After discovering that the Scottish Government spent nearly half a million pounds, over four years, on the purchase of Scottish flags, I thought I'd ping the Department of Culture a quick email to see if I could find out how much the UK Government had frittered away on English flags.

Dear Department for Culture, Media and Sport,

The Scottish Government recently disclosed their spending on Scottish flags over the years 2006-2011.

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/spwrans/?id=2011-02-25.S3W-39237.h

Please provide me with the equivalent data on what the UK Government has spent on procurement of the English flag, the Cross of St George.

I would also be interested to know if you have details as to which agencies, organisations and public bodies the UK Government has distributed English flags.

Yours faithfully,

Their answer:

I have dealt with your request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

After a thorough search of our records, I can confirm that we do not hold any information within the scope of your request. The department has not purchased any St George's flags for itself or to distribute to others in each of the last four years.

If I can be of any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely,

Freedom of Information Team
Public Engagement and Recognition Unit

So when it was revealed that the DCMS spent a grand total of £230 on "putting flags up on St George's Day" the cost was just the cost of physically putting them up, they already had the flags.

The following posted with thanks to the author.

Dear Toque,

I am writing in response to your post "Parliament Grows Two New Flagpoles", made on 18 January. I have made some research, and I have reached the conclusion that the BBC article in question is mistaken. Mr Speaker's statement on the matter, made on 16 December 2009 and quoted in the said article, makes reference to "all three flagpoles on the Estate". The Parliamentary Estate is not synonymous with the Palace of Westminster, but includes all the buildings used by the two Houses of Parliament; although the Palace is under the joint custody of the two Houses, the Commons has sole jurisdiction over the buildings owned or leased by that House alone (such as Portcullis House and the Norman Shaw Buildings). Therefore, the Speaker's decision on the flying of flags applied immediately to all Commons buildings except the Palace of Westminster. To return to Mr Speaker's statement, "in the case of the Victoria Tower, agreement would be necessary with the House of Lords".

Apparently, the Lords agreed, because an Early Day Motion tabled on 29 March by Sir Nicholas Winterton notes that "on 6 January 2010, for the first time in the history of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Union Flag was raised permanently above the Victoria Tower of the Palace of Westminster and now remains in place all day and every day throughout the year; further notes that the two additional flag poles located on the Parliamentary Estate at 1 Parliament Street and Portcullis House now also display the Union Flag at all times and have done so since 28 November 2009". This confirms that there is only one flagpole in the Palace of Westminster, namely the one atop the Victoria Tower.

This fact is further confirmed in the reply to a question in the House of Commons on 10 January 2007 about flying the Cross of Saint George: "The St. George Flag is never flown on the parliamentary estate as each building on the Estate only has one flagstaff."

I hope this has resolved any confusion that might exist about the matter at hand.

Writing in the Guardian, Gary Younge makes a similar point to the one I made yesterday:

For, when England's national team ceases to exist as a viable entity – as it did at the weekend – the nation and, to some extent, its national identity goes with it. Most of the flags that have been brandished these last few weeks will now disappear. When the final whistle blew in Bloemfontein, the ref called time on a 90-minute nation. The flag of St George that was flying over Downing Street on Sunday was replaced by a union flag on Monday morning.

This is what I wrote:

It's not football that our woeful team have deprived us of, many of us will continue to watch and enjoy the World Cup out of a love of football; nor have they deprived very many of us of the prospect of being world champions, for very few of us ever entertained that prospect. No, what our England team have denied us is the opportunity to revel in a national celebration (Downing Street has already replaced the Cross of St George with the Union flag, and as I type England flags across the length and breadth of England are being packed away until next time). Rugby Union and Cricket have been known to unite the nation in patriotic outbursts of Englishry, but it is the unrivalled popularity of football that makes it so important for the movement towards a popular English nationalism. Our team's abject failure is a political set-back for England.

Sadly, ridiculously, pathetically even, I do feel that our team's exit from the World Cup has deprived us - we English - of something more than football. It has deprived us of national camaraderie and the chance to 'wave your flag' without prejudice. It's really only during the World Cup or St George's Day that it's acceptable to fly the Cross of St George, do so at any other time and so-called progressives will judge you to be a racist or, worse, a chav.

