Or at least, that's what they say.
(Not that I see much evidence for it I have to say, but that’s another matter. )
But this one has surely been made in David Cameron’s little bit of heaven for there is nothing like a wedding to cheer people up and nothing like a royal wedding to cheer up the masses.
It won’t of course do much for me, but many, if not most, people will forget how awful everything is and they will feel very British and there will be loads of Union flags flying and at least for a while all will be well with the world...
It’s already had the undoubted plus of pushing off the front page and away for the kind of rage that we would have expected from the rags that Cameron has authorised the payment of millions to prisoners in Guantanamo, as compensa
tion for our Secret Services being complicit in their torture, despite the fact that at least some of them have been released without any charge. State kidnap and torture, but Prince Wills and Kate have managed to push it into the “also happened today” bit of the paper.
Likewise the fact that (English) legal aid is going to be drastically reduced, with the possibility that, at least in some matters, redress to law will become the preserve of the rich. (The upside is that there will be a lot of lawyers who have been living off the fat of the land, who’ll have to go take on proper work now.) You might have expected that to come in for some stick, at least in the Labour supporting papers.
Between now and next year, when it is expected that the wedding will be held, there will be millions of words written for the media about dresses, menus, hymns, who’ll be best man and flower girls and, what the Queen will wear, where they will go on honeymoon.... and who will be c
oming to the huge bash that will have to be held, doubtless distracting us from the financial problems to come. Cameron will probably be hoping that no one will ask how much it will cost.
One can’t help but draw comparisons with the wedding of Charlie to Diana, which at least partially distracted the masses from the discomfort of the Thatcher revolution of the early 80s.
I can honestly say that I wish them a happier time together than the bungled mess that that was, whoever was behind it.
But this one has surely been made in David Cameron’s little bit of heaven for there is nothing like a wedding to cheer people up and nothing like a royal wedding to cheer up the masses.
It won’t of course do much for me, but many, if not most, people will forget how awful everything is and they will feel very British and there will be loads of Union flags flying and at least for a while all will be well with the world...
It’s already had the undoubted plus of pushing off the front page and away for the kind of rage that we would have expected from the rags that Cameron has authorised the payment of millions to prisoners in Guantanamo, as compensa
tion for our Secret Services being complicit in their torture, despite the fact that at least some of them have been released without any charge. State kidnap and torture, but Prince Wills and Kate have managed to push it into the “also happened today” bit of the paper.Likewise the fact that (English) legal aid is going to be drastically reduced, with the possibility that, at least in some matters, redress to law will become the preserve of the rich. (The upside is that there will be a lot of lawyers who have been living off the fat of the land, who’ll have to go take on proper work now.) You might have expected that to come in for some stick, at least in the Labour supporting papers.
Between now and next year, when it is expected that the wedding will be held, there will be millions of words written for the media about dresses, menus, hymns, who’ll be best man and flower girls and, what the Queen will wear, where they will go on honeymoon.... and who will be c
oming to the huge bash that will have to be held, doubtless distracting us from the financial problems to come. Cameron will probably be hoping that no one will ask how much it will cost.One can’t help but draw comparisons with the wedding of Charlie to Diana, which at least partially distracted the masses from the discomfort of the Thatcher revolution of the early 80s.
I can honestly say that I wish them a happier time together than the bungled mess that that was, whoever was behind it.
Gawd Tris, the first hour at lunchtime was enough for me. I read that Sky News went on about it for about 8 hours and more.
ReplyDeleteThere will be no waving of flags here - but I'll possibly have a look at her frock.
You're so right about Cameron being elated at the news. Superb day for it right enough.
Blodwyn back at RAF Valley will go apeshit when she finds out !
ReplyDeleteTris,
ReplyDeleteI've already received my wedding gift list - I'm thinking of a cut-price aircraft carrier to replace the Royal Dinghy.
Seeing as the whole thing was arranged by her mother and the fact that they have already broken up once I can’t see this being any greater a success than the father’s marriage. No doubt they are being pushed into it by the Tories as you say Tris to distract us from how awful life is under the coalition. Doubtless William will be wanting more money from the state to provide her with all the things her mother thinks she should be entitled. Talk about a gold digger! Of course the other subject we will hear about ad nausea is more royal hangers on in the form of kids. Although we are all in it together doubtless adequate provision has been made for that!
