Why I Support Scottish Independence

January 2012, after the prospect of the Scottish Independence referendum was raised

With the issue of Scottish independence looming again, the question of the flag has come up. I really like the Union Jack. I think it’s an ace flag. But The Sun have mocked-up a version of how it might look without Scotland. I’m not impressed. First of all the airbrushing is clumsy, and secondly the Irish cross should be centred in each quadrant without the white, Scottish one competing for the space.

But mostly, I think it lacks imagination. Let’s bring Wales into the fold. This would seem an obvious start:

I quite like that. But then I discovered that Wales has a back-up flag, so we could have this rather dangerous number:

Who’s going to mess with the United Kingdom with that flying from our castles? That’s a flag you do not fuck with.

Better still, Northern Ireland has more flags than a Republican fundraiser, so if the above is considered too intimidating, we could go with this:

While I can think of no more British act than our current practice of voluntarily not having a dragon on our flag when we’re plainly entitled to one, I can think of no legitimate reason why we shouldn’t have a dragon playing a titty-harp as our national standard.

I challenge anyone to design a better flag for anything.