A song for our times, indeed: a mournful bass solo begins, quasi-recitativo, with a heartfelt lament bewailing the effects of national austerity.  The tenors and alto join in, with an ever-so-slightly desperate attempt to cheer the poor man with talk of brighter days to come, at which point the alto, almost unnoticed, begins to sing the National Anthem.  The result, as the other voices continue their miserable counterpoint, is the gloomiest treatment of a patriotic song you have ever heard - Webbe at his subversive best, we think - until all the singers are persuaded to join in the much more optimistic latter section, which ends in rousing homophony with a suitably rumbustious chorus of 'God save great George our King'.