ReplyDeleteIt's nauseating SR. And we'll have this for the next 6-9 months. According to the paper review on the Today programme this morning some papers had 10 or 12 pages devoted to it. Now's the time to drop in horror stories!
ReplyDeleteThey reckon that that was why they chose yesterday to hide the sotry about Cameron folding his tent over his personal photographer who has now gone back on the Tory party payroll, not because there was a pang of guilt, I'm heard, but because he was told by the Cabinet Secretary that any pictures taken by a civil servant could not be used in any party literature/website.
Spin spin spin...
Nah, she'll probably be kept on as the mistress Mr Janus. It runs in the family.
ReplyDeleteThey say, Munguin, that they will be mindful of the economic straits the country finds itself to be in.
ReplyDeleteSo I expect that means they will invite a few close friends to a small ceremony in a registry office somewhere, retire to the pub round the corner for a half pint and a packet of peanuts and off for a week a Pontins in order to show support for English Holdays.
Or maybe they will have a massive ceremony in St Paul's and a huge banquet for 500 or so posh folk at Windsor, and fly off to Mustique.
Still, The Sun, the voice of the people, is calling for no expense to be spared. So I suppose that is what "we" all want...
How very mean of you to go for one of the cheaper options John. I thought better of you.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting them a tin oper though, so I suppose I can't really speak. (I know it's not on the list but a surprise is always nice I always think, and they have them in Morrisons for only 78p or £1.40 if you buy two!)
Was reading the guff in the paper about it today. These people really make you laugh (or cry depending on how you look at it). He is going on about not getting married until after his career as a pilot was up and running as if he is a “normal” person and hot lined up for the plumiest job in the country as a matter of nepotism and nothing else. As for her she is doing very well working for her parents’ mail-order business (So more jobs for the girls, eh!), no doubt a royal warrant will be winging its way to them. And at least a dame-hood for mummy for services to hitching her daughter up to the future king. Nice work if you can get it and Kate can get it if mummy tries!
ReplyDeleteI am sick to death of this Saxe-Coburg-Gotha lot!!
ReplyDeleteFirst they overthrow the true monarchy in 1688 ... then they set their own cosy club rules saying you can be anything from a Hindu to Satanist ... just don't be Roman Catholic ... then they break their own rules by allowing a morganic marriage to unfold.
God save Francis II, King of Scots, King of England, Duke of Bavaria, King over the water.
Let us just get rid of this lot, and restore the true monarchy! Then we will see if Kate Middleclass will still be marrying ole baldie and gummie!
Kate of course comes from a long line of coal miners and family servants. How the mighty have fallen!
ReplyDeleteYe gads Dean...
ReplyDeleteLet's overthrow the monarchy?
Oh I'll need to go and have a lie down. That's the second time you and I have agreed in a week!
He he...very funny post though.
Hmmm, a coalminer's daughter... Munguin.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if she eats Hovis and has a speech defect.
I get the nasty feeling that the Scottish election is going to be lost in a glut of metropolitan TV programs featuring Labour, the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems talking about AV and a frenzy of Britishness and royalty in the papers and TV driven by the royal wedding.
ReplyDeleteAny hope of media exposure by the SNP is going to be as doomed as their hope that the BBC would let them on the platform along with Cameron, Brown and Clegg at the General Election for Scottish broadcasts.
An AV referendum and a royal wedding on at the same time as a Scottish election? It's all just a coincidence.
Yes Doug, my thoughts exactly...
ReplyDeleteGoodbye to anything as trivial as our General Election, Hello marriage of super privileged guy to soon to be super privileged woman.
Well done, whoever was at the bottom of it...
Any guesses...?
Dean,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, as usual.
I'm also agreeing with Dean so in the interests of a harmonious blog I won't mention EU bailout or anything to spoil the camaraderie.
ReplyDeleteI must report to you that the American press is also all atwitter about this. I watched the interview with the happy couple.
ReplyDeleteDid you notice the negative (but mild for now) references to the British tabloid press? OMG, are we now to be subjected to the blathering of a middle class commoner who has decided to marry a royal, and is then going to be outraged by the fact that reporters and photographers will forever be hounding her? Next I assume will her utter and complete surprise and dismay that she has married into the most dysfunctional family on earth. Sorry, but I only see the prospect of another Diana-Charles soap opera here. The only saving grace might be the observance of marital fidelity by both parties in this case. Diana was not noticeably more faithful to Charles than he was to her, and she happily used the British press that she hated so much whenever it suited her public relations purposes.
