Get the flags out

The Government’s statement that their direct spending north of the Border will carry a Union Flag henceforth has had the nationalist camp running around in ever-decreasing circles. After all, as your columnist Lesley Riddoch knows well, when it comes to flags, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

For too long, the SNP has made the oft-waved Saltire a nationalist banner and the EU flagisjusthunky-dorytoo.any representation of our country – the one we voted overwhelmingly to remain part of only six years ago – is anathema, however, which is strange coming from a woman whose country, England, probably displays the Union Flag more than any other part of the UK (Perspective, 17 August).

When Ms Riddoch lauds the supposed lead in the polls enjoyed for now by the SNP, there is no mention of the fact that her beloved First Minister has been milking it on a TV podium every single day for months. No one else is doing it, but for the SNP all that free publicity is their lifeblood.

Of course, she expresses her anger at the Government’s bold move to pay more for developments in Scotland than gets dribbled out by the Holyrood administration. Such money is only occasionally spent, when they are not hiding it in a bank account and blaming “Tory austerity”, which really means SNP austerity. Replace the name UK with EU, however, and a very

different tune would be playing about “investment”. When our own Government does it, it is “bribery”.

Ms Riddoch must be scared.

ANDREW HN GRAY Craiglea Drive, Edinburgh