These St George crosses spray-painted on mini-roundabouts are a sign of everything that’s wrong with our country. I mean – let’s be honest – above all else they’re so bloody shoddy. They’re embarrassingly bad, lads. Whatever statement you thought you were making after three cans of wifebeater and a microwave vindaloo is anyone’s guess, but from here I’d say that if your sense of national identity is so fragile it needs propping up with two red lines sprayed on innocent traffic markings – and so pathetically easily pleased you look at this half-arsed pastiche of a flag and think “Yeah. Job done” – then the problems you’ve got sit rather closer to home than any Great Replacement Theory. Taking a long hard look in the mirror might be a good place to start.
It used to be at least a statue of St George
See, back in your grandads’ day, some old fella wanting to proclaim his Englishness might well have spent weekends and evenings in his shed, building a life-size figure of St George out of matchsticks. He’d have put some effort in. He’d have taken some pride in what he’d done, and varnished it – three coats – because if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing properly. There’d be craftsmanship involved, and he’d get his photo in the paper, standing next to the Lord Mayor in his shirtsleeves and braces, looking slightly uncomfortable about all the fuss, St George rampant in between them. All three of them destined to be wrapping chips next evening.
Or a St George made from begonias
Or maybe the council’s gardening team – because councils had proper gardening teams once, back in the day, before you voted for politicians who sold off everything you owned and threw civic pride (and civic jobs) onto the scrapheap – maybe the council’s gardening team would have created a tableau of St George and the dragon entirely out of bedding plants in one of the city parks, and there’d be another photo in the local paper with the Lord Mayor in his chain pointing towards some particularly significant begonias, while three blokes with rakes stand wooden in the background, and hope no-one recognises them when they’re buying four penn’orth of chips on Friday.
We need standards!
Standards, lads. That’s all I’m saying. Standards. You don’t have to show your pride with flowers. Or matchsticks, though there’s nothing wrong with either. It’s the 21st century and times have moved on. Be creative, imaginative, inclusive. Be as proud as you like. But put a bit of effort in, for the love of God. Put a bit of effort in.
It’s what George – and the dragon, for all I know – would have wanted.
