Sunday 10 June 2012

A better flag for Wales...

... and the Union.

Blue could disappear from the Union Jack if Scotland becomes independent, writes Jason Allardyce in today's Sunday Times ....


An adviser on heraldry to the royal household said he personally found it hard to envisage the flag continuing in its current form, given that the colours represent Britain’s constituent parts. It means the flag, created in 1606 on the orders of King James I of England — James VI of Scotland — to mark the union of the crowns, could lose the diagonal white cross of St Andrew with its blue background.
Clive Cheesman, Richmond Herald at the College of Arms, said: “The story of the make-up of the Union flag is so well known that it would be difficult to plough on with it if Scotland were to sever [ties] completely with the UK.”

The flag combines the crosses of the three countries united under one sovereign — England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, although since 1921 only Northern Ireland has been part of the UK.
Neither the Welsh cross of St David nor the Welsh dragon appears because Wales was already legally incorporated into England when the flag was created. Welsh Labour MP Ian Lucas has lobbied for the red dragon to be included.

Lord Forsyth, the Conservative former Scottish secretary of state, said last week’s diamond jubilee celebrations might be “the last time we . . . see red, white and blue on the Mall”.

Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, decreed that the royal standard of Scotland, rather than the Union Jack, should fly over Scottish government buildings during the jubilee weekend.

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