The Nation's Flag Flying Permanently From Parliament
Until early 2010 the national flag of the United Kingdom was only flown from the Houses of Parliament when parliament was actually sitting, and when the House rose it was taken down and the flagpole left bare. The Flag Institute with the Flags and Heraldry Committee campaigned to see the flag flown permanently, to signify the enduring sovereignty of parliament and to act as the foremost flag of the nation, day and night every day of the year. In early 2010 Black Rod agreed that this should be so and since then the flag has flown all the time. This change was marked by a lunchtime reception on Tuesday 22 March 2011 in the River Room, House of Lords, hosted by Alan West, Baron West of Spithead and Andrew Rosindell MP and organised by Charles Ashburner.
Read more about this topic: Flag Institute
Famous quotes containing the words nation, flag, flying, permanently and/or parliament:
“I mourn the safe and motherly old middle-class queen, who held the nation warm under the fold of her big, hideous Scotch-plaid shawl and whose duration had been so extraordinarily convenient and beneficent. I felt her death much more than I should have expected; she was a sustaining symbol—and the wild waters are upon us now.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“My dream is that as the years go by and the world knows more and more of America, it ... will turn to America for those moral inspirations that lie at the basis of all freedom ... that America will come into the full light of the day when all shall know that she puts human rights above all other rights, and that her flag is the flag not only of America but of humanity.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“No April can revive thy withered flowers,
Whose blooming grace adorns thy glory now;
Swift speeding Time, feathered with flying hours,
Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
Oh let not then such riches waste in vain,
But love whilst that thou mayst be loved again.”
—Samuel Daniel (1562–1619)
“The question for the country now is how to secure a more equal distribution of property among the people. There can be no republican institutions with vast masses of property permanently in a few hands, and large masses of voters without property.... Let no man get by inheritance, or by will, more than will produce at four per cent interest an income ... of fifteen thousand dollars] per year, or an estate of five hundred thousand dollars.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“At the ramparts on the cliff near the old Parliament House I counted twenty-four thirty-two-pounders in a row, pointed over the harbor, with their balls piled pyramid-wise between them,—there are said to be in all about one hundred and eighty guns mounted at Quebec,—all which were faithfully kept dusted by officials, in accordance with the motto, “In time of peace prepare for war”; but I saw no preparations for peace: she was plainly an uninvited guest.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)