There can be few stories more ridiculous than the M&S shopping bag saga given oxygen through the media this week.

The story was based on comments by two anonymous shoppers, from a nationalist background, who voiced their opposition to using shopping bags incorporating Union flag designs.

By Tuesday, a headline screamed that the high street firm was declining to comment on why it flies the tricolour in Dublin but hides the Union flag in Northern Ireland.

What made the story absurd was the fact it was deemed newsworthy at all.

Chris Donnelly: Never mind education, let’s have a row about Union flag bags

In a divided society, flags and emblems provoke strong feelings.

Prominent unionist politicians and commentators were quick to articulate their outrage at the suggestion that a store would find it prudent to determine that offering a shopping bag with a design associated with one grouping in the north may be alienating, off-putting or resented by some others.

That a company in the business of making money would abide by the principle of taking the path least likely to negatively impact the pursuit of that objective should not have come as a surprise.

The most galling political intervention came from former UUP leader Doug Beattie, who denounced those objecting to the bags as being guilty of “intolerance of the highest level”.

In 2018, the UUP MLA publicly attacked a GAA club for having goalpost nets in the green, white and yellow colours of the club.

Doug was........

© The Irish News