Return of the blog
Yes, yes, just as you thought it was safe to enter the blogosphere water, back comes the UKIP London Assembly blog.
Then again, no sooner does the scribe disappear from the Great Glass Egg for a short period than the simmering civil war in UKIP breaks out into the open with threats of secession, a Bosnia or Croatia to the party’s Yugoslavia.
More of that, we hope, in another posting. In the meantime I want to consider flags. Flags do not fly in this country much, because the British, by and large, consider them an embarrassment.
Much was made of the fact that post-Diana, the Queen agreed to fly the Union Flag on Buckingham Palace when she is in residence rather than the Royal Standard. Nowadays, nobody mentions that great “victory for popular feeling”. Everybody is rather ashamed and embarrassed by the stupidity of it all. In truth, what was achieved by that rather peevish demand on the part of the self-appointed spokespersons of the people: journalists in one or two particularly unattractive newspapers?
On the Continent flags fly a great deal more and national flags have a long, usually bloody, but important history of their own.
In Budapest, where I have just been, the Hungarian flag flies proudly everywhere. The red-white-green is a symbol of the country’s difficult and complicated modern history.
This time, however, there was another flag flying: the blue one with the ring of stars. It flies, as in various other countries (though not France, as it happens) on many official buildings, particularly in the centre of the city.
It also flies, quite unnecessarily on the Parliament and two buildings that are symbols of Hungarian nationhood: the Opera and the Academy. Each has important parts of national history attached to it and each is cherished. The EU flag is redundant on them.
The question is what has prompted the Hungarian authorities to insist on this quite unnecessary display of obsequiousness. Is it another manifestation of something the Hungarians have been accused of before: a tendency to go too far, to be, so to speak, more Catholic than the Pope?
Or is it a subtle but determined sign to those who can understand that Hungary has once again surrendered its independence?
Time alone will tell which one it is and what the populace’s reaction will be in, say, five years’ time. On past experience, it is unlikely to be pleasant. There is another flag in Parliament Square: by the new memorial to those who had fallen there in October 1956 there is Hungarian flag with a hole cut out in the middle. Many will remember the pictures of that doomed revolution with hundreds of flags, from which the hated socialist emblem had been cut out or burnt out. Another flag, another symbol.
Then again, no sooner does the scribe disappear from the Great Glass Egg for a short period than the simmering civil war in UKIP breaks out into the open with threats of secession, a Bosnia or Croatia to the party’s Yugoslavia.
More of that, we hope, in another posting. In the meantime I want to consider flags. Flags do not fly in this country much, because the British, by and large, consider them an embarrassment.
Much was made of the fact that post-Diana, the Queen agreed to fly the Union Flag on Buckingham Palace when she is in residence rather than the Royal Standard. Nowadays, nobody mentions that great “victory for popular feeling”. Everybody is rather ashamed and embarrassed by the stupidity of it all. In truth, what was achieved by that rather peevish demand on the part of the self-appointed spokespersons of the people: journalists in one or two particularly unattractive newspapers?
On the Continent flags fly a great deal more and national flags have a long, usually bloody, but important history of their own.
In Budapest, where I have just been, the Hungarian flag flies proudly everywhere. The red-white-green is a symbol of the country’s difficult and complicated modern history.
This time, however, there was another flag flying: the blue one with the ring of stars. It flies, as in various other countries (though not France, as it happens) on many official buildings, particularly in the centre of the city.
It also flies, quite unnecessarily on the Parliament and two buildings that are symbols of Hungarian nationhood: the Opera and the Academy. Each has important parts of national history attached to it and each is cherished. The EU flag is redundant on them.
The question is what has prompted the Hungarian authorities to insist on this quite unnecessary display of obsequiousness. Is it another manifestation of something the Hungarians have been accused of before: a tendency to go too far, to be, so to speak, more Catholic than the Pope?
Or is it a subtle but determined sign to those who can understand that Hungary has once again surrendered its independence?
Time alone will tell which one it is and what the populace’s reaction will be in, say, five years’ time. On past experience, it is unlikely to be pleasant. There is another flag in Parliament Square: by the new memorial to those who had fallen there in October 1956 there is Hungarian flag with a hole cut out in the middle. Many will remember the pictures of that doomed revolution with hundreds of flags, from which the hated socialist emblem had been cut out or burnt out. Another flag, another symbol.
posted by Helen at 1:17 AM
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