An entire street on Rochdale’s Newbold estate was threatened with fines on Monday – if they refuse to remove a multitude of flags from outside their homes.
Local resident Johnny Methson (pictured above with his partner Billy Swignut) told us a council officer and two community support policemen turned up at 11am, before he and Billy were even out of bed, and threatened them with a £200 fine if they didn’t have the flags removed by Wednesday.
He ranted, ‘this is disgusting – it’s our patriotic duty to show our support for the football and the Queen’s birthday – I bet they wouldn’t want them taken down if they were bloody supporting so-called asylum seekers’.
It is alleged that similar threats were made to all residents on the street who had similarly adorned their houses. Chester Brickmore (pictured below) said he would not bow down to ‘these pc jobsworths’ and refused to remove any of his street decorations.
He added, ‘we didn’t win two world wars just to be told we can’t fly the St. George cross outside our homes. It wasn’t this bad in Nazi Germany – they loved their flags’.
Worse was to come for one resident who answered the door only to be ordered not only to remove his flags, but also to change his hairstyle as it was beyond the realms of common decency. Simon Jonestown was lost for words; although he did tell us, ‘I’m lost for words. This is England in 2016, not Saudi Arabia in the twelfth century or something, I should be able to have my hair any way I want it. This is unpatriotic. It’s health and safety gone mad’.
A council insider, however, claimed that this was nothing to do with patriotism or health and safety and nobody had been told they couldn’t support their football team. ‘This was always about taste and unfortunately that seems to be in short supply on the Newbold Estate. You walk down some of these streets and it’s like the dark ages; only with flags and scruffs drinking cheap lager on their front steps’.
He added, ‘half these people’s kids are probably going hungry because they’ve spent all their benefits on flags and other tacky paraphernalia from Sports Direct. They need to take a long hard look at the paths their lives are taking’.
As of this morning none of the flags had been removed, but no fines have been forthcoming either. We reached out to local MP, Simon Danczuk, for comment, but his secretary claimed he was busy trying to convince constituents to vote ‘remain’ on Thursday.
We will update you as the story progresses.
