Politics and Flag-flying in Calne

We recently had the privilege to yet again be invited to the Calne Town council Mayor-making ceremony. It seems a good indication of how acceptable the party has become in the main stream political arena when such an invitation is received and this for the third year at that.

This year was slightly different, however, as I was seeing Councillor Baggs become Mayor Baggs. Yes, the name may be familiar, as it is my Auntie Mercy who received the mayoral chain and become appointed to this office for the next year. The Town Hall was full with invited guests and local dignitaries and the ceremony was quite formal opening with prayers by the local vicar. The out-going mayor, Roy Golding, an ex-Conservative, now Independent spoke about how his year had gone and incoming mayor, Mercy Baggs, ex-UKIP, now Independent, spoke about her vision for the year to come.

All but 2 Town Council members attended dressed in ceremonial gowns and despite any potential political friction, acted in the way elected officials should, in a dignified and respectful manner. This shouldn’t come as a surprise however as I have been told time and time again that, once elected to the council chamber, party politics are put aside and the interests of the local community come first. However, it was of interest that, despite this being one of the most important council events of the year, two councillors, Councillor John Ireland and Councillor Dave Bland tendered apologies for non-attendance. It may have been a co-incidence that both of these councillors could genuinely not attend but it is certainly no co-incidence that both belong to UKIP and are responsible for local efforts to ensure the Union Flag is flown from the Town Hall continually and causing heated debate amongst the locals as a consequence – my blog of Monday 18th February gave details of how this began.

Nationalists reading this are probably thinking that these are the sort of chaps this country needs as councillors and I would agree that the flying of the Union Flag from all national and local government buildings should not be open to debate but should occur without question. It seems all other countries quite rightly fly their own flags with pride so why not us, there is after all, little that is done any more to engender a sense of national pride in Britain.

However, this flag flying campaign needs to be put into the right context. Firstly, both Councillors Ireland and Bland started the flag campaign in early 2008. It is interesting then that Councillor Ireland became a councillor in 2002 and Councillor Bland in 2004, a good 5 and 3 years earlier respectively! So this wasn’t a case of taking this stand as soon as they became councillors but several years later but coincidently a couple of months before the May local elections. So, it seems that, whilst attempting to appeal to those who have a pride in their race and nation, they are simply using this issue, as a cynical attempt to garner support for their election campaigns. Consequently, other local councillors have seen through their plan and voted against this.

On a similar note, there was a report in the local papers regarding a local lad who whilst driving his car around his home town of Melksham, was routinely stopped by the police for a check. On seeing the lad had a Cross of St George flag laid out over his parcel shelf, as I myself have done, he was told by the police officer to remove it as it was racist and would upset immigrants.

I think it is about time that all British people made a stand by flying the flag as a show of pride and also as an act of defiance against the attempts by this Stalinist regime to ride roughshod over the rights we fought two World Wars to preserve.