Readers respond to articles on the recent rise of national flags being flown in England
A flag went up outside my house on Friday night (What does a true Brit feel when we commemorate the war or fly the St George flag? Depends on the Brit, 20 August). I asked very nicely if it could be taken down, but I was sneered at.
No house other than ours can see it directly, but many people were beeping their horns as they drove past. I figured that eventually the council would come and take them all down, then I remembered that we now have a Reform council, and it has said that it won’t.
Where does this end? I am having someone else’s view of patriotism and an enforced celebration of “Englishness” rammed down my throat, and the sheer act makes me feel less patriotic. I may have to look at this flag for months, but because there is nothing I can do about it, I’ve now started to feel a little less safe in my home. If I did say something, I would be pilloried and potentially targeted, such is the tribal jumping-on-the-bandwagon that seems to be happening in my community. I try to be tolerant of others, but somehow I am not afforded the same courtesy.
The widening inequality across this nation is slowly killing what some of us thought Britishness was all about. None of this is going to end well, even if it is about only one red and white flag.
