YOU may have noticed Barak Obama.

The President never goes anywhere without the United States flag permanently pinned to his lapel as a badge of pride. Even if the First Lady is straightening his black tie, it's there on his tuxedo and almost invariably Old Glory is in the backdrop to any official photo.

Even if your knowledge of the US is limited to television series such as CSI or Law & Order, you will be familiar with how ubiquitous the Stars and Stripes are in American life, appearing in every classroom and civic office.

Which is why I was dismayed to see the simple elegance of our most ancient of flags beginning to be over-used in our public life, including its adoption as a lapel badge by Government ministers. I always think lapel badges, like woggles, are for Boy Scouts rather than grown-ups; ditto flag obsessions generally.

But if you are going to have flags, you ought to be allowed to use them appropriately.

Not much of a cricket supporter, I attended the World Cup match between Scotland and Bangladesh in 1999 at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh, bumping into the Labour Minister Sam Galbraith, who eyed with evident distaste the Saltire I was carrying, appearing for all the world like the examiner looking at Holden Caulfield's exam paper in the Catcher in the Rye.

I recall thinking Mr Galbraith assumed I was "a Nat" whereas I thought I was at an international sporting fixture supporting Scotland and flags were not a matter of political correctness.

We can only presume that deep down David "Dave" Cameron agrees, as he turned up at the BMX biking event at the Olympics last year fully "Jacked up". Choosing an event that would make him look cool with the kids, he sat next to David Beckham and wore a British Olympics team polo shirt with the Union Flag on the arm before whipping out a larger version of the flag to celebrate a win.

So, when the Prime Minister said this week that the First Minister's brandishing of the Saltire last Sunday "didn't feel right" because it was "a day for sport, not politics" he was talking out the back of his Team GB polo shirt.

The real difference is that when Dave tries to play the punter he may not necessarily fool everyone. We know he is a posh Etonian.

Alex Salmond, on the other hand, has the priceless political gift of being able to transcend class – happy to make his voice a little more fruity as he debates with the London media elite or Nobel prize-winning economists as First Minister Salmond one minute, but effortlessly carrying off his role as Eck, tribune of the people with a voice from the terraces, the next.

His accents shifts around too, as befits the kind of everyman you get in towns the size of Linlithgow, where most folk send their bairns to the same school. But get this: it's easier for those of us with a working-class accent to posh up to our telephone voice than the opposite.

For Mr Salmond, it's one thing fewer to worry about as he effortlessly slips down the social register to speak to punters in their own language. When he goes on the stump in the next year, as he did in the Black Isle yesterday, it helps.

Whether at Hampden as a genuine football fan, or taking part in a pro-celeb golf match, what you see with Mr Salmond is what you get, and his chippy performance with the Saltire at Wimbledon is what you would expect.

As for the pledge by the hero of the hour, Andy Murray, to let us know his views on independence, my most friendly of advice would be not to bother. He took years to live down an innocent throwaway comment that he would be supporting "anyone but England" before a football World Cup.

I would welcome his views on the merits of the sliced backhand but I see no reason why his view on Holyrood taxation would be relevant, especially as his sponsors, advisers and other sundry money men may not want him to tell the truth. Keep it to yourself, Andy.