If the BBC has put Rule Britannia in the dock, what about Flower of Scotland?

IMAGINE for a moment a parallel universe in which what is sauce for the goose really is sauce for the gander in the world of woke policy decisions.

In the universe which we do not inhabit, a BBC executive is doing the due diligence on the screening of an event which will feature a rousing public performance of Flower of Scotland.

Her blood runs cold as she scans the words of our unofficial national anthem. ‘Egads!’ she gasps, when she comes to the bit about people sent homeward to think again.

Further due diligence reveals these people were the army of Edward II of England, which was defeated by Scots led by Robert the Bruce and that all this happened back in 1314.

Some 706 years later the Scots are still going on about it. Indeed, it seems to have become central to some Scots’ sense of themselves – wee guys, but hard as nails by the way. If you don’t believe us look at the time in the 14th century when we gave proud Edward what for.

Panic rises in the woke executive.

‘Cripes!’ she yelps as she considers the offence that Flower of Scotland might cause English people.

And, at length, she alights on the fact of the matter, which is that, ever since this dirge first appeared in the 1960s, it has become an anthem of antipathy towards our neighbours across the Border.

Our executive almost has a coronary when she reads the verse about Scotland rising ‘to be the nation again’ that stood against Edward.

What horror is this? Political partisanship next? Overt support for Scottish independence masquerading as a celebration of cultural identity?

Well, the straight-as-a-die BBC will have no truck with it. With a stroke of the pen, the live performance of Flower of Scotland is expunged from the broadcast at the 11th hour.

Wisdom

‘Phew,’ chorus the corporation’s top brass in this fantasy universe which we must soon depart. ‘That was a close one.’

All aboard now, for the return journey to the real universe to consider how manifold the ice floes encasing hell need be before the BBC proscribed the song Flower of Scotland as it has proscribed Rule Britannia this week.

In its wisdom, the corporation has decided to feature only instrumental versions of Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory in next month’s Last Night of the Proms.

This is widely understood to be yet another attempt by the BBC to kow-tow to the woke sections of society who deem these anthems’ lyrics too jingoistic, imperialist and selfsatisfied for these hyper-sensitive and apologetic times.

Interestingly, the words for Rule Britannia were written by Scottish poet James Thomson, born some 386 years after Bannockburn and, apparently, more serene about the goings on there than many of us manage to be today.

Not that the lily-livered BBC has gone as far as to admit the real reason the words for two of the best-loved paeans to Britishness are being redacted.

No, director general Lord Hall describes the move as a ‘creative conclusion’ brought about by Covid and the challenges it brings for public singing. Elsewhere in the

Last Night of the Proms performances, you will note, You’ll Never Walk Alone and Jerusalem are both being publicly sung.

Let us, then, consider the attitude with which our scrupulously even-handed national broadcaster might in this universe approach a public performance of Flower of Scotland in view of the challenges the song brings for cross-Border harmony and political neutrality.

We know, before we start, that a senior Beeb honcho is already telling his team: ‘Don’t even go there.’

We can already hear the screeching U-turn on consistency in decision making if part of that means meddling with the Scots’ right to sing about Bannockburn and rising up as a nation. Kick that hornets’ nest? Our feet wouldn’t touch the ground again.

And, of course, the BBC would be right in its forecast of the hellfire that would rain down on it if it so much as touched a petal of the Flower of Scotland.

Indeed, I shouldn’t be surprised if, on the back of some brazen attempt to silence our lament, another song appeared, equally turgid and passive aggressive, about the time the English TV executives were sent back tae yon Broadcasting House tae think again.

Our song is untouchable, of course, because we are a small country next to a big country and by, dint of that, unpalatable lyrics are permitted as an expression of our cultural identity. Interfere with Flower of Scotland and you are an oppressor, a bully like proud Edward was, who likes to beat up the little guys.

Interfere with Rule Britannia, a song about a union of nations which comprises tens of millions of people, and that is different: you are woke; you shrink at the uncomfortable historical realities which brought us to where we are today; you want to sever our ties with our yesterdays and venture forth in the spirit of apology and – to use the Prime Minister’s term – cringing embarrassment.

Vulgar

But, really, why is it all right to celebrate patriotism for a little place like Scotland and yet somehow vulgar to demonstrate the same kind of sentiment for a big place like Great Britain?

Is it because there was once a British Empire which behaved badly overseas?

I suspect it is. Further, I suspect that, among other things, Flower of Scotland acts as some kind of exculpation for that bad behaviour, a convenient airbrushing of the facts.

‘British Empire? Wiznae us, pal. We’ve had run-ins wi’ them English an ’aw.’

Perhaps there is some other reason which explains the apparent double standards in patriotism. But, whatever it is, I fail to see how the BBC can play an active role in upholding them. The really scary part is not that it does so but that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to imagine it growing a backbone and refusing to do so.

Here in Scotland we live daily with the legacy of a BBC which took a mauling from Alex Salmond and a seething horde of Nationalists who marched on the corporation’s Glasgow headquarters when one of its journalists, an Englishman, gave the then First Minister a rough ride at a press conference in 2014.

Why, the episode raised such a stink the BBC went to the lengths of creating a whole new channel for Scotland, which even Nationalists don’t seem to have any interest in watching.

But, as someone who experiences patriotism both for Scotland and for the union of nations to which we voted to remain part, I worry about the oxygen afforded to Britishness by the British Broadcasting Corporation. How do we celebrate this place we are from, this cultural identity for many of us, if the national broadcaster itself is too worried about what others might think to put it on our screens?

I suggest the BBC has a careful look at the faces of the English fans the next time it broadcasts the Flower of Scotland mass singalong at the Calcutta Cup at Murrayfield.

See them smile benignly as their partners in the Union stick the boot in about 1314.

Watch the polite hearing they give our song despite its hostile tone. Thick-skinned lot, those English. They know wee guys get to offend in ways big guys never could.

It’s the woke way of things. And the BBC is driving the bus.