 Between now and 2024, we can expect to see many Tory MPs soil themselves in public as they try to show their undying commitment to the British flag. Few, though, will likely top this pathetic intervention by the MP for north-west Norfolk, James Wilde, during a session of the Commons Public Accounts Committee. He made this odd challenge to BBC Director-General Tim Davy. I just wanted to touch on, there was a bit of discussion about flags last week, and I think in your own report last year, 268 pages. Do you know how many union flags featured in any of the graphics in those rossy pages? Of all the briefings that I got for this meeting, that was not one of them, I'm afraid. Did you care to take it again? I had no idea. Where's zero? Do you find that surprising? No, I think that's a strange metric. I have to say, one of the things I looked at when I came into the building this morning was a Union Jack flying proudly on Broadcasting House, which it does on many, many, many days of the year. I have travelled around the world, championing the UK. I sit on the private sector council for the great campaign. I don't think there's any problem with the BBC in terms of championing the UK and Britain abroad. We're incredibly proud of it. If you do wander up Regent Street today, then have a look at the Union Jack flying proudly on top of the BBC. Always good to see the Union Jack flying. I was just thinking of a report of 268 payers about the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation. My constituents will expect to see probably more than one flag appearing. I just said it's a metric. Okay, well, you may not, but license fee payers may be. And the great campaign you mentioned, I think the Union Jack, which is pretty prominently at that. In a report you published last week, the BBC across the UK. Again, how many images were there of the Union Jack in that? Well, I could hazard a guess based on where the question is going, but I haven't looked. Yeah, again, it was none. So maybe in the annual report for this year, perhaps you could include some imagery around the Union flag. Right, these are people who are elected to be the political authority in this country. We're in the middle of a pandemic and that two minute questioning. He really thought he had him there as well. He was like, ah, I've got him. I've got him here. He's not going to be able to wiggle out of this one. A whole 280 page report without a single Union Jack on it. Also, it's the Commons Public Accounts Committee. So the job of these MPs is to scrutinize people on how public money is spent. Very important job. There's actually quite a lot of things they could have thought about over the past year, potentially the £37 billion which has been earmarked for test and trace, much of it going into the pockets of corporate lobbyists, right? But no, he's spent his time flicking through 280 pages of the BBC's annual report and found that there aren't any Union Jacks. I mean, at this point, I feel like I need to just get a full Union Jack tattoo just to be safe. I feel like it's also highly telling that the very people who have crowed the absolute loudest about cancel culture and snowflakes and free speech came to be so invested in these concepts. The very people who are now on fucking police patrol about the size and number of flags in random places that no one has even asked about. And don't bring your constituents in there. I guarantee your constituents are not as annoying as you are. So don't even try blaming this on them. But this tells us a lot of what we already knew, right? Which is that firstly that a lot of that kind of free speech, snowflakey stuff was, as it has been mobilized by the right over the past several years, is actually has been not much more than a Trojan horse to basically try and restrict and stigmatize particular kinds of speech and not just speech, but actually in some cases just the mere existence of certain individuals whilst trying to kind of discipline various institutions and people into towing a particular line and into co-signing, increasing these sort of reactionary pieces of legislation that are done in the name of patriotism and whatever. And these kinds of the duality of this kind of like shoving literally sort of shoving flags down our throat with these kind of models of legislation that we touched on in the beginning of the show, which really talk about models of belonging and ideas of what it means to belong and belonging, which is essential for accessing basic needs. Not only is it narrowing and narrowing and narrowing, but it's making life really inhospitable for those who fall outside of it. And, you know, in many ways, I think a lot of this sort of increased paranoia and sort of, you know, policing about flags, it's coming from a place of insecurity. In the book recently published by myself and six other incredible scholars, Empires Endgame, we talk about the particular political and cultural effects of imperial decline on internal British politics, on how the loss of a particular international role played by Britain in the world, and not to say that, you know, imperialism doesn't exist anymore, but, you know, the particular form that imperialism takes and how it exercises its power has changed. But the sense of decline of feeling that, you know, the world is no longer under the boot of the British state, as it was at one point, leads to these kinds of, you know, nationalistic like