Letters: Flaying flags in New Forest town a sad devaluation

THE Union Flags that were surreptitiously put up along the High Street and on The Quay are a sad devaluation of the value of our nation’s flag.

My late father was a senior general officer in the British Army who spent his working life seeing the flag as a representation of everything he and our nation quietly believed in and fought for.

He was surprised to find on his first visit to a certain country where flags were flown everywhere, daily, that the national flag had become a very ordinary thing noticed by nobody, instead of something very special to be put out only on flag days. And thereby losing their value. Let us not allow this to happen to our Union Flag.

In Lymington, however, many of the flags were put up hanging upside down by those who do not know about the Union Flag. As all the old patriots know, the Union Flag hanging upside down is the sign of a very serious emergency needing immediate attention.

Misunderstanding the intention in the flying of the Union Flag is indicative of a serious political emergency which needs to be solved urgently.

Name and address supplied

* * * * *

DEREK Eddlestone (A&T Letters 26th Sep) asks us to wave a flag for democracy – is this in joy or goodbye?

It is perhaps, as someone once said, the least worst system of government. But it is not without its problems. In the past Hitler came to power via a democratic vote when he discovered that force wouldn’t work

Far right parties are advancing in Europe. Alternative for Germany polled 33% of the vote in recent national elections, while in France Marine Le Pen’s National Rally Party had a landslide win in the June 2024 European Union parliamentary elections with 31.4% of the vote.

Meanwhile in this country we have Nigel Farage leading comfortably in the poles. There is much here to fear from democracy at work as the majority is not always right.

So how do we fix things? I have no idea but a present day philosopher suggests that we go back to monarchy of a non-constitutional style. Now there’s a thought – King Charles lll… I’m not sure

Peter Green

Bartley

* * * * *

YOUR correspondent Mr Eddlestone (Letters 26th Sep) makes a number of points in response to Mr Ellis that are valid as far as they go.

But they miss the point that Mr Ellis was, perhaps clumsily, trying to make.

These flags only started appearing in such numbers after energetic activity by the thug Stephen-Yaxley Lennon and some less than savoury pronouncements by Messrs Farage and Tice.

Let us not try and dress this up, Mr Eddlestone. The message being sent is ‘If you are not ‘of this flag’, you are not welcome’.

For those of foreign heritage, no matter where from, this is, no doubt intentionally, at best, uncomfortable.

Les Mondry-Flesch

Lymington