So the flags will be squirreled away into the cupboard under the stairs and the Guardian's writers will return to writing articles about the need to reclaim the flag of England from the far-right and, in equal measure, to writing judgemental articles about the motives or class of those that do fly the flag outside the socially accepted dates for doing so. Back to square one. A decent England performance might have moved the nation beyond this apparently intractable cultural stalemate, but alas it was not to be and CEP calls to keep the flags flying will fall on deaf ears or will be ignored by a political class who really would much prefer that England flags were in the cupboard under the stairs.

When I heard that the FA had amended Fabio Capello's contract to commit him to England until Euro 2012, I had a premonition that I would be sat here now typing the word 'why?'

The England team's World Cup performances under Capello has brought shame to the nation. I can't soft-soap it, they are a national embarrassment and an international laughing stock. There are no positives that we can take from South Africa 2010. We played poorly in every game, and yet persisted with the same boring and unpopular system; not one of our supposedly world-class players shone and set the World Cup alight; and the team failed in what should be their primary purpose, to entertain the watching public and make us proud.

When Capello substituted Defoe for Emile Heskey , you could almost feel the whole of England let out a collective national groan. What the fucketty-fuck was Capello doing; was the Italian a fifth columnist? Heskey cannot even get a game for Aston Villa and in my opinion there's no way that he should even be in the England squad, let alone selected ahead of Villa's far more youthful and exciting Gabriel Agbonlahor and Ashley Young. And why, when Heskey has scored 7 goals in 62 England games and Peter Crouch has scored 21 goals in 40 games, was he who could not score in a whore-house given the nod ahead of England's lanky goal-scoring machine? It seemed obvious to me that Wayne Rooney was out of sorts, and by half-time I was screaming for him to be taken off and replaced by Crouch (Defoe and Crouch being a more proven striking partnership). I appreciate that it's a big call for a manager to bring off a player of Rooney's calibre and iconic status, even if he is under performing (in which case why not put Crouch on in place of Defoe and drop Rooney back into the hole alongside Gerrard, with Barry, Lampard and Milner across the middle?), but that is the type of big decision that Capello is paid £5M a year to take, and didn't.

Our other substitutes were equally uninspiring. Joe Cole is an inventive if erratic little player but he's coming back from injury and hasn't been playing well for Chelsea. He should not have traveled to South Africa. Sean Wright-Phillips was brought on at 87 minutes, presumably to inject the pace that England lacked after the substituting of Defoe and the exclusion of Walcott, Young and Agbonlahor, but it was too late to make any difference. At the end of the day - to use the time-honoured footballing idiom - all the Wright-Phillips, Walcotts, Agbonlahors, Youngs and Crouches under the sun probably would not have helped England. We lost the game in the centre of midfield, which was overstretched by the inability of a striking partnership that could not hold the ball (throughout the campaign the ball just seemed to bounce off Rooney), and through the inept pairing of Terry with Upson in the centre of defence. To give them their dues both Upson and Terry gave 100% - it was Upson who rose like a salmon to head the goal that temporarily galvanised the England team - but it is a pairing that did not work and was not given any protection by a disjointed England midfield, and that is a failure of management.

I didn't expect us to win the World Cup, I didn't even expect us to get to the semi-finals. However, I did expect us to play with the passion that every England fan expects from their team in order that we could give ourselves the best possible chance of progressing as far as possible in the competition. Some of the missing passion was evident in the last two games but it was a passion rendered worthless by incoherent tactics and, seemingly, a complete absence of footballing intelligence.