convulsions, which lead to these obsessive attachments to things like a flag, because there's not much else to attach to. And I think it's also being accelerated by the fact that the union in the Union Jack is very much in decline. It's at the most fragile that it's been for a very long time. You know, the S&P is the largest party in Scotland. It's not going to change anytime soon. Support for Irish reunification and Scottish independence are both, you know, above 50%, especially amongst younger people and younger generations. So it's a problem that's only going to get worse for the British state. And even 40% of people in Wales support Welsh independence. So, you know, with these kind of numbers and the fact that it's happening at that younger generational level, I think that, you know, that is kind of what's about that insecurity is partly what's driving this very desperate scramble to put on a front of strength and unity. And this is the kind of frivolous side of it. But the more terrifying side of it is the kind of huge displays of state power. Being wielded in order to show the strength and the kind of the efficacy of the state. And this is these these big displays of power are done, you know, as we mentioned in the beginning of the show, against asylum seekers, they're done against, you know, people of colour, they're done against working class people. So there's kind of like a frivolous funny side that there's also a kind of darker underside to that kind of national insecurity, which I think is why we're seeing this kind of pageantry being becoming more and more a cause of scrutiny in the public sphere. I think we've got an example of one of each of those, one being a bit cynical and one being silly, although I mean, maybe some of you will find them both both cynical. The cynical one is that this peer pressure from backbench Tory MPs and certain pundits on the television seems to be having an effect and beyond the Tory benches. So news this week, the BBC has reported that the hosts of BBC Breakfast, Charlie State and Nagam and Chetty, they have been spoken to and reminded of their responsibilities after complaints about comments made about Tory ministers doing all their interviews in front of ever growing Union Jack flags. And I say that's sinister because I mean, people people on the left disagree, there's people disagree with me about this, but I don't find it that offensive when politicians have Union Jacks next to them, I think it's kind of to be expected. If you want to be the leader of a country, you're probably going to have to show that you have some affection towards it. But what I find is incredibly sinister is this pressure for everyone to do the same. So if you are to make a joke about the Union Jack, if you personally don't feel comfortable standing in front of a Union Jack, then suddenly that casts you out for suspicion. I find that incredibly sinister. And I come from this, as I say, my position is we should just be more relaxed about flags, whether someone has one, whether someone doesn't want, I think everyone could do with just being a bit more relaxed about flags. But we're getting to quite a sinister place where you have to apologise or be reminded of one's responsibilities if you make a joke about flag. The news, which I think is more silly, although potentially it could be more consequential, we have the announcement of a new government policy today. I'll bring up a tweet from ITV's Paul Brand. The UK government has asked for the Union Jack to be flown on all UK government buildings every day of the year from now on. Currently, Union flags are only required to be flown on all UK government buildings on designated days. The guidance will ask for the flag to be flown all year round, unless another flag is being flown, such as another national flag of the UK. Paul Brand says this is a clear attempt to assert the Union. Culture Secretary Oliver Doudin has also today described the flag as a proud reminder of our history and the ties that Bind does. Now, that's actually quite telling that quote, because you say this is a reminder of the ties that Bind does. And clearly, as Dalia mentioned there, from this push from the government is partly because they're a bit worried about the strength of the Union. You've got a majority of people in Poles being shown to be in favour of Scottish independence. Actually, the movement for Welsh independence is growing quite a lot of strength, and the movement for Irish unity is also on the up and large part, thanks to Brexit. So, there's real concerns in Westminster that the Union could break down. That would really undermine a big part of the Conservatives' raise in debt for their reason for being. They're called the Conservative and Unionist Party. If all these constituent parts of the UK decide to go it alone, Boris Johnson doesn't really want to be the Prime Minister who presides over that. He doesn't want that to be the main thing next to his name in the history books. And what's a bit pathetic is that their biggest plan to stop that happening seems to be to fly the British flag in more places. Now, I'm not sure if anyone in Scotland is going to think, oh, I was for independence, but now because I've walked past a Union jack every time I go past a town hall every day, that now means that actually, no, no, maybe I do feel proud of my country and maybe I will vote remain in the UK. If that's all they've got, the Union is not lasting long.