The royals must be delighted to have the Tories in power for, while bad things are happening daily to people like us, it has been unmitigated joy at the House of Windsor’s house (if you get my meaning)...well I should say houses really, for there are many.
Yes, Dave has rained down (see that: clever use of rained/reigned) benefit after benefit on the family to which he is, I’m told, distantly related. But then, why not? After all, the story goes that when Dave decided that he wanted to be in politics, and the natural party for his sort was the Tories, they showed little interest in putting him forward for a seat. Well, they wouldn’t. Unlike most politicos, Wee Willie Hague for example, he had shown no interest in politics, or in the Tories, at Oxford. His politics, such as they were, were right wing, but they would be. I mean if you had his money wouldn’t you want to keep your hands on it?
Anyway, I ramble. The point is that the Tories weren’t interested in Davie, until one day the Tory chairman got a call from someone at the palace. No, not her, don’t be silly. It was one of her flunkies, but a top flunky it must have been for, lo and behold, the next thing is that Dave is an MP.
So it’s payback time Cammy. And the payback has been big. First the chancellor announced, hidden at the end of the budget, that the Civil List was to be scrapped and a new system of payment for royals initiated. Of course no one imagined that, in a budget so full of bad news for “ordinary” people, that this would mean a large pay rise for the Queen. Apparently Charlie, who is at the bottom of everything avaricious and profligate in the royal family has been writing to ministers for 20 years trying to get them to do this. All have resisted until Georgie who was a pushover and tent folded right away.
So next, it appears that “one” (Charlie) is fed up with one’s private business being known by all and sundry. So...letters, emails and documents relating to the monarch, Charlie and Willie will no longer be disclosed even if they are in the public interest. Yes, you read that right. Even if it is in the public interest!
Again this was tacked onto plans called (ironically) “opening up public bodies to public scrutiny". No one noticed its inclusion as “added protection" for the royals in the small print. You couldn’t make it up.
And now, when unions on the Tube have threatened a strike on April 29 when William and Kate are to be married, Dave’s spokesman has blamed the unions for undermining a day of national celebration. Celebration? What?
His rail minister said “most people” are looking forward c
elebrating the wedding. Again, what? Most people don’t care squat. I know not one single person who is interested.
Half the population doesn’t give a toss for a start. Guys may be appy to have a day off, but after that....pfffffffff?
And do women want to spend the day gazing at what other women, with a million times (literally) more to spend on clothes, are wearing. Dave is happy because it’s just before local government elections in England, which they want to win. Of course he’ll get a free feed at the palace afterwards.
So never mind all these people being thrown out of work, cold, hungry. We MUSTN’T have the royal wedding ruined... (like they will be using the Tube!!!)
Yes, Dave has rained down (see that: clever use of rained/reigned) benefit after benefit on the family to which he is, I’m told, distantly related. But then, why not? After all, the story goes that when Dave decided that he wanted to be in politics, and the natural party for his sort was the Tories, they showed little interest in putting him forward for a seat. Well, they wouldn’t. Unlike most politicos, Wee Willie Hague for example, he had shown no interest in politics, or in the Tories, at Oxford. His politics, such as they were, were right wing, but they would be. I mean if you had his money wouldn’t you want to keep your hands on it?
Anyway, I ramble. The point is that the Tories weren’t interested in Davie, until one day the Tory chairman got a call from someone at the palace. No, not her, don’t be silly. It was one of her flunkies, but a top flunky it must have been for, lo and behold, the next thing is that Dave is an MP.
So it’s payback time Cammy. And the payback has been big. First the chancellor announced, hidden at the end of the budget, that the Civil List was to be scrapped and a new system of payment for royals initiated. Of course no one imagined that, in a budget so full of bad news for “ordinary” people, that this would mean a large pay rise for the Queen. Apparently Charlie, who is at the bottom of everything avaricious and profligate in the royal family has been writing to ministers for 20 years trying to get them to do this. All have resisted until Georgie who was a pushover and tent folded right away.
So next, it appears that “one” (Charlie) is fed up with one’s private business being known by all and sundry. So...letters, emails and documents relating to the monarch, Charlie and Willie will no longer be disclosed even if they are in the public interest. Yes, you read that right. Even if it is in the public interest!
Again this was tacked onto plans called (ironically) “opening up public bodies to public scrutiny". No one noticed its inclusion as “added protection" for the royals in the small print. You couldn’t make it up.
And now, when unions on the Tube have threatened a strike on April 29 when William and Kate are to be married, Dave’s spokesman has blamed the unions for undermining a day of national celebration. Celebration? What?
His rail minister said “most people” are looking forward c
elebrating the wedding. Again, what? Most people don’t care squat. I know not one single person who is interested.Half the population doesn’t give a toss for a start. Guys may be appy to have a day off, but after that....pfffffffff?
And do women want to spend the day gazing at what other women, with a million times (literally) more to spend on clothes, are wearing. Dave is happy because it’s just before local government elections in England, which they want to win. Of course he’ll get a free feed at the palace afterwards.
So never mind all these people being thrown out of work, cold, hungry. We MUSTN’T have the royal wedding ruined... (like they will be using the Tube!!!)
Well, it's an ill wind......
