My old friend from the days when she flew the red flag over ‘Fortress Islington’, culture minister Margaret Hodge, has been getting into bother over flag-related things again.
She told parliament this week that she would consider a redesign of the union flag to incorporate the hammer and sickle (or was it the Welsh dragon? It wasn’t clear from the press reports), which was inexplicably overlooked when the national flag was created.
She told MPs: ‘The Welsh dragon was not included on the union flag as the principality of Wales was already united with England by 1606 when the first union flag was created. I can assure all MPs that the issue of the design of the union flag will be considered.’
She warned them, however, that: ‘As the current flag is formed by merging three heraldic crosses representing the three kingdoms of the UK, the original design was a challenge. Thinking of a new design that would meet everyone's aspiration would be an even greater challenge.’
Hodge was responding to complaints from Welsh MPs, including Labour’s Ian Lucas, who said Welsh identity had been suppressed for the best part of 500 years, ever since the 1536 Act of Union between England and Wales. Wales is the only one of the ‘home nations’ not represented on the union flag, which is made up of the crosses of St George (for England) and St Patrick (Ireland) and the saltire of St Andrew (Scotland).
Saturday, 1 December 2007
Can we have some black in the Union Jack?
We could kill three birds with one stone here. By taking the black background from the flag of St David and adding it to the union flag, we could recognise Wales and the multicultural nature of modern Britain and give ourselves an anarcho-socialist banner that we'd feel happy carrying on demos. And the BNP could keep the other one.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
7 comments:
Naughty naughty, it was not the red dragon we asked for but perhaps some green, Wales was and to some degree in Labour not felt to be a country.
Does not really worry me anyway I am for telling England to remove the Union jack from Wales anyway.
We are not part of the UK anymore, you only pay to come into Wales you do not pay to go out.
I'd like to see the hammer and sickle on the unionjack. Where can I buy one?
Can the left manage to think past the nation state and embrace internationalism for once?
Apparently not.
Personally, I always thought the banner of the working class movement was red, but perhaps I'm just old fashioned like that.
Do we need a flag at all? True socialism should be about removing boundaries between people. One race the human race.
people like flags, banners-gives them a group identity.
if we're going to have them best make them as inclusive as possible
St David's flag is green and yellow
And David was a charming fellow
He ate only herbs and bread
And raised a young boy from the dead
So raise your yellow standard high
Beneath its folds we'll live or die
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer
We'll fly the flag of Dewi here
I have long given up on England or the flying of the red flag under Blair it went pink under Brown it's now Blue a Tory blue.
Post a Comment