"Limited Package Of Laws?"

 

I truly can't be bothered to devote much of my time to providing a critical analysis of this pathetic article by the Telegraph;

A limited package of new laws reflects the approaching general election, and points the way to Conservatives and Lib Dems living separate lives, says James Kirkup

Only to say...in a word; Brussels.

It comes to something when a football manager's resignation genuinely has more significance than the Queen's speech.

The Blame Lies Elsewhere

The news is dominated with the sad and tragic death of Jacintha Saldanha - a nurse at the King Edward VII hospital - who took her own life apparently as a consequence of a prank call from an Australian radio station.

It's easy in these circumstances for some to lose a sense of perspective and as a consequence the Australian station in question is taking a great deal of flak, liberally sprinkled it has to be said with a dash of good old 'Aussie bashing'.

Yes, the call in question was crass, juvenile and puerile but given the world wide publicity of the Duchess of Cambridge's pregnancy, and admission to hospital, it was completely inevitable that bogus calls were going to be made to the hospital - to elicit information more than anything else.

But like a magician who uses diversion techniques as part of his act, so it's proving with the hospital in question. Because ultimately it comes down to a failing on their part.

As I've noted here before, Mrs TBF used to work for the Queen, albeit indirectly via the Queen's horse race trainer. One of the first things that was drummed into her was answering the phone and dealing with possible bogus and fake press calls.

• The Queen never phoned directly. A member of staff (name known) always phoned and one of two things occurred; either a request to be transferred to the boss (and only him) who would then be connected through or, far more frequently, a request would be made to be called back on an approved number at a certain time.
  
  
• In the event of a member of the Queen's staff requesting information, it was done by terminating the call and ringing back on an approved number to give out the information.

Similar techniques were used with mail - by putting a code in the bottom right corner of the envelope ensured that the mail would be read by Her Majesty personally. Such training prevented Mrs TBF from getting caught out when controversy hit the racing yard in question and they were inundated with press attention.

So it begs the question why staff of the King Edward VII's hospital were not briefed in the same way, not only given the high profile nature of the Duchess of Cambridge's condition, but that historically it has been used by copious members of the Royal family including; the Queen, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and Charles, Prince of Wales.

Yet it appears that training or information was not given as a matter of course or if so it was clearly inadequate. Either way it is a failure of the hospital's management. However, like the tricks of the magician, we are persuaded to look the other way:

Lord Glenarthur, chairman of King Edward VII’s Hospital, has now written to Australian radio station condemning the call, in which two presenters pretended to be the Queen and the Prince of Wales.

In the letter to Max Moore-Wilton, chairman of Southern Cross Austereo - the parent company of 2DayFM, Lord Glenarthur said: "I am writing to protest in the strongest possible terms about the hoax call made from your radio station, 2DayFM, to this hospital last Tuesday.

"King Edward VII’s Hospital cares for sick people, and it was extremely foolish of your presenters even to consider trying to lie their way through to one of our patients, let alone actually make the call."

He added that the decision to transmit the pre-recorded call was "truly appalling".

In the sad event of a preventable death I hear the noise of arse-covering.

"Well There's No Point Being Queen Then"

The above words were uttered by Lady Beaverbrook to the Queen herself during the infamous and controversial sacking of Major Dick Hern from his position as the Queen's race horse trainer in 1988. The Queen at the time had pleaded "that was little she could do as she had to follow the advice of her advisers", which prompted the above response.

Now I know this because Mrs TBF was an employee of Dick Hern at the time as his racing secretary, and was present, along with quite a few others, of said conversation. Mrs TBF was to go on to eventually transcribe, from his audio tapes, Major Hern's authorised biography.

I recall this, in view of this weekend's long Diamond Jubilee celebrations and the points made by Sean Gabb (via Richard North) that the role our monarchy is even more of a rubber-stamping exercise than before. I say this as neither a monarchist nor republican but as the view that the whole system has gone badly wrong. Sean Gabb begins:

Those of us who pay attention to such things will have noticed a difference between the BBC coverage of the Golden Jubilee in 2002 and of the present Diamond Jubilee. Ten years ago, the coverage was adequate, though reluctant and even a little stiff. This time, it has been gushing and completely uncritical.

Personally I think he's being a little restrained here, the coverage in my view at the time from the BBC was clearly hostile - copious comments and discussions of; "is the monarchy relevant?" Or "does anyone care anymore?" A charge that was repeated later in that year.

But now there is a difference in coverage, which can be mostly attributed to:

The third [reason] is that the BBC was taken by surprise in 2002 by the scale of public enthusiasm, and does not wish to be caught out again.

