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What I find interesting is that the Welsh and Scottish flags don't have the same negative connotations for me. I'm not sure why that is the case, but it is.
Same, I guess it's because historically the Scottish and Welsh haven't been the ones doing oppression and subjugation on a global scale.
Although my reaction to seeing an England flag is much more negative than when I see the Union flag... 🤔
What I find interesting is that the Welsh and Scottish flags don't have the same negative connotations for me. I'm not sure why that is the case, but it is.
I think that feels driven by patriotism, whereas this is an agenda-driven hysterical xenophobia.
The flags being attached to lampposts is a "thing/movement" created by Legatum, The Dubai based owners of GB News, they are the "weird/dark" group behind it.
I read a very long twitter thread about the folk involved last night and their incredibly shady means of attempting to hid who funds it, I'll try and find it.
I'm sure this is how they visualise themselves.
French nobility heeding the pope's call to go slaughter foreigners in the name of god? 🙂
What I find interesting is that the Welsh and Scottish flags don't have the same negative connotations for me. I'm not sure why that is the case, but it is.
They never qualify for any international tournaments so are thus denied the opportunity to get pissed, smash up continental town squares and throw street furniture at the gendarmerie, while singing songs about world wars and world cups 😉
This would actually be a very positive thing to reclaim our flag from a fringe group by displaying more widely.
It's a few years ago now that the far right attempted to "adopt" English folk music as theirs. It gave rise to the "Folk against Fascism" movement. Get Billy Bragg on stage with a George cross singing about Ingerland and the fash will soon drop it.
It's not just the mouth breathers either. Estate behind us is filled with houses 500k and above but I noticed an expensive looking flag pole go up earlier this year in a garden a few doors from our house. Not only do they fly the flag of St George but they double team it with the Union Jack. These are the same people who had a party and were popping corks at midnight when we left Europe though so maybe not a surprise?
The other day I saw that a less impressive flag pole with St George's flag had gone up on the same estate at an equally expensive (for North Yorkshire) house.
Not sure why you’ve single out mosques though
Simply because they are highly symbolic of what i believe is really behind a lot of the flag waving hysteria - Islamophobia.
Whenever i get into a row with my relatives about small boats and hotels it very quickly descends from "we are full" to british values -> changing communities -> islam.
Simply because they are highly symbolic of what i believe is really behind a lot of the flag waving hysteria - Islamophobia.
Whenever i get into a row with my relatives about small boats and hotels it very quickly descends from "we are full" to british values -> changing communities -> islam.
Is the less hyperbolic POV without any merit whatsoever though?
This would actually be a very positive thing to reclaim our flag from a fringe group by displaying more widely.
It's a few years ago now that the far right attempted to "adopt" English folk music as theirs. It gave rise to the "Folk against Fascism" movement. Get Billy Bragg on stage with a George cross singing about Ingerland and the fash will soon drop it.
He's done a great Facebook post about how wonderful it is to see all the support for the Emgland Women's Rugby team ahead of the world cup, after they've been so overshadowed by the football. 🙂
It'll fizzle out over the autumn/winter. Stay off SM, or at least the bits of it where these mouthbreathers congregate and much of your anxiety will evaporate.
Right up until Farage is your new PM
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀😟
Same, I guess it's because historically the Scottish and Welsh haven't been the ones doing oppression and subjugation on a global scale.
Historically, though, that is nonsense. Plenty of Welsh and Scottish individuals were involved in the UK government and East India company etc. There has been some valiant efforts to blame the English for all the ills of the British Empire but its about as historically accurate as some of the flag wavers utterances.
Bit obvious, but still worth a share....
Simple lyrics hit the hardest... "Great Britain. Are you sure?"
Historically, though, that is nonsense. Plenty of Welsh and Scottish individuals were involved in the UK government and East India company etc.
Yeah, there’s plenty of Scot’s who fully deserve their own particular chapter in the history of utter bastards, slave traders, merchants, colonists and the average garden variety of bastards who would have risen to the levels of “utter bastard” given the chance.
Historically, though, that is nonsense. Plenty of Welsh and Scottish individuals were involved in the UK government and East India company etc.
