The English Flag.

[Theland]

https://youtu.be/ARdXe7O8cK0

Do you think we should take pride in our English flag, or ditch it to save offending the offended?

[Baldric]

If you are English The England Flag should be something you are proud of.
Likewise The Union Flag.

[Mamyalynne]

Hope there isn't a plan to ditch it, keep it of course.

[Theland]

But the chap seated in the video is offended by it, and gives reasons for his being offended.

[Jackdaw33]

I have never been one for the English flag and St George's Day. The reason? We have no need of symbols to demonstrate our effortless superiority. I am quite happy with the Union Flag, until the time when the First Lady of Scotland decides to remove the blue bits.

[Baldric]

Who cares?

[Mamyalynne]

There may be some it doesn't suit, no reason to ditch it though.

Only people I have personally heard moan about it here is when football fans make the place look untidy - but they take them down eventually.

[Baldric]

Didn't Scotland come to England waving begging bowls in the early 1700s?

[Theland]

Did they?

[Jackdaw33]

Not far wrong, Baldric. 'Scotland, bought and sold for English gold'. BTW, I invented the title of 'First Lady of Scotland' as I think it sounds so much more respectful than 'Wee Burnie' or ''Wee Jimmie'.

[Baldric]

So they did

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhistory/union/intro_union.shtml

The Darien Venture - Scotland’s Thwarted Empire
To fund the company the Scots attempted to raise money on the London and Amsterdam markets, however, William of Orange, under pressure from the East India Company, banned any English investment. The Scots reacted patriotically by raising hundreds of thousands of pounds in capital for the Company, which eventually settled on Darien in Panama as the ideal location for a Scottish colony.
The company hoped to make Darien the trading link between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, across the narrow isthmus of Panama. Founding colonies in the New World was a risky business at the best of times and Darien turned out to be a disease-ridden swamp. The Scots soldiered on but the global politics of Empires ensured its failure. The Spanish laid claim to the area and attacked the Scots colony. William of Orange, who needed the support of Catholic Spain in his Continental Wars, thwarted the scheme by denying the Scots any support from nearby English colonies or from the English Royal Navy.
The financial loss of Scottish capital was colossal and the Scots were outraged that, as Lord Belhaven put it, Scotland’s sovereignty had been trampled under foot by their own king.

[Arksided]

Keep it, I'm proud to fly it every couple of years or so... when a sporting event is on (Usually just the football), it represents the country of where I was born and bred its as simple as that. Some people just like to be offended for the sake of it.

[Baldric]

There really are some sensitive souls about.

[Jackdaw33]

The Act of Union was a little more complicated. The Act of Settlement (1700) limited succession to the throne to the protestant descendants of James I. This, however, did not apply to Scotland. When Queen Anne came to the throne, childless, it was imperative to find a solution lest the Catholic Stuarts be restored in Scotland.

[kvalidir]

It's a flag, it represents our country, we must keep it and make sure it's not hijacked by right wing maniacs who bring unpleasant connotations to it of rabid nationalism and white superiority. That's all. The more moderate people use it the better, because it dis-empowers it as a symbol of anything unpleasant and restores it's proper use. I'm quite happy to fly it.

[Theland]

So what is the proper and improper use of our flag?
Isn't patriotism apolitical? Should it be?

[kvalidir]

Patriotism is fine, rabid nationalism isn't.

[Jackdaw33]

//It's a flag, it represents our country, we must keep it and make sure it's not hijacked by right wing maniacs who bring unpleasant connotations to it of rabid nationalism and white superiority. \\

No it's not, our country is the UK and is represented by the Union Flag.

[Theland]

And England?

[vetuste_ennemi]

Isn't the use of a cross (with all its historical and cultural connotations) on a national standard intrinsically divisive in multi-cultural Britain?

[vetuste_ennemi]

Ah, Baldric. On first Looking into Chapman's Homer.