Bristol says it has spent about £50,000 taking flags off lamp-posts and railings. That figure does not include the officer hours spent driving out, filling in forms and answering emails about bunting. Somerset puts its bill at a more modest £2,900. Oxfordshire already has the court order. Bristol is considering the same. Breach it, and you are not in a debate about patriotism. You are in contempt.
I have no brief for people who treat a lighting column like a flagpole they forgot to buy. I also have no brief for a legal machine that escalates from “please don’t” to “we may take your car” because a St George cross has been cable-tied to a pole. Fifty thousand pounds is a lot of money to spend proving you own a lamp-post. You could resurface a side street for that. You could buy a lot of actual flagpoles and put them where flags are supposed to go.
The official line is safety, street furniture and cost recovery. Fair enough. A flag in the wrong place is a maintenance job. A High Court injunction is a personality. Once you have one, every cable tie becomes a test of the realm. The people putting the flags up think they are making a point. The people taking them down think they are enforcing a duty. Both sides will now get a barrister, which is how Britain settles an argument about a lamp.
If you would rather fly something on your own property, Amazon will sell you Union Jack bunting. It will not need a cherry-picker. It will not generate a fifty-grand invoice. It will look a bit like a street party, which is what flags used to be for.
I do not expect this to end with everyone calmly using a proper pole. I do expect another council to announce that it has spent a small fortune defending a piece of metal from a piece of cloth. Remember that the next time someone says local government is only trying to keep the streets tidy.
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