WHEN UK Conservatives revert to Union Jack idolatry you know they’re trying to conceal something large. An anonymous Chinese savant, quoted in 1937 by the great writer and philosopher Lin Yutang in The Importance of Living, reflected thus: “A man getting drunk at a farewell party should strike a musical tone, in order to strengthen his spirit, and a drunk military man should order gallons and put out more flags in order to increase his military splendour.”

The first presentiments of Operation Put Out More Flags came in the middle of the current lockdown. No Government minister, it seems, must be allowed on television without a hefty, big Union flag standing proudly behind them. The message is unambiguous and unsophisticated: “We’re free from Europe and we invented the covid vaccine. Patriotism is good.”

Will the royal family and the BBC, those other two great British subterfuges, fall in line to complete this Disneyfication of British public life. Expect Sir Keir Starmer, in his new role as Her Majesty’s Leader of the Capitulation to appear soon with a Union flag tie.

While camouflaging the Johnson administration’s acts of piracy on the public purse during the pandemic, Operation Put Out More Flags is also intended to convey a more pro-active message: that the Union is here to stay and the junior partners in the United Kingdom are all the better for it. Where do you think you’re going, Scotland? Get your hair cut.

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The flag policy will now operate north of the Border with the Union flag being hoisted above the saltire on UK Government buildings in Scotland. I’m not sure from whom Boris Johnson is taking advice on how to win friends and influence people in Scotland. If it’s from his old friend, ‘Murray’ Ross, then this would explain it.

Mr Ross is the man who handed his main political foe, Nicola Sturgeon a massive PR boost with his shambolic attempt to bring her down after the Salmond inquiry. What aspect of flying the Union flag on public buildings do Mr Ross and Mr Johnson think will resonate with voters beyond the stauncher neighbourhoods of North Lanarkshire and the hand-shimmying suburbs of Bearsden?

The SNP is currently enduring a prolonged and potentially catastrophic period of bitter internal strife that’s already sprung three offshoot pro-independence parties. No amount of juvenile propaganda by its scarecrow wing on social media can deflect from an edgy truth; that sufficient numbers of undecided voters along with disillusioned Yes supporters may exist to threaten an overall pro-independence majority.

Yet, the presence of the Union flag, representing as it does a set of tarnished values and a history of violent conquest, theft and genocide, tends to make you think about what Holyrood, with all its flaws, still seeks to represent.

Some aspects of the Salmond inquiry made you squirm with embarrassment: the shiftiness of an entire political class represented by the Government and civil service; the unprofessionalism of the Committee of Inquiry; the fact that future female complainants will be discouraged more than they already were from voicing concerns. That Scotland’s Justice Minister, Humza Yousaf, thought it wise to live tweet from proceedings tells you all you need to know about the calibre of what passes for political talent in Scotland right now. The office of Lord Advocate has been compromised to an extent that now requires it immediately to undergo running repairs.

And yet … is there not still something that strives to be noble and decent at Holyrood? This polity is barely two decades old and is still in its toddler stage. Naivete and clumsiness, as well as a political class gathered from the scratchings of local government mediocrity and the municipal conveyancing sector, can invite scorn.

But let’s behold Westminster, an institution of more than 800 years standing which self-identifies as the Mother of all Parliaments. It’s certainly the Mother of all Enrichments. In its recent history this authority has sent us on illegal wars; waged genocide in rural Ireland and the African and Asian sub-continent; concealed and squandered North Sea oil riches to thwart Scottish independence and, thanks to the haplessness of the official opposition, permitted its government to lie shamelessly throughout a lethal pandemic.

The current occupant of the office of Prime Minister thinks that the rapid manufacture of covid vaccines was a triumph of ‘greed’. The Government he leads has exploited coronavirus in the manner of a mafia-run shell company. The Home Secretary is finessing one of the cruellest and most inhumane immigration policies in the civilised world.

Its legislative and executive functions, proclaimed haughtily last week as being superior to Holyrood’s, is routinely bent out of shape by the nibbling of corporate lobbying firms and their billionaire clients. Want to take the sting out of that new tax imposition; no problem, sir; let me invite you to bid a few hundred grand for lunch with the PM. In 2021 the UK parliament is regressing to its medieval state on waves of steam-punk capitalism.

I’ll admit it: Holyrood drives me round the twist. Sometimes it’s unclear if this is a serious chamber or a school for the performing political arts where the offcuts of civic managerialism in bad suits can’t make speeches without notes. They take the paths of least resistance and often resemble middle-class dilettantes with a guilty conscience. Our poorest communities twist in the wind while these grifters obsess about gender reform and hate crime.

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And when they all get together for those big Kleenex moments to make profound speeches about diversity and death they congratulate themselves about how deep and ethical it all was: it’s like congratulating yourself for making it home with the messages intact.

It’s not Westminster though. It doesn’t routinely consign the citizens of poor nations to an obliterated death and will try to hold power to account, if inexpertly and inelegantly. Corruption and deception are not stitched into its lining. There are no military conflicts and no royal fecundity to avert our eyes from malfeasance. Holyrood will settle down in time … if we all keep a close eye on it.

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