I DON'T WANT A UNION FLAG ON MY DRIVING LICENCE

I have noticed is that the English Transport Minister has decided to alter the design of the driving licence by adding a depiction of the Union flag. 

My first thought was that there is bound to be some cost involved in this. If you change the design of something, there is work, which costs money; if you then ask the printers to print new cards, there is more work, which costs more money; and there is surely bound to be a cupboard full of cards which are of the old design which will have to be thrown out... a waste of money. 

This is a waste of money, and given the state of the UK's finances,  and that we can't afford our pensioners, our sick, our health services or our unemployed, isn't this rather an unnecessary use of our money?

So why are they doing it? 

Well, they say that it will gives us subjects a sense of identity. I don't know about you, but I never look at my driving licence. It's in a drawer somewhere and hasn't been out of that drawer in 10 years and more. So if they wanted a British sense of identity to be inculcated in their people, I think that there are probably better avenues for doing this than our European driving licences. 

Of course what they are doing is pandering to the Ukippers, who just loathe anything to do with the EU (except the generous salaries and expenses, of course).

But this is the most telling part. They are only doing it on the mainland of Great Britain. Northern Ireland won't have to suffer any change. Maybe the English Transport Minister, in her infinite wisdom, feels that the Irish are clever enough not to need to be reminded of their national identity.

Or maybe it's because at least half the population would refuse point blank to accept their flag and it would inflame the republican anger. 

I don't, as a rule, get hugely bent out of shape at flags,  and if they had decided to do it for the whole of the UK, I'd probably not have paid it much regard, except to think that it was a waste of money.

But this smacks of triumphalism on the part of the UK government. They won the referendum by hook and by crook and now they will rub our faces in it... but not the faces of the Irish republicans because presumably they are afraid of them. 

We have our own transport minister in Scotland. Surely it should be he (Derek Mackay) who makes these decisions.

There's a petition here to stop Scottish driving licences being emblazoned with the apron.
**********