This last year has taught us politicians own loads of flags
Arguing about nothing and searching for offence is, I suppose, something to do while the pubs are shut. There’s been a rumpus over a Zoom interview with Housing minister Robert Jenrick, in which he positioned his laptop to ensure no one would miss his Union flag or portrait of the Queen.
Neither the flag nor the monarch was mocked. What attracts ridicule is how politicians would have us believe these patriotic artefacts just happen to be in our view.
This goes for all Zooming politicians. Depending on the party, they’re now rarely seen more than a metre from a picture of Churchill, or the Jarrow March.
At the start of the first lockdown politicians were keen to be viewed before creaking bookshelves. You might not like politicians, but by jingo they’re well read; assuming they’d actually read the books and hadn’t just cleared all the Jackie Collins out of view an hour beforehand.
Imagine their embarrassment if the camera caught them “unawares”, leafing through their favourite volume of Spinoza or Dostoevsky. They’d never live it down.
Mr Jenrick was, it should be said, speaking from his office.
But politicians interviewed from home are keen to reveal something of their supposed selves with the personal accoutrements they display.
Before 2020 the Home Secretary would only be interviewed from home for radio. This meant she could relax; teeth out, curlers in. Now the poor woman must ensure she can barely move for flags. Not the little plastic ones seen at royal weddings either, but huge knitted polyester jobs on wooden poles. You can’t say Ms Patel doesn’t make the effort. But best of all is Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who has the full set.
Lurking “haphazardly” in his via-laptop interviews, which he conducts wearing his everpresent NHS badge, are the Queen, Union flag, tons of books and sporting memorabilia (in an attempt of debatable efficacy to be one of the lads). Just your average spare room really. Yours is probably the same.
All harmless fun; some might say laudable and even Mr Hancock’s biggest detractors can hardly expect a minister of the Crown to appear on telly with a dartboard and a mucky calendar behind him.
But we’re allowed to wonder what his room looked like before lockdown.