Have you ever been injured by a Union flag? Has one, for example, mugged you at knife-point for your iPhone 16? Or perhaps a gang of teenage Union flags, out of their minds on weapons-grade skunk, have ambushed you as you walk home on your own after dark?
I’m relieved to say that I for one have never suffered any such misfortune. But then, I don’t live in Birmingham. And it would seem that the Union flags up there are an awful lot deadlier than the ones down my way in Kent.
Lately, in England’s second largest city, patriotically minded residents have taken to hanging Union flags from lamp posts – in order, they say, to “show Birmingham and the rest of the country how proud we are of our history, freedoms and achievements”. The Labour council, however, is taking the flags down – because, apparently, they’re “dangerous”. According to a spokesman, “People who attach unauthorised items to lamp posts could be putting their lives and those of motorists and pedestrians at risk.”
To me, at least, this seems a puzzling claim. Still, for the sake of argument, let us assume that these councillors mean well, and that they’re motivated not by Britain-hating wokery, but by an innocent if slightly excessive desire to protect residents’ safety.
Even so, can they really not see how their actions could backfire?
Put it like this. At the meeting where the decision was made, I’d like to think at least one councillor had the sense to say: “Hang on a moment, comrades. Isn’t there just a tiny risk that people might misinterpret this? Across the country there are protests against asylum seeker hotels, public fury about crimes committed by illegal immigrants, and a growing sense that Britain is a tinderbox that would need just the tiniest spark to go up in flames. Against that backdrop, how do we think people will react if they read that a Labour council has ordered the removal of British flags?
“Do we think they’ll all nod, and say, ‘Fair enough. British flags are indeed very dangerous, even when gently fluttering 25 feet above one’s head’? Or will it reinforce their conviction that a) this country is run by people who despise it, and b) they now live in a two-tier society, because, in the very same week, their council has chosen to light up the Library of Birmingham first in the colours of Pakistan’s flag, and then the colours of India’s flag, in order to celebrate the anniversary of those two countries gaining independence from this one?
“Obviously we can’t say for sure. In the current climate, though, I just think it might be wise to hold off. We may think that hanging Union flags from lamp posts is terribly dangerous. But removing them may be more dangerous still.”
In defence of the graveyard ‘fat tax’
Then again, there are times when I feel councils should resist public pressure. Take, for example, this week’s extraordinary row over a graveyard “fat tax”.
Councillors in Wolverhampton were planning to charge hundreds of pounds extra for obese people’s graves – on the grounds that their burial plots have to be wider. But, after an outcry from local people, they’ve backed down. To me, however, the idea seemed perfectly sensible.
As the Telegraph reported in November last year, Britain is running out of room for burial plots as it is. So the wider our graves become, the worse this crisis will grow.
Something must be done to save space – and charging per inch would surely help. Obese people who don’t wish to lumber their families with higher fees will naturally make a greater effort to lose weight. Which, in turn, will make them less likely to need a grave at all. Or at least, less likely to need one so soon. Everyone wins.
Baby talk
Last week the Mirror website reported that a criminal had been handed a two-year suspended sentence. The headline described the criminal as a woman. Beneath that headline, however, was a photograph, showing that the woman in question had pink hair – and a beard.
These days, of course, there’s nothing remotely unusual about Left-wing news outlets referring to male criminals as women, if that is how the criminals say they see themselves. The only reason I draw attention to this particular story is that the criminal, who is 46 years old, also happens to be a self-professed “adult baby diaper-lover”. Apparently, the court was told that such people like to wear nappies not out of any medical necessity, but because they are “regressing” to childhood, in search of a “gentler, more carefree time”.
This intrigued me. Because, if a man who chooses to dye his hair pink must be described as a woman, shouldn’t a man who chooses to wear Pampers be described as a baby?
For the sake of consistency, the Mirror should surely have reported that the two-year suspended sentence had been handed to a newborn baby girl. Stating that a crime committed by an adult was committed by a baby is no more absurd than stating that a crime committed by a man was committed by a woman.
And anyway, it’s important to be inclusive. In due course, I feel sure, our streets will be filled with placard-wielding progressives chanting that adult babies are babies, and calling for the right of every 46 year-old to enrol at his local crèche.
Way of the World is a twice-weekly satirical look at the headlines aiming to mock the absurdities of the modern world. It is published at 6am every Tuesday and Saturday
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