Very, Very Odd

BNP rallies used to look like this. I am not joking, they really did. If you had seen this 10 years ago, then you would have assumed that that was what it was.

Of course Jeremy Corbyn is quite right that it is "very, very odd" to sing the National Anthem at the Labour or any other Party Conference, including those at which it might have happened in the past. As he says, "It's never ever happened at the Labour Conference since the Conferences were first held at the time of the First World War. I find it peculiar and not really necessary.

"There's never been any demand to do it. We don't as a country routinely go around singing the National Anthem at every single event we go to. We don't sing it in schools, we don't have the raising of the flag in schools as they do in the USA and other places."

Will the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail be endorsing the Labour Party because of this? What is the point or purpose of it? Who is it for?

The National Anthem should be sung or played only when the King was present or properly might have been. The Conference of a political party is the textbook definition of an event at which the King's presence would be improper. Unfortunately, it would probably also be so for him to tell them to stop doing it when they already did. But they should. And perhaps, so should he.