Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity News,
Britain's largest local authority has gone to the High Court to stop people hanging the Union Flag and the St George's Cross from lampposts, with campaigners warning that a breach could mean up to two years behind bars.
Birmingham City Council filed the application this week as the latest move in a year-long war on "unauthorised attachments." The attachments in question are the flags of the country. The penalties being threatened include prison, unlimited fines, and seized assets.
Protesters who fly the Union Jack from lampposts could criminal proceedings if the injunction is granted.
BREAKING: Protesters who fly the Union Jack from lampposts could face two years in jail after Birmingham Council applied for an injunction. @PeterBleksley: "It's absolutely scandalous!"@TVKev pic.twitter.com/XExfsblLcR
— Talk (@TalkTV) August 26, 2026Former Metropolitan Police detective Peter Bleksley called it what it is. "It's absolutely scandalous!"
The Free Speech Union described the move as "truly mental."
This is truly mental.
Birmingham City Council has applied for an injunction that could result in people who fly the Union Jack from lampposts being jailed for up to two years.
Threatening people with prison for displaying their national flag is a direct assault on freedom of... https://t.co/5kJdBCU1gv
A year ago the same city was already ripping the colours down and calling it safety. Residents put them back up. The council has now decided a High Court order is the way to finish the job.
On 26 August the council announced it had submitted an injunction application "as part of our ongoing work to prohibit unauthorised attachments on the highway, including flags and banners."
Green councillor Jane Baston, cabinet member for equalities, communities and social justice, said: "The Council is taking a lawful, proportionate and evidence-led approach to unauthorised attachments on the highway. This includes pursuing injunctive action based on the evidence gathered to date."
She added: "Our priority is to protect public safety, staff and contractor welfare, community cohesion and the responsible use of public funds. We ask residents and community groups to support this approach and to ensure any displays are placed only where permission exists."
The authority insists the action "is not directed at any particular community, belief or viewpoint." It says the installation and reinstallation of flags has had an impact on the public, and that officers have "witnessed incidents that have involved harassment, intimidation or obstruction during removal activity."
The named targets give the game away. The application lists Raise the Colours co-founder Ryan Bridge, plus others associated with the campaign. Raise the Colours said it had not received or reviewed the papers and could not comment on the application. The group rejected "any suggestion that we are seeking to divide communities," and describes itself as a "grassroots movement for unity and patriotism."
The nationwide campaign by the group to put the England flag back on the street is widely reported to have started in Birmingham last summer. The council spent the following year treating that campaign as a highways nuisance. Now it wants a judge to make the nuisance a city-wide prohibition.
Anti-flag campaigners in the city have been lobbying for exactly this. Brummies United Against Racism and Hate Crime applauded the legal bid, spoke of "thuggish behaviour," and framed the flags as an attempt to "harass and intimidate residents of our proudly multicultural city."
So the national flag is an attachment. Opposition to it is cohesion. And a bankrupt council that spent more than a year failing to collect the bins has found the money and the energy to take patriotism to the Royal Courts of Justice.
Birmingham is taking a page from the book of Liberal Democrat-run Oxfordshire County Council, who won the first injunction of its kind, barring unidentified people from attaching England or Union flags to highway structures or painting flag imagery on roads.
Council leader Tim Bearder celebrated. "This is a welcome judgement. We're very pleased with the result," he said, adding: "This sets a legal precedent and will hopefully deter people in not just Oxfordshire but around the country from partaking in this criminal activity."
He described those putting the flags up as "very challenging people, not patriots."
Oxfordshire spent about £80,000 taking flags down and another £40,000 on lawyers, costs it said it intended to recover. Staff removing flags were said to have faced hostility so serious that some were told to wear face coverings and check vehicles for tracking devices after a worker's home address was published.
The judge said maintenance teams had been "working in fear," that people directed by the council had been obstructed "to the extent that at times they have simply given up on the removal," and that there was "little prospect absent an injunction that it will stop."
The order does not stop flags on private property. Oxfordshire still flies the Union Flag and the St George's Cross at County Hall. Bearder has repeated that the case "is not, and never has been, about the flag," and that Raise the Colours' conduct was "nothing to do with national pride or with support for the England team during the World Cup."
If it was never about the flag, the council would not have needed a High Court order aimed at the flag. If it was never about patriotism, Bearder would not have needed to announce that the people doing it were "not patriots."
Long before any judge got involved, town halls were already spending public money to erase the colours from the street.
Freedom of Information requests to hundreds of local authorities showed councils had spent at least £70,000 removing Union Jacks and St George's Crosses from lampposts and street fixtures. The true figure was higher. Many authorities folded the work into existing budgets and reported nothing.
