Knickers to the flag row! Politicians have other things to do

Obsessing over whether to fly the Union flag or Saltire distracts from running the country, writes Tom Peterkin

Things have come to a pretty pass when Scottish politics is reduced to a wailing and gnashing of teeth on the subject of flags.

To most people trying to get on with life in the real world, the minutiae of what flag should fly over which building no doubt seems utterly trivial.

But politicians would do well to remember that when it comes to stoking the fires of division there is nothing like a good old-fashioned flag row.

For harrowing evidence of that one needs look no further than Northern Ireland where the Union flags bedecking the Shankill Road and the Irish Tricolours on the Falls Road speak to a bitterly divided society.

Thankfully Scotland is no Ulster. But rows like the one which erupted yesterday over Scottish Government guidance strictly limiting the flying of the Union flag over public buildings do not bode well.

Heaven forbid that Scotland should descend into the depressing state of affairs across the Irish Sea where it often appears that municipal politics (and Stormont politics) are defined by flags.

Stushies over how many days the Union flag should be allowed to fly above a particular town hall are meat and drink to Northern Irish politicians. They are also destructive, distract from far more important issues and do little other than entrench tribal loyalties.

On the latter subject, the trivia to which such tribalism can descend to can often be quite breath-taking.

Around a decade ago, Sinn Fein councillors in Limavady, County Londonderry, wanted to remove a Charles and Diana royal wedding coffee mug from local authority premises. The rationale of the Irish republicans was that the mug symbolised British culture. Yesterday’s Scottish row over Union flag-flying may not have plumbed such depths – yet – but it is the nature of these things to arouse very strong emotions indeed.

Despite Nicola Sturgeon’s Twitter protestations that changing the flag-flying guidance was merely reflecting “long-standing practice”, the fact of the matter is that Scottish Government guidelines have just been changed to recommend that the Union flag should only be flown from public buildings on one day a year. That compares with 2017 guidelines which suggested the Union flag could be flown on no fewer than 15 occasions, including Royal birthdays and anniversaries.

It didn’t take long for that fervent monarchist Alex Salmond to wade into the row, claiming that it was at his behest that the Union flag was replaced by the Lion Rampant (the Royal Standard of Scotland or Royal Banner) back in 2010.

The former First Minister claimed he introduced the change after a cosy chat with the Queen at Balmoral in which he reassured her that the Lion Rampant was a very popular flag in Scotland.

Students of heraldry will tell you that Mr Salmond was quite entitled to fly the Lion Rampant. When he was First Minster, he was also the Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland. In that capacity, he may fly the Royal Standard of Scotland.

But in many ways discussion of the Lion Rampant happens to be a bit of a distraction from the crux of this story.

As the Scottish Government guidance makes clear, the Lion Rampant and the Saltire may be flown at St Andrews House on royal occasions because it is the seat of Scottish Government.