The Government has spent more than £163,000 on Union Flags in two years as part of its drive to promote pride in the national symbol.
That figure, spent in 2020 and 2021, amounts to 85 per cent of flag purchases over the preceding four years.
Data reported by a newspaper outlet noted spending had risen in practically every Whitehall department since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister.
The Department for Digital Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) spent £54,420,89 last year alone as worn-out flags were replaced.
The Ministry of Defence has forked out £118,000 on flag purchases since the start of 2018.
The Cabinet Office has spent more than £3,000 since the start of 2018, with just under £2,000 of that funding the purchase of eight flags in the most recent fiscal year.
The figures, revealed by Freedom of Information Act requests, found the Treasury had spent almost £1,000 on Union Flags since 2018, including three this year for a cost of £607.06.
The Department for Transport has spent £1,100 since 2018, including £700 last year. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spent £90.05 on the flags this year, with no history of purchases in other recent years.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy spent £392 this year and last, nothing in the years before, while the Department for Work and Pension spent £1,045 in the last three years.
The Department for International Trade spent £653.05 this year and last.
The Department for Education spent £134 in 2019, the Wales Office has spent £824 since 2018. This included £597.50 in 2020-21 and the same amount again on Welsh flags.
Robert Colls, professor of cultural history at De Montfort University, told a newspaper outlet that he thought that what they’re seeing at the moment from the Government is a kind of pushback against devolution and threats to the Union.
In March, the DCMS issued new guidance, calling for the flag to be flown every day above Government buildings.
At the time, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said the flag was a proud reminder of our history and the ties that bind us, and that people rightly expect it to be flown above UK Government buildings.
Housing, Communities and Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick at the time wrote to all councils in England in a bid to encourage them to fly the flag on their buildings.
The move also allowed dual flagging, where two flags can be flown on one flagpole.
Exemptions apply when other flags, such as national flags of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, county flags or other flags to mark civic pride, are flown.
It’s odd how there’s always money for meaningless gestures like this, or a quarter of a billion for a vessel for the Royals that they don’t need, but money never goes for things that matter to the preponderance of the country, like proper social care or feeding school children, or providing relief for our ex-soldiers or the homeless.
And of course, we appear to have the money for illegal migrants and putting them into 4-star hotels. If we have the funds for that, then we have the money to pay out for decent social care et cetera, but surely buying a few flags should be at the bottom of the list.
And boats costing hundreds of millions and flags are no good when the government are making you sell your home to pay for your care home later on in life.
We have lost our once magnificent country, and any pride we had is now gone, and it’s shameful the way we’ve become a ruthless, crime-ridden nation, and we’re being treated with disdain and ridicule, and now it appears that it now pays better to be a life long shirker, not a worker.