Medway Council alone spent close to £11,600 taking down more than 700 flags. Labour councillor Alex Paterson, who oversaw community safety there, called it "money well spent" to combat "far-right agitators" and to "make the community feel safe again."
He told the BBC: "I think at this stage the world is divided into people who know exactly why these flags were put up and those who are still pretending they don't know why they were put up."
Left-wing activist Pablo O'Hana, who sent some of the FoI requests, was filmed pulling flags off a Manchester bridge. He told the man who had put them up that he took them down because "that's not what our country is."
That is the official mind in a sentence. The country is not allowed to look like the country.
The same pattern produced a small masterpiece of modern administration in Essex. Staff were offered emotional support if they felt "discomforted" by the national flag on road signs, bridges and trees.
An internal note said: "While these symbols may hold different meanings for different people, we recognise that for many - particularly our colleagues of colour - they can evoke feelings of discomfort and be associated with anti-immigration rhetoric."
Senior leaders invited anyone "feeling unsettled or affected by what you're seeing" to speak to managers, "Global Majority Leads," an assistant director or the director. The Union Flag and the St George's Cross still flew outside headquarters. The problem was not the flag on the civic pole. The problem was the flag in the community.
Nigel Farage, as an Essex MP, called the council "totally out of touch with the county." Lord Maurice Glasman put the priority list in one line: "You get mugged and your bag nicked and that's nothing to do with them, but you put a flag up and it's suddenly an issue." Former Attorney General Sir Michael Ellis said: "This is two-tier. The council won't fix a pothole but worry about this."
Local jobsworths did not invent the idea that the Union Flag is a social hazard. A leaked draft of the government's "social cohesion" strategy did the theological work for them.
The document claimed national symbols were sometimes used to "exclude or intimidate," and that the "extreme right has tried to turn symbols of pride into tools of hate." Flying the English, Scottish and Union flags was folded into a story of hate rather than belonging.
The 47-page draft, Protecting What Matters, leaked to The Spectator, sketched hundreds of millions of pounds for areas where cohesion was "under pressure," a special representative to tackle hostility directed at Muslims, and a new definition of Islamophobia.
Reform UK's Richard Tice's verdict on the flag passage was blunt: "Absurdly, this says our national flag is a tool of hate used to intimidate. The whole paper is a divisive nonsense that should be consigned to the bin."
A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said only: "We do not comment on leaks."
There is a word for the official twitch. Vexillophobia: fear of the flag. Not a clinical diagnosis. A political allergy. A country that treats the St George's Cross or the Union flag as an act of aggression while other political colours are treated as inclusion.
The same institutions had no comparable panic when other flags owned the street. Palestinian colours hung from Birmingham lampposts for months. A leaked 2025 email from cabinet member Majid Mahmood, reported by the Mail, said of those Palestine flags: "We are taking these down, but we need the support of the police due to issues that have cropped (up) when we first tried to take them down."
Conservative opposition leader Cllr Robert Alden called the contrast "completely disgraceful," adding "Frankly, for the last two years, the council has made little effort to remove Palestine flags and now, suddenly, residents are putting up the Union Jack and St George's Cross and they're saying it's a health and safety risk - it's madness."
Robert Jenrick called it "blatant two-tier bias against the British people."
The World Cup made the double standard impossible to miss. Councils warned that English flags might upset "community cohesion." Bristol talked about remaining "welcoming, respectful and safe for everyone during the tournament." English people, in England, were told to mute their own colours in case someone else took offence.
Other authorities joined the queue. Portsmouth, Cheshire, Bristol, Oxford: flags painted off roundabouts, taken off street furniture, treated as a fire risk or an inclusivity problem, while other political symbols stayed put.
Raise the Colours did not come out of a vacuum. It followed years of mass immigration, grooming scandals, and taxpayer-funded hotels for people who arrived illegally. The official response was not to fix the conditions that produced the flags. It was to pathologise the flags.
Section 132 of the Highways Act already lets a council cut an unauthorised sign off a lamp column. What Oxfordshire wanted, and what Birmingham now wants, is something sharper: a civil injunction against the entire country, enforced by contempt of court.
An authority that needs a High Court order to keep the national flag off a lamppost is one whose officials are more frightened of displays of national pride than of the declining conditions that produced the trend in the first place.
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Tyler Durden Fri, 08/28/2026 - 07:20How much money do you have to pay in taxes over a lifetime?
This visualization, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, maps the estimated lifetime tax bill for a single filer in every U.S. state, including federal and state income taxes, as well as sales, property, and vehicle taxes.
The data for this visualization comes from Self Financial, with estimates as of June 2026.
The analysis assumes a 45-year working life with constant earnings and tax rates, a life expectancy of 79.6 years, homeownership beginning at age 40, and ownership of five vehicles over a lifetime.