However, I believe the chief reason to be that the new British ruling class has finally realised what ought always to have been obvious. This is that, so far from being the last vestige of an old order, dominated by hereditary landlords and legitimised by ideologies of duty and governmental restraint, the Monarchy is an ideal fig leaf for the coalition of corporate interests and cultural leftists and unaccountable bureaucracies that is our present ruling class. The motto for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee was “Sixty Years a Queen.” The motto now might as well be “Sixty Years a Rubber Stamp.” If, during the six decades of her reign, England has been transformed from a great and powerful nation and the classic home of civil liberty into a sinister laughing stock, the ultimate responsibility for all that has gone wrong lies with Elizabeth II.

As Richard North highlights, that under 'Brenda', one of the greatest transfer of our power to foreign shores has taken place. The Queen is now merely an EU citizen as a result of the Maastricht Treaty. Our supreme court is that in name only, our real supreme court lies abroad and conveniently does not even go by the name of "Supreme". Our Parliament is often by-passed and can't pass many laws without permission, and even prisoners held at our Majesty's pleasure can fight for rights, while convicted, via a court which is outside her jurisdiction.

Not that it is entirely the Queen's fault - judges, MPs the media and the British public have all taken part - they still vote for corrupt politicians. MP's took us into the EEC on a lie and without any mandate at all. The media gratuitously fawn with articles like this despite that the footage shown last night (56:30mins) shows the Queen smiling seconds before. In the light of such sovereign impotency it's impossible to conclude anything other than the whole Jubilee is a charade.

By the actions of the (flawed*) genius of the European Union that by leaving the institutions in place like the monarchy, the courts, and our Parliament, we can keep up the pretence that we run our own country. So it's interesting to note that when I pointed out similar points on one of the copious Daily Mail celebration articles it was massively 'red arrowed' in no time at all. The DM readers normally hostile to the European Union it seems cannot cope with our membership's true implications. One is reminded of Hermann Goering:

"But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Thus lots of Daily Mail readers are seemingly impervious to the saying; "a true friend tells you what you need to know, not what you want to hear", but that's how I view my own country. Being patriotic to me means in practice I criticise it often because I believe it should be better - I'm trying to tell it what it needs to know.

I could, of course, choose the easy life, wave some silly plastic Union flags (made in China) and pretend everything is all ok.

*Its flaw is the contradictory need to keep it's progress is hidden via the stealth-like 'Monnet method' - step by step - because it would be unpopular, yet it publicises itself increasingly to justify what it does.

60 Years Ago Today?

Today is such a day. It was exactly 60 years ago that the Queen was crowned in Westminster Abbey.

Arithmetic's not the Sun's strong point...

How Appropriate...

Today is the Queen's speech, on the same day as Europe Day - a coincidence I'm sure. Anyway to celebrate Europe Day, EU Council President Van Rompuy will take your questions.

Update: Just seen, Richard North compares the different issues being proposed between the UK Parliament and the EU one.

Picture nicked from Douglas Carswell 

Unelected Bodies

Colin Firth is somewhat of a favourite for my wife (something to do with some scene from a BBC drama in the mid '90s) and he's currently, and deservedly, in the running for an Oscar for the King's Speech - a fine film although not entirely accurate.

That however doesn't stop him from being an arse:

The 50-year-old star of The King's Speech who was this week shortlisted for the Best Actor Oscar, said in an interview on Friday night that he believed people should choose their rulers.

A fine sentiment and one I agree with, he then goes on to say:

Asked for his views on the Royal Family by Piers Morgan on CNN, Firth said: "I think they seem very nice", and praised The Prince of Wales for his environmental activism.

But pushed harder for his opinion he added: "I really like voting. It's one of my favourite things".

Asked by Morgan: "So, an unelected institution isn't really your cup of tea?" Firth responded: "It's a problem for me, yeah. Unelected bodies".

So Colin Firth expresses anti-monarchist sentiments? This immediately in my cynical mind raises suspicions that his objections to unelected bodies is probably not all encompassing. Normally these objections are in conjunction with support for other more powerful 'unelected bodies'.

And so it proves. This would be the same Colin Firth who before last year's general election gave his backing to the Lib Dems. This is the party who said; "no, yes, maybe then we'll give a different referendum on the EU - anything to get the Lisbon Treaty through". Mr Firth's response? Er nothing. He later withdrew his support from the Lib Dems. Why you may ask? For his party's support of unelected bodies? Nope. For the Lib Dem betrayal on student tuition fees instead.

