THIEVES have stolen a Union flag and its 32ft pole from a country hotel – a day before it was due to host a speech by leading devolution sceptic Lord Forsyth. In what had all the hallmarks of carefully planned and executed raid, the gang of thieves struck in the dead of night at the Old Mill Inn at Maryculter, near Aberdeen, on the eve of a dinner held by the West Aberdeenshire Conservative Association.

They fled with the large Union flag that usually flutters proudly in the hotel grounds. The thieves even escaped with the lengthy glass-fibre pole on which the flag had been mounted, leaving a cryptic note where it once stood. It read: "You have been victim of the Society for Removing Union Jacks from Scotland."