The national anthem is God Save the Queen - or, at some point, God Save the King. The song has been in existence since the mid eighteenth Century, and has been the English anthem for almost 200 years. Which is fascinating, because that means it came in long after the Civil War, the Interregnum, and so forth, at a time when we were already a constitutional monarchy.

The Queen has no real political power, and is a figurehead. No monarch has vetoed an act of parliament since Queen Anne in 1708. The last time a monarch dismissed the Prime Minister was King William IV in 1834. When I heard this I was shocked, because I have never heard of King William IV. Did you know there was a William directly before Victoria?

Fun William IV fact: he was king of Hanover too, but on his death Victoria got England but not Hanover, cos it could only be inherited by a man, which is probably good, or we would have been at war with Prussia in the 1870s. Hanover is part of Lower Saxony in Germany, and it's where Volkswagen was founded, and where the Pied Piper piped his pies.

But this is off the point. The English national anthem is an appeal to God to protect and guide the monarch, but wouldn't we be better off singing prayers of guidance for the Prime Minister, who is, these days, the person with the most control of national policy.

Well, first up, the merits of 'God save the monarch' in particular. The phrase 'God save the king' is in the Bible a fair few times for the king of Israel, and the only Biblical figure usually termed 'prime minster' is Eliakim, who is in charge of King Hezekiah's finances. There's a strong case to be made that Joseph was prime minister of Egypt, and his policies were both effective and slavery, which is troubling in ways.

What do we ask God for in God Save the Queen? That Elizabeth gets salvation - in the song a purely mortal salvation - victory, happiness and glory, and a long reign. If we measure sung prayers by results, this one is pretty effective. If I was allowed to tinker with it, I'd put in a request for wisdom and kindness, without which victory, happiness and glory could belong to a monster. But I'm not sure God can bestow kindness, only encourage it.

There are other verses, but they're not in the original. One of them directly answers my complaint, saying 'Her heart inspire and move with wisdom from above', which makes the point pretty elegantly, though it's not a great rhyme. The third verse asks for good laws, which is good! But I still wonder why it's directed, in this day and age, at the figure-head and not the actual decision-maker. The Queen is doing alright, and will live to be a hundred and fifty. She can afford to make good decisions every day or bad decisions every day. In either case, she will outlive everybody's grandparents.

The Prime Minister is out there right now deciding who has power over the courts and who gets to keep their benefits - and at the time of recording, how much covid each household ought to have. This is someone desperately in need of prayer, for wisdom and some kind of a heart, for patience, for competence, for peace, for open ears, a discerning spirit and an open heart. Not to be self-serving, someone who wilfully chooses the worst option because it's politically expediente, a villain, a destroyer of what good things have been hard-built and hard-won. General elections are only once in a while, so prayer is one of the main things one can do. It's more direct than writing to your MP - but do that too - and less ethically iffy than assassination or other forms of domestic terrorism.

Of course, God is not in the habit of changing people's minds. By which I mean, he doesn't control anyone's mind. Free will is not so breakable. The one case people might point to is Exodus, when Moses says 'let my people go!' and God hardens pharoah's heart. Pharoah thus refuses, which is terrible, but allows God to do his thang. But I'm convinced this isn't God controling Pharoah's mind to turn up the difficulty setting. Pharoah is stubborn. If you ask someone stubborn to do something, it makes them more stubborn. That's how you harden someone's heart: you ask them, beg them, beseech them to do the right thing, and they harden their own heart. Paul on the Road to Damascus isn't zapped with faith. It's the inevitable crisis of all his learning, his experience and wisdom and the spirit in him. I think it would be way out of God's methodology to swap the Prime Minister's brain with a good kind brain. But He can talk to them, He can open their eyes to options, He can, I'm sure, set their conscience a-tingin'. What the PM does with that feeling is out of God's hands, free will being what it is. But isn't that more worth singing a prayer about?

The anthem as it stands is all about the queen and barely about God, goodness or law. Yes, there are several verses, but if we neither know them nor sing them, they effectively don't exist. There are prayers you could make for the queen, I'm sure, to have a stern word with the PM at their audience. But as the song is, I don't think her majesty needs it. She has a long reign, glory, victory and all the rest, and all the money that money can buy. You know who needs more songs and prayers? Craig, the diabetic homeless man who stands outside my local Tesco, who often offers to pray for me, and whose foot was recently damaged in a nocturnal acid attack. I won't sing him one, because it would seem very trivial in comparison to materially helping him. I haven't seen him for a few days, and he has less medical care available than the queen. His is the greater need for prayer and for pretty much anything else. But even if we sing the current anthem loudly and hourly, I hope and feel sure Craig will have no less attention from God than Queen Elizabeth.

A lighter note to end on: before God Save the King became our anthem, it was already attracting filks and rewrites. A 1794 republican version by Joel Barlow praises the guillotine, and includes the couplet 'Till each appointed knob / affords a clipping job'.

National Anthems are peculiar things, and will probably always be vulgar, even idolatrous if you're especially patriotic. It would be good to have a better one. Here's one slight attempt to close the segment

God bless the Prime Minister

Don't let them be sinister

Bachelor or spinister

I pray you administer

Good of heart and competent

And wise as well, each act well-meant

All throughout Westminister

Sort out that Prime Minister

I’m sure you could do better, please do. That’s a note to budding songwriters, and, if you’re watching, the PM