New Jersey Tops the RankingNew Jersey has the highest estimated lifetime tax bill in the country at $1.36 million.
Rank State Lifetime taxes per person 1 New Jersey $1,359,406 2 Massachusetts $1,297,130 3 Connecticut $1,249,749 4 New Hampshire $1,125,478 5 New York $1,084,561 6 California $1,075,061 7 Maryland $1,060,255 8 Illinois $1,033,447 9 Minnesota $1,018,872 10 Rhode Island $999,704 11 Vermont $953,322 12 Virginia $911,706 13 Wisconsin $851,139 14 Colorado $839,899 15 Pennsylvania $835,067 16 Washington $816,217 17 Oregon $775,976 18 Nebraska $761,072 19 Maine $758,818 20 Michigan $753,076 21 Delaware $731,824 22 Iowa $730,349 23 Kansas $711,966 24 Utah $709,803 25 Alaska $702,376 26 Arizona $698,824 27 Hawaii $684,028 28 Montana $669,934 29 Missouri $665,381 30 Georgia $655,532 31 Indiana $643,299 32 Tennessee $632,562 33 South Carolina $626,485 34 North Dakota $626,340 35 Idaho $621,705 36 Texas $615,932 37 New Mexico $605,411 38 West Virginia $593,639 39 North Carolina $591,911 40 Alabama $591,168 41 Kentucky $588,953 42 Louisiana $575,122 43 Ohio $569,376 44 Mississippi $560,448 45 Wyoming $546,617 46 Nevada $535,652 47 Oklahoma $526,333 48 Arkansas $517,942 49 South Dakota $515,732 50 Florida $508,980Massachusetts follows at nearly $1.30 million, while Connecticut ranks third at $1.25 million. New Hampshire and New York round out the top five, highlighting the Northeast’s strong presence near the top of the ranking.
Florida Has the Lowest Lifetime Tax BillAt the other end of the ranking, Florida has the lowest estimated lifetime tax bill at $508,980.
Florida’s lower total is helped by the absence of a state individual income tax, reducing the tax burden that residents pay on their earnings over time.
South Dakota is next at $515,732, followed by Arkansas at $517,942 and Oklahoma at $526,333. Together, the four lowest-ranked states have estimated lifetime tax bills ranging from about $509,000 to $526,000.
States in the Middle of the PackSeveral large states fall closer to the middle of the ranking. Texas has an estimated lifetime tax bill of $615,932, while Georgia comes in at $655,532 and Arizona at $698,824. Pennsylvania ranks higher at $835,067, putting it well above these states but still below the million-dollar mark.
Having no state individual income tax does not necessarily translate into a low overall lifetime tax bill. Washington, for example, ranks 16th at $816,217, above many states that levy an individual income tax. The estimates also account for federal income, property, sales, and vehicle taxes.
If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Ranked: U.S. States With the Widest Wage Gaps on Voronoi.
Tyler Durden Fri, 08/28/2026 - 06:55From the very start of the Ukraine war, the United Kingdom has consistently been among Kiev's most open and ardent military supporters, time and again transferring heavy weaponry, including cutting edge long-range missiles like the Storm Shadow.
At the start of this week, Britain announced it plans to provide Ukraine with classified technology to allow for the country's own manufacturing of the British/French-designed SCALP air-launched cruise missile (which in the UK is known as the Storm Shadow). The allies expect to set up a production line in Ukraine as soon as year's end.
Getty ImagesAlready, Ukraine has used its domestic-made and designed Neptune cruise missile to strike oil refineries and military sites deep inside Russian territory. A domestic-made SCALP would present the likelihood of Ukraine then using this Western-designed missile to directly attack Russia, which only increases the chances of an eventual Moscow-NATO clash. Ukrainian forces already appeared to have used the missile on Donetsk and other locations closer to front lines in the Donbass.
On Thursday the Kremlin has issued one of its strongest warnings and threats aimed at London to date, accusing the UK of "fully taking part in the war on Kiev's side" - and thus thwarting any chance of peace talks while adding fuel to the fire.
Moscow is now saying that the UK's own military facilities could become fair game for direct attacks.
Kremlin spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a Thursday press briefing, "We have repeatedly warned that the response to Ukrainian strikes using British weapons against Russian territory could be directed against any British military facilities and equipment in Ukraine and beyond."
Zakharova urged "all residents of the United Kingdom to think about the inevitable, catastrophic consequences of the hostile steps taken by their own authorities." She also laid out:
"We propose that the British leadership once again carefully analyze the situation and immediately, in the most resolute and unequivocal manner, abandon the hostile, aggressive line, which can only... create the risk of the conflict escalating to an entirely new level."
