WHAT A VERY New Britain moment: no sooner does Gordon Brown start whistling our tune than they take it away. The only thing that regularly makes me feel British is doomed. Radio 4 is dropping its morning UK Theme music.

Those who are never up at 5.30am may be confused by the wave of grief that will break over Mark Damazer, the Radio 4 Controller, who rules that our waking moments are “better served by a pacy news bulletin”. In the age of the iPod, who cares?

Well, I do. Many a bitter dawn has been sweetened by this gentle weaving of national tunes, written by an Austrian who came here at 13 and loved us as only a refugee can. It is a five-minute masterclass in national identity. It begins on Rule Britannia with more playfulness than pomp, then eases into the Londonderry Air with all the mournfulness of our troubled ocean fringes, giving Annie Laurie as counterpoint from across the Celtic seas. Drums kick in for the drunken sailor who links the islands and the centuries, mischievously interwoven with courtly Greensleeves; men of Harlech march through, the betrayed maiden of Early One Morning gets her plaint, there’s a quick trumpet voluntary, Scotland gets brave and Britannia lands the crashing finale.

It’s lovely. It clears the morning air. I heard it often while we sailed round Britain, shuddering into my clothes to catch the shipping forecast and an early tide; hearing its echo from working trawlers alongside, I hoped it cheered them too. I have heard it in a frozen lambing-yard and hummed it on grey motorways. I have fed babies in the weary dawn and said: “See, brat? You’re British. All those islands, all those people, woven into harmony. Whatever’s in the news we can take it. Especially if Peter Donaldson is reading it.”

I bet Gordon Brown gets up early, what with the baby and the Budget deficit. I bet that’s what gave him the idea of his Britishness initiative. He should speak up for us early-morning people. We’re not BNP loonies: we wouldn’t mind at all if they wove in a bit of Bob Marley’s Redemption Song, a dash of bhangra and a wisp of the Ode to Joy. It would still set us up for each horribly “pacy” day. Ochone, alas, I lay me down and dee!

If I were running the new Channel 4 bid for a national speech station, I’d move in and nick the theme tune, quick.