You probably haven’t missed the recent rise in the calling for more Union Jacks and St George flags to be flown. Indeed this recently culminated in Henry Smith MP calling for a minister of flags no less. And Sir Keir Starmer has encouraged all his MPs to fly the St George flag today, as true patriots.
Meanwhile, the radical right have spent the last few weeks with their blood boiling at the announcement of the new England shirt with the Daily Mail declaring the “England kit ‘gone woke’” for featuring a more subtle Union Jack. And their collective blood pressure went through the roof just a few days later when Team GB announced the flag of the Paris 2024 Olympics kit.
Of course, the likes of Nigel Farage and GB News were quick to jump on the bandwagon, but this backfired on them when several people pointed out that they have no problem “messing with our flag” when it suits them.
Why should we have pride in our flag?
There are times when we feel rightly proud of our country and want to fly the flag to show this. Sporting events such as the London 2012 Olympic Games are a good example. But if anything illustrates the fall of Great Britain, it’s the comparison between the Olympic opening ceremony – including that truly awe-inspiring tribute to the NHS directed by Danny Boyle – and where we are now with our rotten NHS and crumbling hospitals.
Not long after that we had the long-drawn-out process of Brexit, when our flag became even more a symbol of nationalism rather than patriotism. The ironic reality of Brexit is, of course, that it has significantly reduced our influence around the world and our country is now much weaker. We have record numbers of citizens living in poverty and broken public services. We have become a low growth, low productivity economy, with wages that are largely stagnant, not helped by Trussonomics adding huge amounts to our mortgages and food bills.
Indeed some of the only people to benefit from that budget were the billionaire hedge fund managers that Kwasi Kwarteng met straight after his KamiKwasi budget to talk through the details. Talking of billionaires, they seem to be doing rather well as Dr Pam Jarvis writes in Yorkshire Bylines “The combined wealth of Britain’s billionaires had risen from £53.9bn in 1990 to more than £653bn in 2022 which represents an increase in billionaire wealth of over 1,000% over that time”.
How can we be proud of our country right now?
Why would anyone be proud of a nation where “22% of the UK population were living in poverty last year” and 80% of teachers report that children arrive at school hungry once a week (with 36% reporting that it is daily)? And why would we be proud of the rise of so-called Victorian diseases such as scurvy, rickets and malnutrition?
No doubt those going hungry will be proud of the £900,000 of public money Boris Johnson once spent of painting a Union Jack on a plane.
Why would anyone want to fly the flag when our government is hellbent on breaking international laws and leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)? Strange how populist right-wing figures such as Farage fail to mention what they intend to replace it with, and how they will protect our human rights from things like torture. As Viv Griffiths wrote in Sussex Bylines:
“What seems to be forgotten by this increasingly anti-rights government is that the ECHR was originally proposed by Winston Churchill after World War II and drafted mainly by British lawyers.”
It seems entirely unpatriotic that these flag ultras are undoing the work of Churchill.
Infrastructure and the NHS
Our schools and hospitals are crumbling, yet Conservative MPs call for “The flying of the Union flag should be compulsory for all schools”. What child learning in these conditions would be proud of that flag?
Back in 2021 Robert Jenrick MP called for all government buildings including council offices to fly the Union Jack at all times. Yet one in five councils are facing bankruptcy in the next year, much to do with cutting council funding by 40% in real terms between 2010 and 2020.
The NHS is literally crumbling, with 100 disruptions a week due to “fires, leaks and infrastructure problems” before we even get onto the 42 RAAC-affected hospitals. As for waiting lists, it’s not looking good once you scratch beyond the headline figures. The number of those with serious heart problems having to wait more than 18 weeks has risen fivefold since Covid, for example. And whilst overall waiting lists have recently fallen, they are dropping from a record high of 7.75 million waiting back in August 2023.
What next for this jingoistic flag waving?
The Conservative Party’s latest jingoistic campaign was widely mocked for including the achievements of other countries. One of the best summaries was by Toby Earle on Twitter:
Imagine the brains that went into this campaign. Really makes you want to fly the flag doesn’t it, when the reality of our military might is that Britain “no longer has enough munitions to secure its own defences”.
Perhaps this Tweet from Happy Toast is nearer the mark with its depiction of foodbanks, sewage in our rivers and our road network blighted by endless potholes:
But then came the latest error, with the Tories’ new election broadcast showing the Union Jack flying upside down – a signal that a ship is in distress:
The stench of sewage
The sewage crisis further exemplifies the disconnect between the flag waving and the reality. Every single river in England is now polluted. To really rub salt into the wounds of genuine patriots, the Environment Agency chief recently had dinner with water company lobbyists days before announcing plans for 40% bill hikes. Which pretty much sums up our country.
Since privatisation, some £72bn has been paid out in dividends, against £60bn of debt. The most high profile of cases is that of Thames Water where shareholders are currently refusing to stump up the cash to pay back loans. If Kemble, the owners of Thames Water, default on the loans it raises the prospect of lenders such as Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China owning Britain’s largest water company. Let’s fly the flag to that and Margaret Thatcher’s great vision for the country!
Londongrad calling
We now have the son of an ex-KGB officer, Evgeny Lebedev, in the House of Lords, presiding over British law. What would Churchill have thought of that? And it’s estimated that £2mn was donated by Russian oligarchs to the Conservative Party under Johnson, which begs the question: just how much Russian money will the Conservatives be spending at the next election? Are these proud patriots still being funded by Russians? Are they a threat to national security? What did the Conservative Friends of Russia actually do and who, apart from Vladimir Putin, won anything from Brexit?
I could go on forever, but there isn’t the time of day for that. Instead I’ll sign off with a list of everything off the top my head that needs to be fixed with our failed state before I’ll be proud of my flag again, St George or Union Jack:
- Crumbling roads
- Crumbling infrastructure
- Expenses scandals
- Rise of Victorian diseases
- Cost of living crisis
- Record energy company profits whilst much of the nation is in energy poverty
- 9,000 people dying from hypothermia in their own homes each year
- 90,000 people a year dying in poverty
- Dentist deserts
- British Youth Council closes after more than 75 years
- Child bed poverty
- Sex scandal
- Sexting scandal
- £15mn racist donor scandal
- Michelle Mone PPE VIP Lane scandal
- PPE contracts over inflated by £925mn
- Office interior design firm lobbies Micheal Gove and wins £680mn PPE contract
- £37bn test and trace scandal
- £258mn PPE contract given to a dog food business owner
- Fake knights of the realm
- Rishi Sunak’s wife claims non dom status
- Russians making UK law in the House of Lords
- Bankrupt councils
- ‘UK ‘in violation of international law’ over poverty levels, says UN envoy’
- Only 10% of ‘Levelling Up’ funds spent
- Doctors and nurses forced to wear bin bags during the pandemic
- Drunken parties at Number 10 whilst the Queen buried Prince Phillip alone
- More lockdown parties at Number 10
- Britain ‘no longer has enough munitions to secure its own defences’
- ‘Rishi Sunak’s wife’s firm Infosys received 50% boost in public sector invoices in 2023’
- Helicopter flights paid for by a racist scandal
Have I mentioned the sex scandals?
There are many reasons to be proud of our country, and many reasons not to be. Waving a flag doesn’t make amends for the harm that this government has done.
ED: Article updated 8.30pm 23.04.24 to reflect the fact that Boris Johnson only spent £900,000 painting a Union Jack on a plane, not £900mn as originally stated. Even Johnson couldn’t have spent £900mn on a flag. Probably.
