The tedious Proms ‘culture war’ shows how much worse the radical right is about to get

The debate about ‘Rule Britannia’ and ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ isn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But the warning signs of what it represents are very much out there

It is arguably the single greatest achievement of the worst people on the entire internet that they have somehow managed to have the term “culture war” attached to their activities, which amount to no more than writing opinions so absurd they know their opponents will fail to resist the temptation to correct them.

One wonders if they always knew their efforts were steadily crescendoing to this especially dismal moment, when the “culture war” would extend to the sacred right to wave the Union Jack and sing weird patriotic songs at the very end of a very long programme of classical music that they are highly likely to have otherwise entirely ignored.

It is hard to gauge whether the last four days of breathless rows over the “cancelling” of “Land of Hope and Glory” and “Rule Britannia” are any more or less depressing than any of the others of the last four years. I personally find myself somewhat inured to it all, to the point where I am almost incapable of detecting whether what I would describe as “normal people” care, or even notice these unimaginably dreary rows.

The prime minister’s noticed, of course. He’s found time to issue some breathless words on it, which is more than he managed in a full week of utterly failing the more than half a million people whose A-Level results his government cocked-up.

He also found time to get performatively angry at the prospect of Winston Churchill’s statue being removed, which was never a serious proposal made by anyone at all. One imagines the man himself, Churchill that is, might have worked out that, what with being the prime minister, it wouldn’t be being removed without his say so, and so the absurd newspaper column on the subject might not have been strictly necessary. But there we are.

We now learn from Tony Hall, the BBC director-general, that the songs are to be performed without lyrics to sing along to, which has been somewhat dictated by the event occurring inside an empty auditorium.

Of course, there is the usual weary moral maze to wade through. Many nations’ little repertoire of national songs involve the glorification of the throwing off of some kind of foreign oppressor or absolutist ruler (see: the “Star-Spangled Banner”, “La Marseillaise” and any Latin American national anthem).

As Britain’s tend to involve the sheer thrill of having been the oppressor in question, it is hardly surprising that some sort of reckoning was inevitable at some point, now that oppressing is more than a touch passe. But that’s all far too boring to get into.

What does matter is the ever more aggressive culture warriors will always need a front to fight on, and having successfully managed to turn their Brexit victory into precious little beyond fuel for further grievances, the next target is the BBC.

Not so long ago, Julian Knight, the Conservative MP, in all his extremely limited wisdom, asked general-director Hall, “Is the BBC too woke?” Twenty-four hours later, national lockdown would be introduced, and the BBC would be issuing its comprehensive schedule of children’s education-based programming, playing a leading and unmatched role anywhere in the world in plugging the aching gap left by the closure of schools.

(It is also as depressing as it is unsurprising that the word “woke” has been repatriated as an insult by the toweringly tedious Tory right, given its origins in African American vernacular English, later largely used as a watchword in black activist circles).

Their target, in the end, is the scrapping of the licence fee, and in an ideal world, the end of the regulation on broadcasters to be politically impartial. They will not turn down any opportunity to attack, no matter how absurd.

It is also worth noting that this little row has happened in concurrence with the Republican Party National Convention, which began on Monday night in Charlotte and was quite possibly the most horrifying spectacle yet of the Trump presidency.

One after another, the Trump family and its close associates came out on stage to spread entirely unhinged lies and conspiracy theories about the Democrats and the “radical left” and what they’ll do to America.

It was the apotheosis of the Fox Newsification of America.

Traditionally, when countries get taken over and subverted by mad dictators, the dictator has the wit to have the national television network working for him, pushing out his own personal propaganda.

What is even more terrifying about America in its current moment is that the propagandists came first.

It is not so simple as powerful politicians wilfully spreading lies to radicalise the population. The powerful themselves have been radicalised.

When, for example, Donald Trump repeats the mad garbage about injecting bleach to kill the coronavirus, or tells the 100 per cent false story about an American general who terrified Muslim soldiers by dipping bullets in pig’s blood, which never happened, it’s not because he is some malevolent genius that knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s just another mad old loon that’s watched too much Fox News and has given the people just like him somebody to vote for.

So, while the crushingly tedious Last Night of the Proms row doesn’t matter, the warning signs of what it represents are very much out there. The stakes are real.