The new Nike version of the St George’s Cross, revealed earlier this month, looks very nice. I’m sure everyone is agreed on that. It’s neat and stylish. Definitely nicer than a traditional St George’s Cross, an image that dates from the middle ages and betrays the design limitations of the era. Stripping away the connotations of the standard England flag, both positive and negative, and comparing it with the Nike one with complete aesthetic objectivity – and I’m convinced I’m capable of that and you’ll get an earful if you tell me otherwise so don’t bother – the Nike one clearly looks more pleasant.

Nevertheless I was surprised to hear from Keir Starmer that it was being lined up actually to replace the England flag. It’s quite a bold move to change an ancient national symbol and it feels risky to cede the copyright for that sort of thing to an American sportswear giant. You can take being business-friendly too far and, as the Labour leader said himself: “it doesn’t need to change”. Quite. The old one will do.

Listening to Starmer, it appeared that the decision to scrap the old flag had all but gone through. He seemed to be making a desperate last-ditch appeal: “I think they should just reconsider this and change it back.” He had chosen his platform wisely. He was speaking on the Sun’s TV channel (which is obviously basically a website) on its “brilliant new politics show” (the Sun) called Never Mind the Ballots, a jolly pun that subliminally diminishes........

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