Could it be true?
Every day between now and the election, Tortoise’s Alexi Mostrous will examine a claim from the campaign trail. Some will be outlandish, some believable. Some might even be true.
At first glance, it looked like another Tory gaffe. The party’s first election broadcast featured a shot of the Union Jack flying upside down. Carol Vorderman, the TV presenter, pointed out that an upside down flag was a form of distress signal. The claim was repeated by others including Pippa Crerar, the Guardian’s political editor, and Politics UK. Sometimes, though, reality is more prosaic. Unlike an upside-down US flag, which is widely recognised as a symbol of distress, flying an inverted Union Flag seems to signify nothing more than impropriety. The authoritative publication Flying Flags in the United Kingdom contains no mention of the Union Flag being used in this way. And, if you think about it, a distress signal needs to be obvious. An upside down Union Flag is anything but.
