I think everyone is always afraid they'll be labelled racist or something similar since the EDL etc have a tendency to nick the flag of St George for their nonsense. I think we should really steal it back off them and make it a national holiday. We need to be flying the flag everywhere, it's the English flag after all.
We are not allowed to be proud to be English, it's fine for other nations to be proud of their heritage though and for them to shove it down our throats at every opportunity.
That's good ttfn... glad you mentioned it. Have to agree with ummmm and Sharingan, it's about time the English got a look in when the Scots, Welsh and Irish do, yet we seem to be made to feel we are wrong by wanting the English flag (et al) displayed.
I think with Paddy's day lots of non Irish join in the celebrations and there tends to not be much trouble. With Georges day the riot vans will be out in force.
No I don't agree, I've never been called racist in my life, I said I think people are 'afraid' of being labelled racist.
I'm proud of my English half and my Irish half and celebrate both. I'll have an English flag up tomorrow, like we had an Irish one on Paddy's day and a Scots one as well on St Andrews because my Mum's boyfriend is a Scot. Celebrate your ethnicity, as long as it's done positively no-one will say anything.
St.P's is an excuse for a drink, St.G's is... what? We could have a drink I suppose, but that market has already been cornered. We could eat beef, like the beef eaters and celebrate not being French?
Can't we just celebrate being English- especially since it's so near to Shakespeare's birthday? We could do what other European countries do and have carnival floats and parades ( nice ones involving local schools etc) and have the day off and national picnics- take your pick but I think it's terrible to nothing positive, just let the EDL hijack our national flag :(
"but I think it's terrible to nothing positive, just let the EDL hijack our national flag"
Certainly is. National days are usually half-mixed with "independence day" type events. Our problem is that we were usually the ones going around dishing out a bit of imperialist oppression (and jolly good we were at it too). It makes it difficult to have a national day/celebration when you're "the bad guy" so to speak (narratively that is... Everyone comes to their own opinion about the Empire).