The English flag - updated.

A bizarre intervention today from the Deputy Chief Constable of North Wales, who says that people should be careful about carrying the English flag on their cars in Wales:

There's no doubt about it that this can be the precursor to behaviour which is much worse than flag waving - it's violence, it's racism, it's hooliganism of the very worse kind.

Well, the only flag I would fly is the Draig Goch, of course, but I think it would be pretty daft to ban people from flying English flags if they want. Almost as daft as this.

The car pictured was opposite the National Assembly for Wales today. I guess it was a media stunt, but it didn't strike me as likely to incite anyone in our building to violence.

What irritates me, I have to say, are the supermarkets and garages displaying their generic England promotions which have been organised by their marketing departments in London with no thought to the fact that the UK is a multinational country.

If the Prime Minister wants to fly the England flag from Number Ten on days when England is playing, that's fine too. But I hope Number Ten would fly the Draig Goch if the situation were reversed.

I'm a football fan, and I will be watching a lot of the World Cup. Including the England games. I do think that the BBC has gone a bit OTT, however. Breakfast News has been sillier than ever this week.

Meanwhile, Alastair Campbell has started a World Cup blog. And so has Sadiq Khan MP.