, a soloist in last year’s Last Night. Revealing that he had left the concert early to avoid it, he said: “I think maybe some people don’t realise how uncomfortable a song like that can make a lot of people feel, even if it makes [the people singing it] feel good.”
