You’ve never said a truer word. Seeing as that is pretty much the only context I see it in, lies the root of my attitude to it.
Nice flag, shame about the people who choose to fly it (by which I mean scary Loyalists, bovver boys etc, not the people waving it at church fairs in the home counties).
I’d like to think that at least some of the Britons displaying their flag are doing so from a love of their own country rather than an animosity towards others. But I’m no expert on social nuances in the UK, so I’ll take your word for it.
Some Australians find this offensive. It doesn’t particularly worry me. But I’m not really a flag person.
In Northern Ireland the Remembrance Day poppy can be used to that effect :rolleyes: Going up to my girlfriend’s place or coming into Belfast in the bus there are all the murals that let us know that the same sort of people who went over the top in WWI are the same people shooting dead catholics in the 1970s and 80s :smack:
So while I find it inoffensive and look on it as part of my country of origin the same way I see a government in Westminister and the NHS as part of that country, it can be twisted. As any symbol can be, what if the same question had been asked of the Swastika in the 1930s?
No, but I would have thought you read newspapers or watched the BBC news once in a while… :dubious:
OK, there’s ignorance to be fought here because I can’t think why in the world the Hawaiian State Flag incorporates the Union Flag? 
It was quite a fad in the seventies, maybe the sixties too (I can’t remember) … did you never see Wendy Craig’s Mini in “Butterflies”? 
I do, but I’d be kidding myself if I pretended this made me an expert. Especially on something as elusive as the social connotations of various symbols and icons.
Hawaii was briefly a British protectorate (known as the Sandwich Islands, after John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich*, who as First Lord of the Admiralty supported Captain Cook’s voyages of discovery) before becoming, in turn, a kingdom, U.S. protectorate, U.S. territory, and state. As this page states, the Union Flag also happens to represent a stylized puela (triangular standard laid across two crossed spears), which is the symbol of an ali’i (Hawaiian chief).
Nations whose flags feature the Union Jack design include Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and Tuvalu. See also the provincial flags of British Columbia, Manitoba, and Ontario (as well as the St. George’s Cross on the Albertan flag and Nova Scotia’s incorporation of the Rampant Lion and St. Andrew’s Cross of Scotland).
The flags of all six Australian states also include the Union Jack.
The flag reminds me of the knickers I’m wearing now, actually.
Like you really need to know that, right?
Ok, now I’m going to kick myself in the arse for sharing that little bit of trivia.
Geri Halliwell? Is that you?
The same people who like to block the roads with bonfires at certain times of the year and shoot the odd person also like us to know that they are very British and thoroughly attached to the Union Jack.
Rather disgustingly, they also try and concoct some sort of link between the Protestants from Northern Ireland who fought in the first world war in the British army and modern day loyalist terrorists. This way, the Remberance Day poppy adorns murals on council houses alongside murderers :mad:
Many thanks Sternvogel - ignorance fought.
I’m not a native born Brit, but I’ve lived here since 1996 (near Cambridge first, then in Oxford.) I have a very positive view of the Union Flag, mostly because I’ve almost universally seen it in the context of the British military, and I have a lot of respect for the military that’s rubbed off on the flag.
It must be said that the only places I can recall seeing the flag flying are military posts and government buildings - I don’t think I would fly it personally, because it just isn’t done. Rather than being seen as a sign of support for the country or whatever, it would at best draw puzzled reactions, and at worse some of the negative reactions seen in this thread.
I am startled to hear that some people associate the Union Jack with right wing types on the mainland - the only negative associations I’ve picked up are with the extreme Unionist fringes in N. Ireland. If anything, I associate the far right groups with the much more frequently seen cross of St. George.
I know the skinheads used to chant “there ain’t no black in the union jack”… something which could have been solved this way, which I sort of liked, actually, but most people seemed to think it was daft/tokenistic/would mean that the terrorists had already won.
The BNP has made much use of the Union Flag - including basing its logo on it. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed the various (mis)uses of the flag by such groups.
They are hardly alone on this. All sorts of organisations, political and otherwise, include a suggestion of the Union Flag in their logo.
The fact that the BNP continually attempt to hijack the flag for their own purposes shouldn’t be a reason to give up on it. Quite the reverse.
You could try flying the [Flag of Nova Scotia](http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag of Nova Scotia) for your saltire-lion-and-tressure fix.