Spectator competition winners: the national anthem Ian Dury might have written

Following Tom Shakespeare’s recent suggestion that now might be a good time to ditch ‘God Save the Queen’ — ‘terrible tune, with banal lyrics’ — and replace it with something that more accurately reflects contemporary Britain, competitors were invited to propose lyrics for a new British national anthem. In an entry whose tone varied wildly, my favourite was Bill Greenwell’s jaunty reimagining of ‘Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick’ by the late, great Ian Dury, which is refreshingly lacking in jaundice, sentimentality or jingoism. It brought to mind ‘This Land is Your Land’ (‘From California to the New York Island/ From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters’), Woody Guthrie’s response to Irving Berlin’s ‘God Bless America’. Greenwell, who is to ‘God Save’ what Guthrie is to ‘God Bless’, takes £35. The rest earn £30.

Bill Greenwell From Killeen to Aberdeen, on the grid in Milton       Keynes, From Indian Queens to Letterbreen, every Jack       and every Jean: Pour more fizz for Elizabeth, pour it, pour it, Iechyd da and hail-well-met, pour it, pour it, Pour more fizz for Lizabeth, toast her till we’re       out of breath, Roar it, roar it; roar it.

From the bars of Crossmaglen to the pine trees       of High Spen, From the Fens to Llanedwen, all the women, all       the men — (Chorus)

From the bakers in Dundee to the golf at Rhos       on-Sea, Pity Me, and Daventry, everybody, sing with me       — (Chorus)

In the crofts of Muckle Roe, on the sands at       Westward Ho!, Clitheroe and Wivenhoe, all the people, high and       low — (Chorus)