When we failed to top the weakest group, with a performance against Algeria that was the most dismal competitive match that I have ever watched an England team play, we ensured that our route to the semi-final would be as difficult as possible: Germany and Argentina instead of Ghana and Uruguay. Various players and ex-players popped up on our TV screens to say that [at the end of the day] "in order to win the World Cup you have to beat the World's best teams", so it really didn't matter that we had come second. These players and pundits clearly do not understand what the World Cup means to the watching public. We want England to progress as far as possible, we don't want to go out in the last sixteen on the basis that we have to go out sooner or later so it may as well be sooner. We want to participate in the greatest sporting festival on the planet for as long as possible for the pure entertainment of being a part of it, to give our team the chance to lift us and to revel in the joy of flying our politically incorrect flag and celebrating our Englishness. Because for the English each England matchday during the World Cup is an English national day (we alone amongst the competing nations have no public holiday on our national day), an opportunity for a collective, national, celebration of Englishness. It is this nationalistic aspect to England's participation in the World Cup, rather than a hatred of football, that leads Julie Birchill to pray for our elimination and Bruce Anderson to muse upon the end of the Union.

It's not football that our woeful team have deprived us of, many of us will continue to watch and enjoy the World Cup out of a love of football; nor have they deprived very many of us of the prospect of being world champions, for very few of us ever entertained that prospect. No, what our England team have denied us is the opportunity to revel in a national celebration (Downing Street has already replaced the Cross of St George with the Union flag, and as I type England flags across the length and breadth of England are being packed away until next time). Rugby Union and Cricket have been known to unite the nation in patriotic outbursts of Englishry, but it is the unrivalled popularity of football that makes it so important for the movement towards a popular English nationalism. Our team's abject failure is a political set-back for England.

It's impossible for me to articulate the anger I felt when I heard Fabio Capello offer the opinion that "we played well" but I'm sure that millions like me will have felt their blood boil. If he truely believes that we played well, then Capello must be the only man on the planet who does. He has to go because England deserves better, and longer, at the World Cup.

If he doesn't go then, as BBC Radio 5 Live's Alan Green suggests, England should be booed onto the pitch the next time they play at Wembley:

"I hope the players are embarrassed and slink away in misery. And in economy class. But I fear they'll just jet off to Barbados, and it will all be a vague memory to them in a few weeks - unless the English public remind them. They should be booed onto the pitch at the friendly against Hungary in August."

Recommended Further Reading: Alfie, two WAGS and Fabio..... (Waking Hereward)

...I agree with the message of the latest BNP leaflet (or the first page of it at least).

Politicians of England take note, if you don't speak for and to England then other people will. Don't just fly the flag of England for 'the duration of the World Cup', fly the Cross of St George all year around and from every public building in England.

And yes, St George's Day ought to be a public holiday.

The British Government has granted its gracious permission to fly the Cross of St George. In what other country would it be necessary for a Government minister to inform the civil service that they are allowed to fly the national flag?

So, just 48 hours to the kick-off in South Africa, and there is mounting excitement within the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, where minister John Penrose has said that government buildings can fly the St George's flag on England match days.

Yes, that does appear to be a government information film, sadly without Charlie the cat.

The Celtic League have published an email from Tesco Customer Service in Dundee which feeds the mock outrage of 'Cornish crackpots' offended by the sale of England flags in Cornwall.

Dear Mr Chappell

Thank you for your email, which I read with great interest. We at the Tesco Customer Service Centre are based in Dundee, Scotland, and this is a matter which was not known to us here.

I have been looking into some Cornish history since receiving your email, which so far I have found to be very interesting, and I can appreciate your reason for contacting us. Specifically, the use of the St. George flag in Cornish Tesco stores. I can imagine that, if it is seen as a banner of historical oppression, then the use of this flag would not be popular among the Cornish people, just as the use of the St. George flag would most likely cause similar upset in Scotland.

The use of the St. George flag was as a result of a sustained campaign for us to do so, from groups in various parts of England, who desired to know that the food they were purchasing came from England. Similar flag-based labelling is in place in our Scottish and Welsh stores, and it seems as though the Cornish sentiment towards the English flag was not known about, as we certainly wouldn’t want to offend or alienate any group of people in this way.

As we have received a huge number of emails on this subject within the past week, I have been asked to seek further advice on the matter from other parts of the business. I will get back in touch with you with any further information that my colleagues and I are given on the subject.

