Killjoy council's shameful treatment of England flag shows grim loss of confidence

I was fortunate enough to grow up in the United States: a great country, second only in the world to this one. After many decades back in the land of my birth, even with all the trials and tribulations we face at the moment, I totally understand why it's famously said that to be born British is to win the lottery in life. But there is one area in which our colonial cousins really do have the edge: wherever you go, it is extremely common to see the Stars and Stripes flying from individual houses, just as much as official buildings.

Over here? Last week various Sussex councils started cutting up rough because the St George's flag has started cropping up all over the shop. It really is a sign of a country that has lost its self-confidence if it objects to its own flag. I know the far right has tried to hijack it for their own uses, but here's the thing: we should ignore them.

Every heart in England should swell with pride at the symbol of our country, just as Scotland and Wales celebrate the Saltire and the Red Dragon. And we should all salute the Union flag, the symbol of the most successful political union anywhere in the world.

Remember back in the day when British Airways really was the world's favourite airline? Then (and now) they proudly sport the Union flag and back then their hugely successful tagline was "fly the flag".

Then came a foolish, misguided and mercifully short-lived attempt to rebrand the airline in the late 1990s: it spent £60million repainting its liveries with "international" symbols before realising that people actually wanted to fly with good old Blighty after all.

Back came the Union flag but not before it created a public relations disaster. Well I remember Margaret Thatcher trying to scrub one of the new designs off with a handkerchief.

Whatever you read about its current travails, the US has been better at dealing with immigration than we have. It's what the whole country is built on, after all. And the Stars and Stripes is a symbol of that: at my American school, every single one of us had to stand and pledge allegiance to the flag every single day.

Far from treating the various flags in our country as a slight embarrassment, we should be doing the exact same thing in every school in the country over here.