Yeah, there’s plenty of Scot’s who fully deserve their own particular chapter in the history of utter bastards, slave traders, merchants, colonists and the average garden variety of bastards who would have risen to the levels of “utter bastard” given the chance.
Generally, all driven by their own greed.
They are found in all walks of life unfortunately. And it will never change.
I thought rural France wasn’t exactly free of le racisme/voting FN though?
Agreed but does depend on location & are at least more thinly spread.
This is EXACTLY what I was going to type. National pride in England feels much more defensive and nasty than it does in Wales or Scotland.
Historically, though, that is nonsense. Plenty of Welsh and Scottish individuals were involved in the UK government and East India company etc.
Sure, but national flags don't represent individuals. There will obviously be specific examples you can point to, but England (the country) ruled over both Scotland and Wales, and the rest of the commonwealth, which puts them at the top of the pyramid of bastards, IMHO.
This is EXACTLY what I was going to type. National pride in England feels much more defensive and nasty than it does in Wales or Scotland.
My anecdotal observations is that it's growing in Scotland. As per the person just yesterday describing those crossing the channel as "animals". I also routinely hear of, and see migrants as a group associated with criminality as thieves/sex offenders. That compares to how Scots who commit (and found guilty of) those crimes, who are talked about as individuals.
Reform tripling their vote share isn't helping either.
This is EXACTLY what I was going to type. National pride in England feels much more defensive and nasty than it does in Wales or Scotland.
I think its partly due to the Welsh & Scots feeling able to claim victimhood owing to a slightly selective interpretation of the last 250 years of British history.
Edinburgh & Glasgow didn't become hugely wealthy thanks to a few isolated individuals & that wealth was shared pretty widely(Or at least down to the middle classes.)
I do think it's interesting though, that by & large most countries seem to be able to embrace patriotism in a way which doesn't divide the country in the way it does here.
I do think it's interesting though, that by & large most countries seem to be able to embrace patriotism in a way which doesn't divide the country in the way it does here.
Do other countries have the same tendancy to self-flagellate to the degree we do?
Anyone shows even the remotest bit of healthy pride and it won't be long before someone brings up the ills of the Empire.
Nothing quite like being told you're wrong to have pride in your country because some rich smuggos decided to act like ****s before you even existed.
Maybe those that do this have a lot more in common with the racists than they realise, projecting their own feelings of inadequacy and helplessness onto others.
I don't think anyone's suggesting we shouldn't have pride in our country, but what's happening with this flag business has sinister undertones, I think.
England (the country) ruled over both Scotland and Wales, and the rest of the commonwealth, which puts them at the top of the pyramid of bastards, IMHO.
ISTR that Scots were disproportionately prevalent amongst senior British colonial and empire officials and military officers, especially in the East India company?
As indeed they always have been in Westminster politics on both sides of the house.
I don't think anyone's suggesting we shouldn't have pride in our country, but what's happening with this flag business has sinister undertones, I think.
Nah, there's no undertones about it, it is a very overt counter to Palestinian flags being attached to lamp posts and a council who in their ineptitude acted in a way that 'picked a side' and removed the English ones put up to counter.
No doubt in my mind a clear nationalist statement dripping in racism.
This is why elected leaders need to be smarter than they clearly are, handing idiots absolute gems to capitalise on.
One of the best pieces of advice I was ever given as a young NCO was 'be clear, be transparent and play a straight bat',
I think its partly due to the Welsh & Scots feeling able to claim victimhood owing to a slightly selective interpretation of the last 250 years of British history.
I would suggest more than "slightly selective".
I do think it's interesting though, that by & large most countries seem to be able to embrace patriotism
I think here you get into the problem of what "patriotism" is. It has not really been part of English culture to consider waving a flag around as being patriotic but something which has been imported.
I don't think anyone's suggesting we shouldn't have pride in our country, but what's happening with this flag business has sinister undertones, I think.
I think that's the point RM was getting at - you can be proud of tbe good things your country has done while being aware of the evil as well, but the flag of St George's has been hijacked, and trying to use it in a more positive way gets you labelled a flag shagging forelock tugger by some on here. I've been on the end of it. Right wing bigots or left wing bigots are all still just bigots.
