Is enough respect given to the Union Flag?

BBC Breakfast presenters Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt have been criticised for sniggering at the Union Flag displayed in the office of housing minister Robert Jenrick. My job involves travelling all over Britain and I have seen the flag flying only once this year. Yet whenever I go to Italy, I see the national colours proudly displayed everywhere. Why are we so ashamed of our flag?

DAVID CRAVEN, Menston, W. Yorks. CHARLIE STAYT was making the valid point that overblown displays of patriotism and nationalism became regarded as slightly cheesy around the end of World War II. If they’re making a comeback it’s probably not a good thing. Hanging up a flag in an office makes as much sense as a minister wearing a diving suit or top hat. It’s simply incongruous. The office flag competition between Tory MPs is political posturing. I count myself as patriotic, but I can understand why Mr Stayt treated this as a joke.

BRIAN SMITH, Durham. I DID not find Charlie Stayt’s remark to be disrespectful. It is a fuss over nothing. Surely after the year we’ve had we have more things to worry about than the Union Flag not being big enough.

JAN WHITLOCK, address supplied. SINCE when did the Union Flag become a political symbol? I am

Welsh and British, and am proud to display the Red Dragon and Union Flag.

C. HOPKINS, Frimley, Surrey. IN ALMOST every country around the world, ministers display flags and pictures of their presidents or royalty with pride. So why was a British minister, sitting in his office with the Union Flag and a portrait of the Queen in the background, made a target of ridicule on TV?

CAROLE GILES, Horndean, Hants. IT IS contemptible that BBC presenters mock our national flag and Queen. The BBC’s feeble excuse of neutrality is unacceptable.