[Gayle]

Excellent post Mani, karma on its way.

I think you're right - what happened was that the councils and government and official bodies got scared that they were offending Asians and others by flying the national flag, so they stopped flying it. This in turn meant that the only people who did fly it were the ones who couldn't care less about offending other people.

However, the people who were thought to be offended by it weren't and so we now have the position that it is they who are making the effort to prove that they weren't offended in the first place.

Hope all that makes sense.

The way to solve the problem, is as you say, get all the official buildings to start flying the flag and the rest will follow. If the town halls, police stations, public places all had flags flying, like they do in America and other countries, there wouldn't be this perceived image of it.