Brown may have missed out on a good thing and left it to Cleggeron.
When things are going badly in the country, it is always a good idea for the prime minister to rake around and see if there isn’t a royal you can get married off. A royal wedding always generates good feeling, the awwww factor, and of course, the nearer to the throne, the bigger the draw, and the greater the “feel good” effect, and consequent boost for the government.
So, I have to say, during the dying days of the Labour government in London, I expected to hear that Prince Charles and the Middletons had announced the marriage of their respective offspring. But no, either Brown didn’t think of it, or Wills had the bottle to tell him that he wasn’t going to get married for the benefits of such an unpleasant, unpopular and inept prime minister.
Now, although nothing has been announced, bookmakers have stopped taking bets on 2011 being the date we can expect the wedding to take place. It seems they feel that it’s now a done deal.
William Hill has instead opened a market on which month William will marry Kate and where they will go on honeymoon. They rate June 2011 as the most likely month for the wedding at 1/2, with July 3/1, January to May 4/1, August 7/1 and September to December 10/1.
The private island Mustique in the Caribbean is favourite for the honeymoon at 4/1, followed by Saint Tropez in the south of France at 11/2. Slightly more off the wall, they rate Butlins at 250/1 and Magaluf at 500/1.
So it looks as if they are pretty certain that there will be an announcement soon.
When things are going badly in the country, it is always a good idea for the prime minister to rake around and see if there isn’t a royal you can get married off. A royal wedding always generates good feeling, the awwww factor, and of course, the nearer to the throne, the bigger the draw, and the greater the “feel good” effect, and consequent boost for the government.
So, I have to say, during the dying days of the Labour government in London, I expected to hear that Prince Charles and the Middletons had announced the marriage of their respective offspring. But no, either Brown didn’t think of it, or Wills had the bottle to tell him that he wasn’t going to get married for the benefits of such an unpleasant, unpopular and inept prime minister.
Now, although nothing has been announced, bookmakers have stopped taking bets on 2011 being the date we can expect the wedding to take place. It seems they feel that it’s now a done deal.
William Hill has instead opened a market on which month William will marry Kate and where they will go on honeymoon. They rate June 2011 as the most likely month for the wedding at 1/2, with July 3/1, January to May 4/1, August 7/1 and September to December 10/1.
The private island Mustique in the Caribbean is favourite for the honeymoon at 4/1, followed by Saint Tropez in the south of France at 11/2. Slightly more off the wall, they rate Butlins at 250/1 and Magaluf at 500/1.
So it looks as if they are pretty certain that there will be an announcement soon.
It sounds like a starter. Just when the serious newspapers will be full of the doom and gloom of the October Spending review that will spell the end of any kind of popularity that the coalition government has enjoyed, the Red Tops and the other tabloids will daily speculate on the dress, the meal, the ceremony, the honeymoon destination, the bridesmaids, the ....... oh well, all that stuff....
Hopefully then no one will notice that the country is collapsing around them. Faced with a choice of making a front page splash on the redundancies in the police, or the local council closing its libraries and swimming baths, or the fact that Kate has chosen a French designer to make her dress, or an Italian for her shoes...... the royal story will usually win.
I bet the likes of terminally talentless celebrities like Jord
an, Peter, Cheryl, and their ilk, who depend upon ever more bizarre lifestyle choices for their continued fame and fortune will be spitting feathers, foreseeing their relegation to page 23!!But a wee word of caution to the government, ... royal weddings don’t come cheap, and with William being so senior in the royal family it will be the state that picks up the bill for the wedding, the feast and the security for the thousands of kings, princes, presidents and other “top” people who will descend on London for the event.
People may very well start asking how all this can be afforded when retirement homes are having their budgets slashed.
In the meantime, I wonder where I put my top hat and tails.......
It will be a disgrace if that royal waster decides to get married and sock it to the tax payer to pick up the tab with some lavish ceremony at St Pauls with the Archbishop of Canterbury and all. Even greater proof if any were needed that we are not “all in it together” after all. This time he can borrow a nuclear submarine to get his guests to the party instead of a Chinook, we may as well get some use out of them. Two useless wastes of money in one boat!
ReplyDeleteHe cannot marry little Kate Middle-class.
ReplyDeleteWilliam cannot marry her, being below his station.
There will be no marriage between these two, the very idea is lunacy.
I take it that you're against it then Munguin?
ReplyDeleteWho esle is he gonna marry Dean?
ReplyDeleteHe seems to like this Kate.....
Mind you Queen Kate doesn't ahve much of a ring to it, nor for that matter does Queen Camilla LOL.
Probably it will nevr come to that.
Just out of interest though, do you have some European princess up your sleeve for him Dean?
By the time you sift out that she has to be royal, white, female, Church of England and a virgin, that's kinda narrowed it down to...er... no one!
LOL
What can she be thinking? Hasn't she heard about her future in-laws?
