Supporters' chants in Serbia cast Starmer as first British prime minister to become The Enemy

If you'd told Keir Starmer last summer that just over a year after his election as prime minister he would single-handedly, and by the sheer force of his own personality, have stopped England fans from singing songs about the IRA and Ten German Bombers, he would no doubt have been delighted.

- Barney Ronay

If you'd told Keir Starmer last summer that just over a year after his election as prime minister he would single-handedly, and by the sheer force of his own personality, have stopped England fans from singing songs about the IRA and Ten German Bombers, he would no doubt have been delighted. I guess they must really like me then. Phase One Goals. You warned me off, Jeremy, but I knew the Arsenal thing was a good idea. Either way Starmer has now made this happen. England fans are not singing about those things any more. They are instead singing about him being a wanker and how he should fuck off, something they continued to do this week from Birmingham to Belgrade. So, a partial success then, Sir Keir. Delivery. Pragmatism. Yes, I think we can work with this.

Any stray academics charged with chronicling the oral history of England fandom, its shared song-kitty, its bardic evolutions, will have been fascinated by the content shift of the past few months. Out: bombers, IRA, not surrendering. In: insults about the prime minister, the main hook of which is still the endlessly repeatable Keir Starmer-muurs aaa waannnker to the tune of the riff from Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes.

When Jack White first wrote that hook he was famously disturbed and excited by it, aware that this thing was a monster, that it just needed shape and words. This probably wasn't exactly what he had in mind. But the muse goes where it must, and the first few rounds could be heard shortly before kick-off on Tuesday night. It was there from Monday lunchtime in the old town pavement cafes, the new English summer songbook, the Don't Take Me Home, the Three Wankers of its time.

That core message also cuts across musical genres. Andorra away in June was the first public unveiling of a disco take, to the tune of Give it Up by KC & The Sunshine Band. It is an ever-evolving scene, as restlessly creative as an England 4-3-2-1.