I say dump it in the sea!

Introduction: based on the first few notes of ‘Early One Morning’ played on horns and trombones.

‘Rule Britannia’ starts on woodwind, joined by the strings.

‘Air from County Derry’ (an originally wordless Northern Irish tune which is often erroneously called Danny Boy) played by the English (!) horn, accompanied by harp; and after four bars the solo violin enters with ‘Ye Banks and Braes’ (Scottish air), which, with a certain harmonic accompaniment, fits note for note with the ‘Londonderry Air’ which continues at the same time: a musical coincidence, not a political comment.

This United Kingdom harmony is interrupted by a side-drum roll and gives way to an English double counterpoint: the solo piccolo starts off with ‘What Shall We Do with The Drunken Sailor’ (a traditional tune in the Dorian mode), against which the upper strings play ‘Green Sleeves’ (surely the most English tune of all, and also in the Dorian D minor).

This English duet then subsides into a side-drum diminuendo, leading into ‘March of the Men of Harlech’, on brass and percussion. Again the Celts stick together, for the woodwind march in and over the top of the Welsh tune with ‘Scotland the Brave’.

At the end of this section the horns, followed by strings, briefly allude to ‘Early One Morning’, which is then played by the horns and bassoons.

The strings quietly start up again with ‘Rule Britannia’, over which the solo trumpet reminds us of the ‘Trumpet Voluntary’ - which by now has surely achieved the status of an English national air - and the whole orchestra then enters with a fortissimo version of ‘Rule Britannia’ - though the trumpet again slips in the final bars of this voluntary at the very end.