It has emerged that organisers of the 2020 Last Night of the Proms are considering ditching traditional songs like Land of Hope and Glory, Rule Britannia and Auld Lang Syne. Of course this year’s concert will be performed in an empty Royal Albert Hall (courtesy of corona) with a tiny orchestra and choir.

However the reasoning has to do with the Black Lives Matter movement, of which the guest Finnish conductor is a supporter.

Thank goodness I have recordings, both sound and video, of a Last Night to put on. The whole BLM debate is political correctness gone mad!

No information on the fate of Jerusalem (opposed by the PLF I suppose) or the National Anthem (deplored by republicans across the land).

If the Germans can have Germany, Germany above everything, what is wrong with Land of Hope and Glory? The Dutch in their national anthem still recall their German roots!

The decision to do a live concert on the Last Night during corona times was probably misplaced. To use that and the opinions of a foreign conductor to hijack the programme, making it more difficult to restore in the future, is cowardly.

A recording of a previous Last Night would have worked for most people – at least as far as the second half of the programme is concerned. I really think British conductors should be used too. If not, then the visitor should be made abundantly aware of the fact that they are a guest in a foreign country. It is not their place to meddle in those particular items of the programme.

As an organist, I sometimes have to play the national anthem of the (foreign) country I am living in. I have always felt it a great honour to do so – and nothing on this earth would persuade me to suggest that the congregation ‘sang it a little differently this time’!

The supposed glorification of a colonial past and its related slave trade is not what this is about. It is a cheap target for headline-seekers. I knew there were reasons why I decided never to live in the UK again – and this is yet another one.