Flagging

Maybe it's like when you get a new car and you start being aware of cars just like yours wherever you look. Maybe it's because we're in very real danger of losing this iconic symbol of the United Kingdom, and of losing the UK itself, forever. Or maybe it's because there actually are more of them around at the moment. I am noticing Union flags all over the place - and not just on Regent Street in central London, but everywhere else I travel to as well.

I shall be very glad when the Scottish independence referendum is over. The endless, repetitive, and ultimately useless speculation by the media over what the result will be on Friday morning is enough to drive a person quite mad. The result will be what it will be, and everyone will have to accept it and work with it. I had to switch off the TV this evening in disgust at the carnival-style atmosphere that's been coming across, with all the flag-waving and balloons and stickers. This referendum is an extremely important and far-reaching business, but you wouldn't guess it from some of the pantomime antics on the streets which we've been seeing on our screens. The problem is, not actually being there in the Scottish towns and cities, it's hard to know if that's really what it's like or if it's just for the cameras, and all the voters are actually taking it very seriously. I find it perplexing. And, along with countless numbers of ordinary people living in the rest of the UK, I am actually feeling quite angry that the fate of 64.1 million British citizens now lies in the hands of less than a million "undecided" residents in Scotland. I feel we are being made to pay for a political system in Westminster that the majority of other British people don't want any more than the Scottish do.

Sorry if this offends any readers, but we are fortunate and privileged to have freedom of speech in this country, this journal is my space to comment in, and that's the way I see it.