Dean Eggleman (letters, 22 April) extols the virtues of flying the Union Jack, and links it to “finding our common ground”, which he exemplifies as “the armed forces, the NHS, (and)our welfare system”. He praises John Hayes in that connexion.
How very odd! The Conservative Party, from the time of Mrs Thatcher, has worked tirelessly to run down those very services, and has had the constant support of John Hayes in doing so. The NHS, for instance, just before the pandemic, had – through cumulative reductions via failure to keep up with the effects of inflation and other impacts – been so run down that its funding in real terms was some tens of percentage points lower than in pre-Thatcher times, with a shortage of 100.000 staff and ever extending waiting times.
Just before the pandemic, the NHS had dropped to a lower number of beds relative to the size of the population than any comparable country in Europe.
Similar examples could be given for the other services, not to mention the justice system, which now has waiting time for trials running to a numbers of years; and Spalding lost its magistrates court as part of the Conservative run-down.
Of course, waving the flag, along with singing Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory, is cheap and easy, but real national pride would be shown by working for excellent public services, not to mention the restoration of the badly neglected public estate. And it wouldn’t hurt to reward NHS and similar staff appropriately for their extraordinary efforts and self-sacrifice during the past year. (What! We gave them a clap, didn’t we, and keep telling them they’re heroes: what more do they want?)
Many English people appear to think that the Union Jack is the flag of England. During the war, a much loved song was “There’ll always be an England”. It nowhere mentioned the other countries of the Union, but part way through had the lines “Red, White, and Blue, What does it mean to you?” appropriating the flag for England.
Similarly, Dad’s Army, whose title song refers only to England, exhibits the Union Jack along with the song. I liked the wartime song (I’m that old) and I like Dad’s Army, but these examples illustrate that an unwonted arrogance can go along with the flag.
Flag waving is not a substitute for real pride!
John Tippler
Spalding
