It was the picture every press photographer needed to sum up Scotland’s independence referendum. And he could not find it.

Fresh off a plane from Barcelona, the Catalan journalist had a deadline to meet and an editor to please. He wanted a Saltire and a Union Jack, preferably flying off neighbouring balconies or held aloft by rival activists.

“Where are all the flags?,” he asked me, holding his arms up in exasperation. He was not alone.

This was a repeated question from foreign colleagues, especially photographers, in the heady days ahead of September 2014.

Scotland, it turned out, was just not very flaggy.

READ MORE: Scottish Government demands apology over Union flag row

Sure, there were rallies for an against independence where nationalists of one hue or another would wave their favourite banner. And these generated many of the photos which, however unrepresentative, came to illustrate our referendum story.

But these demos were small, nothing compared with, say, the hundreds of thousands who could bring downtown Barcelona to a standstill under a sea of estalades, the symbol of Catalan independence.

Is this changing? Is Scotland getting more flaggy? Three newspapers hostile to independence on Wednesday accused Nicola Sturgeon of “hauling down the the Union Jack”.

The First Minister - and her civil servants - dismissed the claims, which appear to be made over some minor tweaks to flag-flying protocols some years ago.

This is the highest profile yet attempt by British nationalists to push the politics of what the Northern Irish call the politics of "flegs".

Until now Catalan - or even Belfast - style vexillophilia has appeared largely confined to the fringes of Scottish politics and life. And even then the most passionate nationalists, whether for or against the union, often fail to notice what flag is up what pole.

Last year the SNP took control of Glasgow in council elections. An excited independence supporter tweeted a picture of the Saltire flying over the City Chambers.

The Union Jack, he claimed, had been lowered. Except it had not. There has not been any change in flag-flying policies in the city in living memory.

That, however, did not stop protestors, inspired by the “flegs” demos of Belfast, singing Rule Britannia in George Square to demand the British symbol be restored.

Scottish Resistance protests outside a biscuit factory

The Saltire and the Union flag are far from perfect proxies for Yes and No. You can oppose independence and wave a St Andrew’s Cross at Hampden. You can back a Scottish state but cry when you win gold for Team GB. And, of course, there will be plenty of people who cast their vote for Britain while being uncomfortable with the imperial baggage of the Union Jack, or its significance on the other side of the North Channel.

Herald View: When the standard of political debate was flagging.

But is hypersensitive flagginess going to remain a part of our public life? Malcolm Harvey suspects so. He teaches constitutional politics at Aberdeen University. He also collects flags. “With any kind of representative symbol, a perceived slight against it can be taken personally, and that’s why we end up with this kind of stushie becoming front page news,” he said. “Identity is, of course, much more complex than what flag flies where and when, but it is a very visible symbol of identity, and that matters, especially in the context of the continued constitutional conversations that are central to Scottish political life.”

Estelades, the Catalan independence flags, waved in Barcelona

Scotland - and Britain - has a long way to go to match the flagginess of our neighbours The Saltire is nowhere near as ubiquitous as the Danish flag, for example. Nor is the union jack, anywhere in the UK.

The rise in flag politics comes as part of a package of more obviously ethnic and symbol-obsessed nationalisms vented on social media after the independence and Brexit referendums.

Think of angrier unionists frothing at Gaelic road signs, a policy the predates the current SNP. Or fringe Scottish nationalists boycotting confectioners or supermarkets because of the supposedly unpatriotic packaging of teacakes or strawberries.

Herald View: When the standard of political debate was flagging.

Flags, languages, royal banners, remembrance symbols; all of them can produce visceral and potentially poisonous politics.

Take America, where President Donald Trump has whipped his nationalist base in to a frenzy because black American footballer players, he says, disrespect the Stars and Stripes by protesting during the national anthem ahead of games. Is that really where we want to go?