As I was taking our dog for an evening walk, I noticed that one of my neighbours has put up a flagpole in their front garden and is now proudly flying a Union Jack.

“Ahh that’s nice,” I thought to myself as the owner is obviously proud of his heritage and his country, as so many of us Brits are. Although at the moment, with the sorry Labour lot at the helm, I’m not sure how much there is to currently feel proud about.

This weekend, the ongoing frustration with those chosen to run things has only ramped up even further, as not one but two councils vowed to remove any Union flags attached to street lights as part of a patriotism campaign dubbed “Operation Raise the Colours.”

As a councillor myself, I know just how emotive the topic of flags can be for local authorities. Councils must tread a pretty fine line when it comes to seeming to support one cause over another.

After the flags were raised on lampposts in Birmingham, its beleaguered Labour council released a statement saying that anyone doing so could be “putting their lives at risk” as well as the lives of motorists and pedestrians.

Now, don’t shoot me for saying this, but whilst I think the overzealous concern about people falling to their deaths is a stretch…I do think council officers here do have a point about attachments to lampposts.

Taking the emotive subject of the Union flag out of the equation, if you allow one group of people to attach things to various bits of street furniture, where does it end? I know in my role as a councillor that things start to look pretty messy when officers are lax on various ads and flyers cropping up in public spaces. And during election time, there can be tensions about who has been allowed to post what and where.

But—and there is a huge but here—it seems that officers are now taking a two-tier approach to their enforcement efforts, just like the police, which, to be frank, is appalling. It’s little wonder accusations of hypocrisy have erupted.

Because let’s get real. The problem isn’t health and safety – though councils often hide behind that excuse. It’s just outright double standards.

According to some reports Tower Hamlets Council – the second local authority vowing to remove the flags – did in fact allow flags to be flown from various bits of council infrastructure as they turned a blind eye to Palestinian flags. Worth noting that the authority is run by the pro-Gaza Aspire Party.

Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick has called them out.

He told The Telegraph: “Tower Hamlets council have allowed Palestinian flags to be publicly displayed on lampposts but not the flag of our country. This absurd national self-loathing must end. This is yet more two-tier bias against the British people. We must be one country united under the Union flag.”

And end it must: from the ludicrous decision by a school to send a girl home wearing a Union Jack dress to the man banned from flying a Union Jack flag as it was in a communal garden. As a nation, we need to stop this ludicrous sensitivity around our own national pride and fly our flag as often and as proudly as we can – at schools, in parks, on streets and from every council and government building. It’s time to end the double standards and remind the bureaucrats who this country actually belongs to.