'I've designed a new flag for the UK... coming soon to roundabout near you'
Is it time the nation had a new flag? Given the events of the last few weeks, I reckon the majority of the country is pig sick of the current one… everyone bar the makers of red paint, that is.
Paintmakers Farrow and Ball must have loved that. You can just see the panic at F&B HQ. ‘Crikey, we’ve got a spike in Rectory Red in the Midlands. Jason, cancel all leave for the pigment mix squad, we’ve got a run on Charlotte’s Locks in Bedfordshire that we’ll struggle to meet. Just gotta hope the Incarnadine crimson holds up in Burnley!’
Driving up the A1 from a trip down south, it felt as if on every flyover there was a nylon flag flapping from the side of it. God it was ugly.
I’d love to believe this was all about national pride, maybe Emma Raducanu winning her first-round match in the US Open lit a patriotic fire across the land.
As a way of celebrating this great unity of nations who invented the television, steam engine and the light bulb, spending the weekend climbing lampposts to string up Chinese-made nylon flags or defacing mini-roundabouts with red crosses didn’t really cut the mustard.
Given that in recent weeks we’ve had flag waving loons demonstrating outside run-down hotels housing people seeking asylum, I couldn’t help but feel the two were connected.
Britain First, a national far right group, proudly proclaimed it had donated 75% of its flag stock to the so-called Operation Raise the Colours campaign. Which begs the question: who stocks flags? And while it sounds like a proud boast, this lot didn’t actually say what 75% equated to. It could be three for all we know.
Naturally, it caught the middling politicians off guard - one minute praising flag-waving as patriotism, the next condemning it as a health and safety hazard.
Personally, I feel the best way to cut through the ‘is it a patriotic display or a racist goading exercise’ question would be to hand all asylum seekers a Union Jack on arrival in the UK for them to display with pride. Tell them it’s a gift from this most welcoming of nations. If nothing else, it’ll confuse the far right numpties.
Anyway, I asked AI to produce a new flag for the UK. I told it to lose the red (we’ve had for yonks now) and instead incorporate grey (to match the weather) and our love of TV, dogs and chips. Colour scheme was lager yellow, football pitch green and seaside blue. And wavy lines (for the sea) instead of straight ones. Hope you like it. Trickier to paint on a zebra crossing I admit, but maybe that’s no bad thing. Fewer flags, more compassion.