ReplyDeleteBut Dean has a point I think. Surely an ancient tradition of the monarchy is that you marry someone of royal blood. But then you actually spend most of your time with a....well uh...."girlfriend." As for being a virgin, I think there have been reports that the couple has already been living "in sin." So I wouldn't take any bets on virginity being involved.
Or as the prominent and distinguished social commentator Sarah Palin would say, "how's that virgin thingy workin out FOR YA....also" *wink*
Ah a benefit cheat shouldn't be too difficult to identify others of the same ilk.
ReplyDeletePS Tris: I like that picture of you in your top hat and tails. BTW, you bear a striking resemblance to an American movie star of years past. ;-)
ReplyDeleteWho cares???
ReplyDeleteMe. And the rest of the Tory Party ;) We get awfully worked up over this kind of stuff...
ReplyDeleteYou must calm down a bit Dean. ;-) BTW....Ironic that the American branch of the Tory party is called "Republican."
ReplyDeleteDanny,
ReplyDeleteThere was always Adams, he was a 'republican' [by today's term], but was known as a 'federalist' and occasionally a 'monarchist'
The early years of US history, the first 50 years is very fascinating, you can see political birth at work.
But this stuff does worry me, with every middleton in the bloodline they become a tad more polluted, a little less royal.
Ah there's nothing like a Royal wedding to take the public's focus off the dire straights of the country.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure it'll happen. With the odd exceptions, Royalty are masters of manipulation.
Dean: I know where will it all end sullying the blood royal in that way. What next: divorce, marrying the mistress, registrar’s office, if they are not careful all that magic will wear off!
ReplyDeleteWell as I said Danny... where are the princesses?
ReplyDeleteThey have to be female (California and Maine might be Liberal, but the British establishment certainly isn't...for all the deputy prime Minister is!!). They have to be white (can you imagine if he fancied one of the Saudi Princesses?) They don’t just have to be Christian, but they have to be high Anglican... and it used to be that they had to be virginal. Now I don’t mean that Kate and Wills have had to be celibate... I mean she, or rather the princess, would have to have been virginal when she met the prince... otherwise you present any past boyfriends of the future Queen with a meal ticket for life.... given the state of tabloid journalism the world over, but most particularly in the UK.
I’m glad we have the benefit of Mrs Palin’s sharp intellect to rely upon should ever we feel the need of it.!! Also!
Cynical...
ReplyDeleteWho's a benefit cheat?
You've lost me there.....
I'm glad you noticed the likeness Danny...
ReplyDeleteIf you can imagine him with 5 left feet and no co-ordination you'd remark a frightening similarity in our dancing skills too.
Ahhhh... that's who cares is it Dean?
ReplyDeleteIt seems that millions care Dubs.... William Hill are doing brisk business.
It must be all Dean's mates down the bookies (although I've heard that Tories telephone their bookies rather than trapse down to the shops). I wouldn't know. I've only once met a real live Tory, and that was the aptly named Baroness Strange or Cherry Drummond. A complete fruit cake!!!
Yes, that's true Subrosa, although I can't help feeling that, in tha matter of marriages it is the royals who are being maniipulated by teh politicians.
ReplyDeleteI bet tomorrow's dinner that Mrs Thatcher was at the back of the wedding between Chick and Diana. And probably between Andy and Sarah... They turned out well.
The only good thing about these affairs is that the Queen declares a public holiday.
Fancy bringing in common people. If they do too much more of that Munguin, maybe the royals won't all be barking mad.
ReplyDeleteDean: Danny is a total mine of information on American history and politics. His detailed knowledge on each and every aspect that I have ever asked him about has been mind blowing.
ReplyDeleteDanny... I hadn't thought about the in-laws situation. Charles and Mrs Parker Bowles, who don't seem to be getting on too well together these days. I note that she didn't join him for his week's holiday at the Castle of May in the North of Scotland, preferring to stay at home with her children.
I think that having got the title and her hands on the money and priviledge she's more or less dumped him and his weirdo family of inbreds.
Sorry Dean. You are probably seething about that, but it's the way it looks to me.
Dean,
ReplyDeleteExcellent comment about Adams. He was surely a man of principle. In his capacity as a Boston lawyer, he successfully defended, in a colonial court, the eight British soldiers accused of murder in the "Boston Massacre" of 1770. And of course he famously had a quite amicable chat with King George, some years after the revolution.
His bitter split with Jefferson (a more conventional fire-breathing revolutionary) helped define the beginning of the two-party system in the new United States, between the Federalists and the "Jeffersonians" (or Democratic-Republicans).
As for royalty marrying royals. I think I read that Diana was technically a commoner before her marriage....although a member of the aristocracy and descended from royalty. I wonder if Ms. Middleton has any royal blood in her family heritage.
tris anyone who sponges of the state no matter how obtuse is a benefit cheat. Thats how I see it.
ReplyDeleteTris...nothing like a royal marriage to get attention here in the states. It's been on all the newscasts. Of course the American media is not usually at all inclined to report on "foreign" news....which is to say anything and everything that happens in the world outside the borders of the USA.
