I was not surprised to see the Daily Mail and other tabloids getting all upset about a politician not singing the National Anthem. Apparently, even members of the Labour Party (Margaret Beckett on the BBC this morning for one) now also think that you cannot be patriotic about the UK without singing along to this relic of our imperial past. It is about time that such people realised that many of us in this country are not monarchists and that others of us have long ago ceased to believe in any sort of god.

As an avowed democrat and atheist, I absolutely reocgnise Jeremy Corbyn’s right not to sing the National Anthem. I take the same stand myself. I would never sing it either. To do so would be about as hypcritical as it is possible to be for a republican like me.

Where other national anthems sing of love for a particular country, ours pleads with god to save our hereditary monarch. It is about time we consigned ‘God Save the Queen’ to history.