Ironically this comes just on the heels of a rare visit of the CIA Director to Moscow. US officials claim the Tuesday meeting between John Ratcliffe and top Kremlin intelligence officials was to convey a warning to President Putin to not attack any NATO member. However, many analysts are skeptical that this was the official reason.
Russia could target British military facilities in Ukraine and beyond in response to Ukrainian strikes using British weapons - MFA spox pic.twitter.com/JRrPaRipUX
— Sputnik (@SputnikInt) August 27, 2026Zakharova further said on Thursday that Britain and France were "playing with fire" after years of escalating their involvement in Ukraine.
But London appears unmoved, with a UK Ministry of Defence official responding on Thursday as follows: "Britain stands shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine and we are committed to providing the equipment Ukraine needs to defend itself against Putin’s illegal invasion. Russia should be in no doubt about the resolve of this government to stand against Russian aggression, in Ukraine and against the UK and our allies," the official stated.
Tyler Durden Fri, 08/28/2026 - 06:45Authored by David Bell and Ramesh Thakur via Brownstone Institute,
The recent release of Anthony Fauci's diaries, followed by his refusal to answer questions in an appearance before a US Senate committee by invoking the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination 111 times, highlighted a stark divide in how the Covid pandemic was handled by public health authorities. This is as true of Australia as of the US.
Repeatedly, against certainty expressed in public to justify official statements on the origins of the virus and on lockdown, mask, and vaccine policies, their private contemporaneous conversations confirm that even the top scientists were making decisions based on scientific uncertainty.
Consequently, one of the key legacies of the public-private gap is growing distrust of official claims. That scepticism should extend to the future pandemic agenda. We rely on the World Health Organisation to coordinate among countries to prevent scourges such as pandemics reaching our shores, or at least mitigate their effects. In doing so, we must defer to an army of international bureaucrats who work in such institutions. A deference that relies on trust.
Their salaries and careers depend on convincing us to part with more of our money to support their work. Yet, according to a new article on international pandemic financing in the Cambridge journal Health Economics, Policy and Law, the WHO and World Bank rely on dubious assumptions to calculate the return on investment case on which all major international efforts to mitigate future pandemics rely.
This should alarm governments. Mitigation is worth investing in, as pandemics will occur from time to time. But the article shows that current investments will have an overall detrimental effect on global health. Most starkly, it suggests a deep rot in the quality of institutions we rely on as stewards of this commonly accepted global good.
The WHO and World Bank report, produced at the request of the G20 in 2022, proposes an annual $31.1 billion budget for pandemic preparedness and prevention, about $10.5 billion of which would come through foreign aid (including Australia). About $26 billion would come from low and middle-income countries already struggling with economic issues including burgeoning Covid debt. For context, the entire WHO budget for 2024-25 was just $3.8 billion a year.
The point of the WHO and World Bank's argument is that if we spend such resources on preparing for pandemics, we will reap orders of magnitude greater return on investment down the road, more than a thousandfold in some wealthy countries - a bargain difficult to refuse if true.
The article from Leeds University shows that the financial arguments are based on smoke and mirrors. They rely on assumptions on the quality-adjusted life years lost to pandemics as against the big three global infectious diseases of HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria; on the share of global funds to be devoted to pandemics in comparison to the other three per life saved in each case; and on the benefits to be gained from investments in vaccines and other pharmaceutical products instead of in the more basic determinants of health resilience in the population such as nutrition, sanitation, water, and hygiene. These are the factors, along with antibiotics and gains in medical advances, that have reduced the mortality toll from pandemics since the Spanish flu of 1918.
Furthermore, the WHO and World Bank also discount the adjustments made to human behaviour to mitigate health risks as they become obvious, collateral costs of the pandemic response measures, and the likely benefits of investing in those measures.
This matters because our government has signed on to the amended International Health Regulations, is expecting to sign the proposed WHO Pandemic Agreement, and looks set to sign a UN political agreement this September advocating for yet more money for the authors and beneficiaries of the growing pandemic industry. They are promising a lot of money based on the WHO's costings.
It matters because most Australians assumed that we could trust international institutions and that they valued rigour rather than engage in false accounting and subterfuge.
Unfortunately, incentives without accountability are a poor basis for health governance. It matters because funds to finance the pharmaceutical corporations, research institutions, and bureaucrats who stand to benefit from the pandemic agenda will have to be diverted from programs that work. International funding for the big endemic diseases and basic priorities such as nutrition is already falling, while the pandemic agenda expands. The Leeds authors call for simple transparency and honesty in assessing global health priorities, and in paying for them. Not a big ask. The Australian government has a choice to be constructive on behalf of its taxpayers and require better, or through blind acquiescence remain part of the problem.
Republished from The Australian
Tyler Durden Fri, 08/28/2026 - 06:30