More English flags in your area?

[GhostFromTVF]

Travelled to York today (last went in December), and on the way there (about an hour and a bit journey) noticed several lampposts had England flags clipped on them. Seen a few pop up recently in my local area as well, and there’s several reports about this happening in relation to the anti-migrant protests (example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c626vxyxgj6o).

Has this trend been happening where you live?

[Martin Phillp]

Nothing of the sort in my part of London, but is diverse compared to some of the areas where the trend has been happening.

[cwathen]

Lots of zebra crossings and a mini roundabout have red crosses painted onto them near where I live. TBF it's just going to be a couple of angry people who did all the lot not quite sure what they're angry about but who think they represent a majority view because a couple of other angry people in a lot of other areas did the same thing and so it gets all over social media.

[Nick Harvey]

Lots of mini roundabouts and other white bits of road have been painted in Wiltshire, but little sign of flag flying. Wiltshire Council is having a hissy fit and sending out press releases saying that the council tax payers will have to pay for the red to be painted over.

[m-in-m]

That is the reality though. Highly cash strained council's will have to do the clean up and they can't recover this by increasing council tax if they are already at the maximum so there will be a further reduction in services.

[DavidWhitfield]

I think this 'phenomenon' is much more prevalent in some parts of the country than others, and personally, here in the north east of England, I haven't noticed a great deal of difference.

Patriotism generally is perfectly valid, but painting roundabouts is a step too far in my view as it equates to defacing public property, which I can't condone, however justifiable the painter considers their actions.

I have noticed that more people seem to be flying the St George's flag out of windows and in their gardens, which I don't see an issue with.

[Dr Lobster*]

It is funny how local councils can find the money to paint over a few red crosses on the mini roundabouts, but not fix all the potholes around them

[Critique]

It is funny how local councils can find the money to paint over a few red crosses on the mini roundabouts, but not fix all the potholes around them

I've always thought this to be quite a weak retort when it comes to this issue - the cost of repainting white lines etc must be less than that of fixing a pothole, although surely neither activity is financially ruinous!

Whilst I disagree with the idea that painting red crosses on things is immediately criminal vandalism, I can understand the need for them to be removed. Very rarely are these budding sign-writers incredible artists, so their work frequently looks pretty awful. As a society, accepting that we just have to live with half-arsed attempts at flags all over the place wouldn't be a good thing.

[cwathen]

Whilst I disagree with the idea that painting red crosses on things is immediately criminal vandalism, I can understand the need for them to be removed. Very rarely are these budding sign-writers incredible artists, so their work frequently looks pretty awful. As a society, accepting that we just have to live with half-arsed attempts at flags all over the place wouldn't be a good thing.

I do wonder if councils immediately starting to publicly talk about the cost of removal is a bit unnecessary.

What we're dealing with is a small number of people convincing a slightly larger, but still small, number of other people to play to their pre-conceived biases and believe they are taking part in a mass protest against immigration in order to *SAVE ARE KID'S*. The idea that this groundswell of apparent sudden patriotism is somehow not linked to that is being rather disingenuous, and I see no reason to pretend otherwise.

So how permanent are these makeshift flags? Not very. It's not like much time or money was spent on implementing them. Where I live, exposure to the sun, cars driving over them and one day of rain is already naturally erasing them! One that I drive over every day was bright red less than a week ago and is already faded pink. A sensible council would be aware of not playing into their hands, would just leave it for a few weeks to see what happens and then quietly deal with the rest. Which I suspect in most cases means the existing markings can be cleaned up, and not that a line-painting crew needs to be sent out to redo them.

Councils going all council and suddenly talking about the plight of the poor impoverished taxpayer having to foot the bill for immediate repainting work is not helpful, and will only increase the chances of further such daubings appearing.

[thegeek]

There's a lot of Saltires going up round some parts of Glasgow, which we assume are part of the same protest.

[dosxuk]

It is funny how local councils can find the money to paint over a few red crosses on the mini roundabouts, but not fix all the potholes around them

From the quality of the crosses I've seen, it's less finding money to paint over them, and more finding a spare slot in the street cleaner schedule to run over the marks once.