"You do not need to buy-into every one of its phrases in order to sing (or just stand and salute) it."

But this is looking at things from what appears to be quite an anglo-centric viewpoint. God Save The Queen doesn't tend to automatically bring up a swell of emotion and turn on the patriotism autopilot for all Scots. Remember the Scottish football team itself up until the 1980s or so had God Save The Queen played as their own anthem - and it was mercilessly booed by large sections of their own supporters. Eventually after years of this fiasco the out of touch blazers at the SFA backed down and played Flower Of Scotland instead.

Support for the monarchy seems to be about 79% in the UK at the moment but that figure is not steady across the UK's four parts. The figures are heavily influenced by the views of England. As previously mentioned an ICM poll showed it as only about 50% support in Scotland. A BBC poll in 2009 showed it only as 58% in Wales. Breaking that down further 65% of over 65s supported it in Wales but only 42% of under 35s. I couldn't find the figures for Northern Ireland but wouldn't expect support to be considerably more than in Scotland, if at all, and of course it is much more of an contentious issue there.

So if you have an anthem supposedly there to represent 'the union' then you'd expect it to be something that is acceptable to all parts of the said union - and not just to the largest part! Now I am not saying that it should be scrapped as the anthem for UK competitors. I am just suggesting that the argument put forward by Tunesmith is not as invalid as is being suggested by some posters.

What has been actually happening in the real world is that sections of the anglocentric UK media have taken objection to the fact that not all British competitors hold the same viewpoints etc as what is or is supposed to be held in middle-England. One wee Scots lass stated when asked if she would sing the anthem that she wouldn't. She didn't abuse it at all. She stood in line along with the rest of her team as it was being played as did her other Scots team-mate. But that was enough to set off the bloodhounds who then turned their attention to the Welsh men who then also made a decision not to actively sing it. That is their personal choice too. Not one of them has said that the anthem shouldn't be played - they simply made a personal choice for whatever their own reason is not to sing it. Why should there be a fuss? The English journalists and commentators who were involved just have to accept that you can't force people to feel patriotic towards a certain song! They have to recognise that Britain is a diverse place. Likewise you can't just tell everyone to just sing it and buy into it - if they don't want to sing it and don't buy into it.