Then in 2005 Mr Firth lobbied the EU for fair trade, in particular the then EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson:

Mr Firth said that he wanted to lobby for the cause as a "European citizen..."

As a European Citizen, not a British one:

However, asked by the EUobserver whether he would get involved in promoting the EU, Colin Firth said without hesitation: "No."

But it wasn't a "no, because EU unelected bodies are not my cup of tea" response, nor was there any criticism of Peter Mandelson as an unelected EU Commissioner - instead Mr Firth is happy to lobby and engage with unelected bodies if it suits his purpose.

It always seems odd that the Queen, though granted is unelected but has relatively very little power, comes under criticism yet this criticism rarely extends to other unelected bodies, such as the EU Commission, the Council of the EU, the President of the European Council, Baroness Ashton or the European Court of Human Rights which passes judgment on prisoner's right to vote against the wishes of the UK people.

If republicans such as Mr Firth really cared about "unelected bodies" perhaps they would be better off starting with the bodies which actually have real power over public policy and the lives of real people, such as judges, quangos or international bodies like the EU.

Instead they waste their time fretting over an old lady who has a love for dogs and horses, her jet-flying climate change worrying son and the Privy Council.

But then some unelected bodies are more equal than others it seems.

Off With Her Head

Usually I try not to trust Daily Mail stories on face value. They often get it wrong. But I'm currently not in the mood to care so if this is true and we don't do anything then...well...we deserve what we get:

The Queen’s head could disappear from British stamps as part of controversial plans to sell off the Royal Mail, it was revealed last night.

Ministers are locked in frantic talks with Buckingham Palace to discuss how the monarch will be represented – if at all – on future stamps after the Government confessed it had failed to guarantee that the Queen’s image would survive.

Apparently the Queen is most seriously displeased:

But Royal insiders said that ‘anger’ at the Palace at the proposed sale had been heightened by the fear that it could be rushed through in advance of the 2012 Diamond Jubilee, when a range of special stamps is expected to be produced.

One said: ‘The Palace don’t like this privatisation at all but they are particularly keen to delay it until after the Jubilee if they possibly can. That could explain the delay.’

But not so displeased as to object forcefully, just delay it so that it doesn't cause too much fuss. Our Queen is a traitor and signs away her power willingly against her coronation oath.

Prat

It appears that Nick Griffin has been banned from the Queen's garden party:

BNP leader Nick Griffin has been denied entry to a Buckingham Palace garden party over claims he "overtly" used his invitation for political purposes.

A spokesman said his behaviour had "increased the security threat and the potential discomfort" to other guests.

Well yes, it's not unexpected, the Palace was always going to use any old excuse to prevent him from going. The Queen may be a traitor but she's not stupid.

The opportunity of a possible photograph of Mr Griffin with the Queen within the vicinity of Buckingham Palace was never going to happen.

Apparently he boasted about being invited. Which gave the Palace all the excuse they needed. If you're going to be an odious little shit then you have to develop a little more political acumen, and not cry 'free speech' in order to cover up your own inadequacies.

She Moves In Mysterious Ways...

It may be just me, but one thing that struck me this morning watching the live coverage of Gordon Brown going to the Palace to ask permission to dissolve parliament, was that the Queen arrived in a helicopter just moments before.

Now I'm sure she's traveled by helicopter previously, but why land at Buckingham Palace just before an important announcement such as an election (the date of which was widely predicted), when she knows that it will be covered live?

I wonder whether this is a signal of what the Queen really thinks of Gordon Brown; "I'm taking time out from my busy schedule to see you, you do it when I say".

Although she's famously apolitical, the Queen has form in her subtle nature (my emphasis):

In the midst of the economic crisis yesterday, when news about the nation’s finances dominated every news bulletin, the Queen did something she had never done before; she held an audience with the Governor of the Bank of England, at Buckingham Palace, for the first time since she came to the throne 57 years ago.

It was a clear signal that she did not trust Brown's updates on economic matters. Something he acknowledged a few days later by exacting his revenge by resurrecting changes to succession to the throne which her Majesty is known to detest.

And of course this from John Prescott's biography:

I was surprised at how small the Queen was and when it came to my turn [when he tried to refuse to bow when meeting her], she mumbled something. I couldn't hear what it was, so naturally I bent down. She just smiled. She knew she'd got me. As far as everyone watching was concerned, and the local photographers, it looked as if I was bowing. But I wasn't. She'd deliberately lowered her voice and caught me out.

The Queen in her own subtle way, in my view, has expressed to the British people how not to vote at the next election.