If you have any further queries please do not hesitate to contact me at customer.service@… quoting…

Kind Regards

Alan McIlvride
Customer Service Manager
Tesco Customer Service
22 May 2010

During the "sustained campaign" by various groups in England for supermarkets to display the England flag on English produce, one leading supermarket mentioned that they do not use the English flag on English produce because market research suggests that Scottish people won't buy produce with an England flag on it. So while we English will happily buy a lump of Cornish yarg, Scottish salmon or Welsh lamb with the appropriate flag stamped upon its packaging, our neighbours are effectively boycotting produce bearing the flag of England (whether consciously or sub-consciously).

"Stronger together, weaker apart".

UPDATE

Apparently Tesco are now branding all their cheeses with the flag of England.

Raise the Flag is an England fans' initiative dreamt up and organised by Mark Perryman and Hugh Tisdale, co-founders of Philosophy Football supported and funded by the Football Association.

In October '97 Mark was at the fateful 0-0 draw in Rome which secured England's automatic qualification for France '98. As kick off approached, missiles thrown at the England end, with the Italian riot police running amok, the home fans created a huge Italian flag with thousands holding up red, white and green cards. This gave Mark an idea...

With Hugh providing the design template the pair approached the FA who despite initial misgivings backed the proposal wholeheartedly. The first 'Raise the Flag' (as it became known) was at England vs Saudi Arabia, June 1998 on t he eve of France '98. We've done 'Raise the Flag' at every England game since and it has become a new England tradition.

The pictures here are of the latest, and biggest, Raise the Flag. A t-shirt on every one of Wembley's 90,000 seats to create two huge St George Cross's, lasting not just the 90 seconds of 'God Save the Queen' but the entire 90 minutes of the game.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
Photography by Simon Green

England Icon (away) T-shirt , as worn by the team of helpers available from Philosophy Football.

To say that I was astonished by this article on the BBC would be something of an understatement.

Three union flags - rather than the current one - are to be flown above Parliament in future.

Commons Speaker John Bercow said the flags would also be used all year round, rather than just on days when Parliament sits, as happens now.

This brings the Palace of Westminster into line with Whitehall departments.

The moves follow a campaign by Tory MP Andrew Rosindell, praised by Mr Bercow for showing "tenacity reminiscent of a Staffordshire bull terrier".

Currently one union flag is flown from the Victoria Tower of the Palace of Westminster, but not the building's other two flagpoles.

It had occured to me previously that England must be the only nation on earth that doesn't have its national flag flying over the parliament that governs it. With this in mind I wrote to the Black Rod's Office and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to ask whether the Cross of St George could be flown over Parliament on St George's Day.

This is the reply I received back in 2004 from a Mr Laurence Street at the DCMS:

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport issues guidance to all Government Departments on the days for flying the Union Flag. These include State Opening of Parliament, Remembrance Day and the Birthday of Her Majesty the Queen and other members of the Royal Family. On St George’s Day all Government Buildings in England that have more than one flag pole, are instructed to fly the Flag of St George alongside the Union Flag, provided the Union Flag is flown in a superior position.

The Houses of Parliament only has one flagpole, therefore the Union Flag is the only flag flown on the appointed flag flying days. Additionally it is not considered appropriate to fly the St George’s Flag on the Houses of Parliament as the UK Parliament is responsible for issues that affect the entire UK and of course is made up of MPs representing constituencies from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as England.

In Scotland, the Union Flag is flown in the superior position on all Government buildings on the appointed days for flag flying, with the Scottish National Flag, the Saltire being flown on buildings with two or more flag poles. The only exception is St Andrew’s Day, when on buildings with multiple flagpoles the Saltire is flown in the superior position to the Union Flag.

That was fairly unequivocal: "The Houses of Parliament only has one flagpole".

Later I was contacted by Sir Paul Beresford, Black Rods Office, House of Lords, who informed me that Parliament had not flown the English flag on St George's Day:

No, the St George Cross was definitely not flown above Parliament on St George’s Day this year. It could have been if we had two flagpoles, we don’t however and the instruction was only to fly the Union Flag on that day.

One of my colleagues in the Campaign for an English Parliament received the following information from the same Laurence Street:

On St George's Day all Government Buildings in England that have more than one flag pole, are instructed to fly the Flag of St George alongside the Union Flag, provided the Union Flag is flown in a superior position.

