Right-wing media watch: Flag fury once again consumes the right

The right-wing media was in uproar this week after it emerged that a council in Shropshire intends to prosecute people who attach Union Flags and St George’s flags to lampposts without permission.

“Fury erupts at council vowing to prosecute ‘illegal flags’ on lampposts,” headlined the Express.

The proposal, introduced by Liberal Democrat-run Shropshire Council, followed what the Express itself described as a surge in threats, harassment and intimidation directed at residents, contractors and councillors. Council workers had been tasked with removing unauthorised displays amid mounting health and safety concerns.

At a council meeting, officials explained that removing illegally attached flags is neither part of normal council business nor a statutory service, meaning the work creates additional costs for both the authority and taxpayers.

Despite the context, the Express framed the issue as an assault on patriotism, noting how campaigners from Raise the Flags Shrewsbury Plus had “hit back” by offering to maintain and remove damaged flags themselves at no cost to the public purse.

According to organisers, the council’s refusal of that offer proved the crackdown was ideological rather than financial.

The campaign itself is funded through thousands of pounds raised via GoFundMe, another detail presented as evidence of supposedly widespread grassroots anger.

The Telegraph, meanwhile, drafted in the reliably vexed Sir John Hayes, Conservative MP for South Holland and The Deepings, who declared he could see no reason for the flags to be removed “whatever the weather.”

“Flags fly best in strong winds,” he told the paper. “Unless there was imminent risk of the lamp posts collapsing, I can see no reason to take them down. Flags flutter in the wind.”

Hayes then pulled out the patriotism card.

“People will be suspicious,” he warned, “that those councillors who have self-doubt and a dubious amount of patriotism will find any excuse to take down the Cross of St George and the Union flag.”

The story follows an earlier right-wing meltdown of a council being forced to spend more than £7,000 removing dozens of flags from lampposts.

GB News denounced the expenditure as a “pointless waste,” despite the fact the flags had been placed there without permission and required specialist removal. The broadcaster enlisted Callum McGoldrick of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, who declared that “Aberdeen council bosses should hang their heads in shame.”

But the contradiction at the heart of these stories is blinding. Councils are condemned if they spend public money removing unauthorised installations, yet equally condemned if they attempt to deter people from putting them up in the first place.

What is presented as a debate about patriotism is, in reality, a dispute about whether local authorities should enforce basic rules governing public property and safety. Lampposts are not community noticeboards, nor are they exempt from regulation simply because the objects attached happen to be national flags.