Leading Article: Hanging out the flags of St George

PUBS, OFFICE blocks, cars, even green fields: suddenly, everywhere, there is a flag. The World Cup has caused them to sprout across the country. But it is the slightly unfamiliar red and white of St George that has blossomed. If, of course, these were symbols of a deep-seated national pride, they might be a welcome sight. Visit any hick town in America and you will see the Stars and Stripes flying from even the most unprepossessing of buildings, from garages to rubbish dumps. One of the most endearing features of American life is the ingrained belief that anyone lucky enough to be an American has already won the lottery of life, and this leads to a pride in the flag at which we can only wonder.

But the flags that have sprung up this week have nothing to do with national pride and everything to do with that aggressive nationalism, bordering on xenophobia, so familiar to anyone who has been to an international football match. Before the World Cup started, Lord Wakeham warned newspapers to avoid what he called the excesses of Euro 96. But it is the newspapers which followed popular sentiment rather than the other way round. The flag waving is a product of this.

The power of flags lies in their shorthand. Sadly, the flag of St George needs only to be glimpsed to act as a reminder of English hooligans rampaging through the streets. In Australia - as in Ulster - the flag itself is a matter of burning debate: as the country debates republicanism, raising the current union jack-based flag is a political statement. The Israeli flag, with the Star of David, has an emotional pull for most Jews. And in South Africa, one of the most immediate statements that there was a new broom was the replacement of the old national flag, with all its apartheid associations, with the new multicoloured one.

The World Cup, however, is just a festival of football. It is not a rewriting of von Clausewitz's description of war as the continuation of politics by other means. So hang out the flags, by all means, but let us hope they are not accompanied by a nasty wave of xenophobia.