The Houses of Parliament has only one flag pole, therefore the Union Flag is the only flag flown on the appointed flag flying days. In certain circumstances the Flag of St George can be flow under the Union Flag with a gap of about 30 cm, however this is not recommended and the House authorities do not consider it appropriate on the Houses of Parliament.

And this from David Lammy at the DCMS in the following year, 2005:

On St George's Day the St George's flag is flown on all Government Buildings in England that have more than one flag pole. This is along side the Union flag, with the Union flag in a superior position. The St George's flag is not flown on the Houses of Parliament as it is a Royal Palace and therefore only flies the Union flag and the Royal Standard in line with other Palaces. The Houses of Parliament only has one flagpole, therefore the Union flag is the only flag flown on the appointed flag flying days.

Again, fairly unequivocal: "The Houses of Parliament only has one flagpole".

Funny that Parliament now has three flagpoles, soon all to be flying the Union flag.

On Saturday Manda and I traveled to Wembley Stadium at the invitation of Mark Perryman to help organise 'Raise the Flag'. For those of you who don't want to know the score, please look away now.

Raise the Flag is a fans initiative, supported by the FA, the idea for which came to Mark in Rome, 1997, as a hail of coins rained down on him from the Italian fans.

Italian Ultra supporters - not the usual role models - were holding their flag formation aloft. Mark thought a similar display could be a way to demonstrate the positive side of England supporters.

Now every England home game features Raise the Flag and he hopes it could be a feature in the World Cup.

"It's something you can become part of," he says. "A symbol of pride in your team. A symbol of the fans and the flag coming together."

BBC: England fans raise flag of pride (31 May 2006)

This was my first visit to Wembley since 1999 when a young Michael Owen came on late to score a 90th minute goal in a 6 - 1 thrashing of Lichtenstein. I had been warned that I would be disappointed by the new Wembley Stadium but upon entering the empty arena I have to say that I wasn't disappointed at all. It looked to me to be everything that a modern football stadium should be and everything that the old Wembley - for all it's history and charm - hadn't been.

With our fellow Raise the Flag volunteers we set about strapping concertinard red or white cards to the seats, paying careful attention to the layout so that when they were raised above fans' heads, upon the playing of God Save the Queen, they would form a giant Cross of St George flag.

For me 'Raise the Flag' is not about 'reclaiming the flag' it is about projecting a positive image of support for England, and sometimes extending the hand of friendship to foreign fans. I don't feel that I need to reclaim the flag because it is already mine. True, it is a sad fact that the England flag is used by racists, but national flags are used by racists across the world, not just in England. Racists use them in Scotland and Wales too. The difference is that in Scotland and Wales, to their credit, the governments and civic institutions fly their national flags with pride and do not regard them as the preserve of racists, eccentrics, white-van-man, nationalists or footy fans. In England, by way of contrast, the government is British and so too are most of the civic institutions, and there appears to be a political imperative to NOT fly the English flag; to prevent patriotic identification with England, and even to guard against it.

Even the colossal Wembley Stadium, England's national football stadium, has just one small flag flying outside it.

Raise the Flag is an antidote to this official negativity that surrounds our flag. It is one nation under one flag; it is fun, it is engaging, it is positive, it is inclusive, and it supports our national team. And importantly, it is a bottom-up initiative that comes from the fans and relies on volunteers and 15-odd-thousand fans each matchday in order for it to work.

As for the match? Well, the least said about that the better. It wasn't great but we won. The atmosphere wasn't as good as it could have been, but it was still a far better and more cordial atmosphere than the atmosphere that I remember at the old Wembley. Unlike the bad old days I never heard the Pope or the IRA mentioned once. Unfortunately, what I did hear was the incessant beating of the England band's drum and their repetitious rendition of 'The Great Escape'. Now don't get me wrong, I love the England band, I like drums, and I like the theme to The Great Escape. But please not for 90-minutes non-stop lads, it's a form of music torture that drowns out the traditional spontaneous crowd noise and humour. And please cut out the Rule Britannia too.

Tonight we take on Croatia with the prospect of making Gordon Brown's nightmare a reality: England in the World Cup. C'mon England!