ReplyDeleteYes...there have even been reports over here about The Duchess of Cornwall and Rothesay apparently not wishing to get out and about with Charles. Not exactly the expected behavior of a future Queen. I remember the protracted comedy of errors which their marriage ceremony became. I recall that at one point the bookies were taking bets on the next thing that would derail the ceremony. There were bets being taken on an alien abduction.....albeit at long odds of course.
Danny: Don't get me started on about Diana. As my mother always explains; when one has little nice to say, best say nothing.
ReplyDeleteTris: There are plenty of protestant princesses, Germany is flooded with their noble/royal families. Just dig one out from somewhere, so long as she's virgin, able to spawn life thats enough.
Danny:
ReplyDeleteMy usual source, Wiki, has come up with the following on Kate:
Kate was born in Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, as the first of three children to Michael Francis Middleton (born 23 June 1949), a flight dispatch officer for British Airways, and his wife Carole Elizabeth Middleton (née Goldsmith; born 31 January 1955), an air hostess.[1] Michael and Carole had married on 21 June 1980 at the Parish Church in Dorney, Buckinghamshire.[1] Kate's paternal family came from Leeds, West Yorkshire, and her great-grandmother Olivia was a member of the Lupton family, who were active for generations in Leeds in commercial and municipal work.[2] Carole Middleton's maternal family, the Harrisons, were working class labourers and miners from County Durham.[3] Middleton has two siblings, Philippa "Pippa" Charlotte[4] and James William.[5] Pippa Middleton, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, has received press coverage since her sister became famous, with focus on her relationships and lifestyle.[6]
In 1987, the Middletons founded their own company, Party Pieces, a mail order firm that sells party supplies and decorations.[7] They have since become millionaires.[2]
She was raised in Bucklebury, Berkshire,[8] and attended St. Andrew's School in Pangbourne, Berkshire followed by Marlborough College in Wiltshire.[9]
So nope, no royal or even aristocratic blood anywhere!!
OK Dean:
ReplyDeleteWhy don't you make a list of suitable princesses and submit them to Clarence House for the prince to consider LOL.
Mind you a lot of these German minor royals are of dubious descent too you know!!
Dean ... by appointmennt to HRH Prince William, matchmaker!!
LOL
Alternatively
Cynical...
ReplyDeleteI have you now. The difference between them is that the royals are allowed to do it; the Lords and MPs get away with it, the big time tax dodgers pay people to make sure they get away with it, and the rest of us end up in the slammer iof we even do it by mistake!!
Sorry for being a big thicko :D
LOL Danny....
ReplyDeleteThe marriage was a great distraction here. It should never have happened but the haughty one put his foot down and well... you see the result.
The only good thing was that the registrar's office got a makeover. Royals, it seems were not to be walking on ordinary carpet that ordinary people walk on.
Madam parker Bowles appears to like the trappings of being Charlie's woman but none of the work that goes with it. She seems to have forgotten that with the man came a job that we pay her to do, and will pay her to do until she bites the dust. (Unless of course he gets rid of her too.)
However, la Parker Bowles has made it clear that she doesn't like having to be in places where it is either very hot or very cold and she doesn't like creepy crawlies.
So...erm.... a visit to well....most places... is out of the question.
She is apparently much more interested in her grandchildren and presumably now that she has the run of god only knows how many houses, mostly at our expense, she can have them round and do stuff with them all over the UK.
I wonder who filled the post of mistress when the old mistress became the wife. I hope that if the new one also looks like a horse, at least this time it's front of the animal that she resembles.
As my granny would say "he's got the taste o' an ingin' (onion)"
Poor Kate. She doesn't know what she's letting herself in for. Wills is probably another screaming homme like Edward. Or a necrophilia worshipper like Charles.
ReplyDeleteIt must be time for a Royal to 'come out' as they say these days.
A Royal 'civil partnership' would drag the Royals into the 21st Century and be a great boost to the coalition government. Seeing as it's full of 'diversity'.
Erm... yes Hugh
ReplyDelete... I'm thinking that Queen Cedric might be a wee bit too far for the likes of His Nob le ness Norman Titbit... don't you think?
Hugh,
ReplyDeleteDon't be silly. And don't be offensive to the sovereign and her brood!
I wonder though, if Kate has, in fact, studied what life will be like if she marries this guy.
ReplyDeleteHis father lives in the Edwardian age, just like his grandmother brought him up to do, and his stepmother lives in a world all of her own accepting all the privileges of being married to Charles and damned few of the responsibilities.
It has to be as weird a family as any you'll find.
Added to which, Kate is a darling right now because she is making money for the tabloid press by being a darling. If it suits them to make money out of her by making her a demon, they will... without a thought.
Talking of the tabloid press, has anyone noticed how dangerously near The Sun, the style of The Times is becoming.
Is this because the intelligentsia and the establishment are no longer intellectually capable of understanding long sentences and big words, or is it because Rupert Murdoch, who reads it, is closely related to some of the lower forms of life?