The Scottish Saltire Relegated By Labour & Tory Alliance

Scotland’s national flag, the Saltire, will take a junior role in the display of flags at Falkirk Council HQ following a decision by the Labour Tory Administration to relegate the 1,200 year old flag of our country into second place behind the Union Flag.

Initially there was laughter when council leader Linda Gow (Labour) said that the report to council proposing the daily flying of the Saltire as the subordinate flag was not her idea. On prompting it was revealed the idea was that of Tory Malcolm Nicol to the claim that “the Tory tail was wagging the Labour dog again.”

There was also laughter when SNP leader asked which Union Flag was to be flown, “the union flag of the European Union that had preserved European peace since 1945 or the Union Flag that had taken Scots troops into illegal wars”

Of course the narrow British national lists within the Tory and Labour Parties would never allow any international flag to be flown from Falkirk’s buildings.

An SNP amendment to let the people of Falkirk district decide was defeated by 18 votes to 13, once again robbing people of their opportunity to have an input into council decisions.

Moving the SNP amendment group leader, David Alexander said,

“A few years back there was a series of correspondence in the Falkirk Herald pressing for flags to be flown from the Municipal Buildings.

I said at that time that this was not a high priority as we were to busy building new schools, developing new business and expanding existing business, regenerating our town centres and breathing new life into communities neglected by New Labour for the last 30 years.

Clearly this current do little alliance of Conservative and Labour members have more time on their hands.”

The reasons why the unionist bedfellows would not allow the general public a say is obvious. In the most recently published poll of national identity 73% of Scots said they felt more Scottish than British therefore any proposal to have the Saltire relegated to second place would be rejected out of hand if Labour or the Tories gave a jot about local opinion. However, like in the issue of consultation over many issues the pattern is obvious, they will run a mile.