Why has Gordon Brown stopped flying the flag? – Telegraph Blogs

Saturday 15 March 2014 | Blog Feed | All feeds

David Hughes


Why has Gordon Brown stopped flying the flag?

Today's announcement from Speaker Bercow that the Palace of Westminster will in future fly three Union flags all the time – rather than a single flag flown only when Parliament is sitting – sounds to me like overkill. It makes sense to have the flag flying at all times, as in other public buildings, but three of them? What are they trying to say? That Parliament is really, really, really British? The announcement is also a reminder that Gordon Brown's great crusade when he became Prime Minister was to be Britishness. Remember the speeches? The passion of his commitment to the Union? He even called on people to start flying the Union flag in their own gardens. Like many of his schemes, this has not proved a conspicuous success. And the PM has simply stopped talking about the issue that was supposed to be most dear to him. Why should that be? Could it have anything to do with the clobbering he received for his stupendously  ill-judged party conference pledge to secure "British jobs for British workers"?  After that fiasco, he no doubt concluded that banging on about Britishness may not be such good politics af ter all.

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