ISTR that Scots were disproportionately prevalent amongst senior British colonial and empire officials and military officers, especially in the East India company
As recorded in the renowned documentary ‘Carry on up the Khyber’
I think here you get into the problem of what "patriotism" is. It has not really been part of English culture to consider waving a flag around as being patriotic but something which has been imported.
Big military flag waving jingoism has been with us since at least the start of empire, if it was imported it probably came with the Romans
I think here you get into the problem of what "patriotism" is. It has not really been part of English culture to consider waving a flag around as being patriotic but something which has been imported.
Big military flag waving jingoism has been with us since at least the start of empire, if it was imported it probably came with the Romans
Flags/Colours/Standards actually had a military purpose, now they're ceremonial. The Romans were quite savvy in distracting the people so you're probably onto something with jingoism bit there.
Wife's just got back from walking the dog and apparently a George Cross and Union flag have been put up on a footbridge in my village. I thought about going and taking them down but might just take a photo and post it on FB with the comment "Come on the Red Roses! #WRWC 2025" or actually go and write that on the England flag!!
I do think it's interesting though, that by & large most countries seem to be able to embrace patriotism in a way which doesn't divide the country in the way it does here.
I think the English situation isn't that dissimilar across much of current Europe with the rise of the far right to excuse the failing of neoliberalism over the past 20 or so years, here in Germany among most of my German friends and colleagues there seems to be equal suspicion of flag shagging patriotism.
In the UK I think the establishment and media has helped push the cause with the poppy day fetishism in recent years, which seams to have become a rather more oppressively enforced mass hysteria event than when the actual generation who lived through it were more largely represented in society.
it does look mega shit
Probably not helped by all the flags I’ve seen looking like they came out of a cracker.
The only people laughing here are the owners of whichever Chinese sweatshop is manufacturing them.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. We’ve rain forecast for next week. They’ll probably all dissolve
it does look mega shit
Probably not helped by all the flags I’ve seen looking like they came out of a cracker.
The only people laughing here are the owners of whichever Chinese sweatshop is manufacturing them.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. We’ve rain forecast for next week. They’ll probably all dissolve
Too true, I'm a bit of a traditionalist, I think flags of a poor standard, fhung improperly* from random uprights and hangers look ****ing toss. Don't even get me started on the abortions that are have other symbology printed on them, or even worse handwritten. 🤮
The irony with these patriots is they can't even treat the flag with the appropriate level of respect and it/they deserve.
*There are a few exceptions to this rule like a military vehicle whip antenna or if bungeed across the back of a vehicle to stop out american cousins mistaking us for kids in a playground.
Historically, though, that is nonsense. Plenty of Welsh and Scottish individuals were involved in the UK government and East India company etc. There has been some valiant efforts to blame the English for all the ills of the British Empire but its about as historically accurate as some of the flag wavers utterances.
That's on a par with my 80+year old, history teacher, step mother proclaiming that at least the Indians got good railways out of the Raj.
🤣
I do think it's interesting though, that by & large most countries seem to be able to embrace patriotism in a way which doesn't divide the country in the way it does here.
Which countries? All i know that do flag waving nationalism have nasty edges of racism
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel
- The english flag has been claimed and used by racists. The scots and welsh ones much less so
It does make me laugh at the number of these so called patriots are happy and proud to have defaced the very flag and symbol of the nation they claim to so proud of. The fact they don’t see the irony in this is of no surprise but amuses me
I think flags of a poor standard, fhung improperly* from random uprights
I did like the line of them at half mast since they hadnt brought a ladder long enough to hang them properly. Although to be fair I guess they might have been mourning the loss of the English tradition of only using flags in moderation.
Done properly it adds something eg when the Mall has the Union Jacks up or an village church has the St Georges flying from a medieval tower on a sunny day or a memorial day parade heading the different groups.
However if the flags were up constantly on the mall and if everyone on the memorial day parade had their own to wave about it would lose its value. Having a bunch of cheap temu flags randomly attached to things definitely fails the test.