I read that they met about nine years ago, and have carried on a "serious" courtship of some seven years duration. William is no ball of fire is he? Oh, but we are told that he had to pursue and complete his military training. THAT was what slowed things up. YEA...RIGHT! In fact, they have been living as a married couple. A marriage will make a pregnancy less awkward of course.
Royals should marry royals. Commoners are simply trouble for a royal house, and vice versa. What makes the whole situation even worse is that the current crop of Windsors are quite simply a mess (except for the Queen). Dean has one of the best solutions. The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha has been a disaster for Britain. Boot them out I say, and reestablish the Stuart monarchy, the last rightful royal house of Britain. (I occasionally shed a tear in remembrance of The Young Pretender.)
Or of course, you guys could do what you should REALLY do, abolish the monarchy altogether, and establish a democratic republic. But perhaps Dean will not be inclined to sign on to that one. :-)
Good heavens. There's a lot of agreeing with Dean going on... it's worrying; it's never happened before.
ReplyDelete:¬)
Ah yes Danny. You can expect a lot of that for the next 6 months, probably more.
ReplyDeleteWhat a nightmare.
The royals, like so many other celebrities, use the awful tabloids in this country when they want to and then denigrate them when they say something unpleasant.
We have a “paper” that seems to think that the only news is what Jordon, Peter André and Cheryl Cole are doing... and the X-Factor (Z list celebrities and a silly tv show).
Now of course these people will have to get up to even more ridiculous antics to battle through the wall of news that is the royal wedding.
Of course it is all about the “joy” that the country is feeling... at the moment, but in a few weeks time they will turn up something in Middleton’s past. Even if it’s a tiny thing when she was 7... they will make headlines of it.
I think you’re right. The circus of the Windsors is something that only other royals can handle. And as Dean has said they don’t marry for love, they marry for heirs and then have their fun with whomsoever.
That’s easy to understand if you’re royal, but not so easy if you are not.
High time we did away with them. This nonsense will cost so much money, especially in security which is secret and out with the scope of the Freedom of Information Act.
I saw this guy once in St Andrews when I was on a golf pilgrimage but he never spoke to me. I thought "Snobby git" and didn't speak to him either. Send them all to the tower and let the ravens loose.
ReplyDeleteBig John Cromwell xx
Ignorant students. No manners! I hope he pays his student loan back before he goes to the tower. We are, after all, all in this together!!
ReplyDeletePS: Does that mean you have plukes and warts all over your face like your Uncle Oliver?
No, luckily my face is more like my Uncle Mary's and Auntie William's.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I'll try again to post my comment.
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to say, as a purely practical matter, that when you're negotiating with the Windsors regarding the dissolution of the monarchy, it might make things go a bit smoother if you take imprisonment in the Tower off the table. :-)
PS: On the other hand, that would be a much better deal than Charles I got the last time you guys did away with the monarchy.
ReplyDeleteWith all this agreement on the house of Stuart, and Jacobitism [i.e. legitimism] let me forward you all a good solid link to online Jacobite campaigners - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jacobite/
ReplyDeleteSign up, comment and enjoy. It is time to restore the true monarchy.
p.s. I share Tris alarm at so much consensus around one of my comments :)
ReplyDeleteMy comment about the ultimate advisability of establishing a republic seems a bit ironic in light of Tris' blog entry about a Sarah Palin run for the American presidency.
ReplyDeletePerhaps in an ironic way, the prospect of having a politician like Sarah Palin as a head of state is as powerful an argument for retention of the monarchy, as the prospect of Charles as King is for the restoration of the Stuart line....LOL.
I've always thought your family was a bit weird John!
ReplyDeleteI think we should send them to America Danny, and you can keep them.
ReplyDeleteDean: Is this the first time a lot of people have agreed with you? :¬)
ReplyDeleteThank you Dean. It's an interesting group. I've signed up to get the emails.
ReplyDeleteI take your point Danny. You're never sure what you are actually going to get no matter what system you use... At least though, you canget rid of the silly woman after 4 years.
ReplyDeleteWe'll have Chic for life. (I don't know exactly how old he is, but he's already pretty aged looking. Given that the Queen could well last until she is 101, he may go before her!)