The flag of the United Kingdom is actually a combination of three flags representing England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The English flag is the cross of Saint George. It consists of a red cross on a white background. The Scottish flag is the cross of St. Andrew. It consists of a white saltier, or diagonal cross, on a blue background. The Northern Irish flag is the cross of St. Patrick. It consists of a red saltier on a white background. The Union Flag, sometimes known as the Union Jack, is an amalgamation of the flags of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Globalization This article proposes a number of arguments about the contemporary food system. Using the UK as a case study, it argues that the food system is marked by tensions and conflicts. The paper explores different strands of public policy as applied to the food system over the last two centuries. It differentiates between various uses of the term globalization and proposes that the real features and dynamics of the new world food order are complex and neither as benign nor as homogeneous as some of its proponents allow. Opposition to the new era of globalization is emerging in the food system. This is already having some impact, questioning not just the products of the food system but the nature of its production and distribution.

The environment in UK Urban areas are faced with distinctive, or ‘systemic’, issues arising from their unique social, environmental and economic characteristics. Examples include an altered energy exchange and hydrology which contribute to the urban heat island and an enhanced surface runoff; due, in part, to an altered surface cover, with more built and fewer vegetated surfaces. Landscape planning needs to protect urban ecosystem services and to enable this, an urban characterization which is meaningful for these properties is useful. This paper presents such a characterization for Greater Manchester which uses urban morphology type mapping and surface cover analysis. The results show that residential areas cover almost half of the ‘urbanized’ area of Greater Manchester, with medium density residential accounting for 37%. It is within this category, which represents the urban matrix, that 32% of all the evapotranspiring (i.e. vegetated and water) surfaces are found. This will include private gardens and street trees which are often not represented by traditional mapping approaches. The methodology presented here is potentially useful for strategic urban planning in relation to climate change adaptation and for green infrastructure planning in particular.