If England players must sing the national anthem at the football World Cup, it should not be ‘God Save the Queen’

摘要

With the football World Cup approaching, England manager Roy Hodgson is insisting that his players sing the national anthem before each game. We asked a number of democracy experts to share their views on Hodgson’s rule. In the first of a series of posts on this issue, we find a broad consensus that while singing the anthem may be a positive sign of patriotic feeling, ‘God Save the Queen’ is inappropriate for various reasons, including its religious and monarchist sentiment, and because it is a UK anthem rather than England’s alone.