Before a Fall

Health and safety zealotry appears to have resulted in the removal of a Pride flag from a Derbyshire high street. A Christian bookshop had complained about it, in the usual Christian spirit of welcoming everyone without necessarily respecting their rights, and amid globs of unctuous piety about freedom of conscience; but the town council denied that the flag's removal owed anything to the exercise of these great British liberties. Even the county authority's recent take-over by the flag-purging cadres of the Farage Falange was apparently not altogether a factor. Rather, the town council took down the Pride flag "due to a strong belief someone would put themselves in danger by removing it themselves" and thereby render the council at risk of paying damages with money that would be better spent filling potholes, arming the police, and processing denunciations. What the town council's plans may be concerning statues that someone might injure themselves vandalising, or bookshops that someone might singe themselves martyring, your correspondent would not presume to guess.