Pic 1: “How awfully clever of you Charles, you doubled the money and the prols aren’t allowed to know how we spend it. Your father always said you’d come in useful for something if we kept you long enough. It's just a pity it took you 20 years to do.” Pic 2: “Sorry I’m late ma’am, the damned tubes are off.” Pic 3: “Ah yes, this is one’s garden; you paid for it, you stock it, you maintain it. Splendid, isn’t it? Take a good look; you’ll not see it again.” Pic 4: The Tent Folder General, hiding with a friend.
Long live the Republic!
ReplyDeleteWhen we get one...
Nevermind the Republic, I've had enough of ANY sort of master.
ReplyDeleteTube strikes should be the LEAST that the royal wedding can expect, though it does mean anyone seeking to raise awareness for something more than out of place expenditure might have some trouble getting there.
Oh I thought this was about the Labour Party ;-)
ReplyDeleteThe Queen should get pay rises, and should not have to disclose to parliament what she spends the money on.
ReplyDeleteIt is her personal financial affairs after all, and the public ought not interfere
So much for open government, now we won’t be able to know anything about royal finances it will all be out with the remit of freedom of information legislation.
ReplyDeleteNever mind, every cloud has a silver lining, at least from now on Dean and other royal apologists won’t be able to make the ludicrous assertion that the Brenda and her odious brood are cheaper than the French or US Presidents. Because, unlike French and US Presidential spending (all of it) none of the spending of our head of state (and her family) will be available in the public domain. So another nail in the coffin of open Government! No doubt next time the small print will contain exclusions for MPs Lords and the Conservative Party as well.
George III seems to me to have been a disaster for the royal family. He not only was the one who lost the American colonies (apparently unpopular at the time), he turned over the income from the Crown Estate to Parliament in return for what became sort of an eternal annuity. (Allowing modern politicians to rant about how they pay much of the cost of the royal family, while raking in the Crown Estate revenues which are now much more than the Civil List is or ever was.) POOR royals! But they did agree to the bad deal. Anyway, I love that picture of Charles and his mum. How nice that the photographer snapped the shutter at the precise moment Charles tells her what he's getting the Tories to agree to.
ReplyDeleteIs this outrageous Tory plan really causing no big outcry? The contrarian principle of politics would suggest that if the Civil List/Crown Estate arrangement were to be fiddled with, the party historically more favorable to royal prerogatives would NOT be the party to do it. Too much public outcry about the Tories being....Tory.
In the US, it took Richard Nixon, the old red-baiting, McCarthy-loving Congressman from California to establish friendly relations with "Red" China. And it took a Republican, George W. Bush, to pass badly needed prescription drug coverage for the federal Medicare program. (The biggest and most important improvement to Medicare in 40 years.)
So it's surprising to me that the Tories could pull this off for the royals. Hard as it is to believe in 2011, maybe there are a lot of people in the body politic of Britain who actually embrace the medieval idea of an hereditary monarch as Head of State. (An American prespective here of course.)
Dean...away and fuck off.
ReplyDeleteViva la Republica!
Vive la république Conan. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.
ReplyDeleteThey aren't bad things to aspire to, are they?
But Dean is at "liberté", to think that we should bow the knee to out "betters" if he wishes.
I actually think that what is frightening is that Charles has been pestering the life out of ministers to do stuff on a wide range of subjects for 50 years, and no one has done much more that bow, scrape and said "yes your royal highness" and then explain to him why the government can't do it.
Apart from wasting an inordinate amount of government time, and remember he deals with the top, not some junior minister, it hasn't done much harm.
A slightly mad eccentric chap with delusions of grandeur, living in the Edwardian age, wastes ministerial and prime ministerial time...and gets a bit of a drubbing in the press.
Now he has found a government which takes its direction from him, and no one will ever be allowed to know how many times Camerclegg will be summoned to attend upon his royal highness at wherever he might be.
Lord help us. Other countries go forward... the UK stumbles backwards, with its head bowed, into 1910.
Ha ha QM... I should imagine that after the disasterous mess they left, they WILL be reasonably happy... But now when the Queen talks about "My Governemnt" perhaps she should really say, "My Eldest Son's Government", because they do seem to be his glove puppets, unlpleasant thought though that might be!
ReplyDeleteRight Dean, and she should be allowed to chop people's head s off too. ;¬)
ReplyDeleteMunguin... I think they get Boris to write the Tory-royal-aristocracy friendly clauses in Latin or Ancient Greek, so that the thicko proles won't understand a word of it, and just assume it's been written by their betters... so it must be right.
ReplyDeleteYes Laz:
ReplyDeleteI'm not altogetehr sure why they are in such a state about Tubes. I mean it's not like anyone who matters travels by Tube. 'One doesn't have a season ticket.' Some of them probably have never been in an Underground station. Some Can you imagine Beatrice and her detectives using the metro?
While the eyes of the world are upon such weighty matters as the colour of her dress (I doubt that white would be appropriate as they live together in Wales) perhaps a muddly brown, it is a good opportunity for us to show how horrible life is in the UK for anyone not born to privilege. We have to try to ensure that it gets tv coverage, no matter how hard the journey.
(Actually, as the Tube is falling to pieces and rarely reliable, I think that even walking might be less horrible than using it.)
Be fair Danny, Old George didn’t actually lose the American colonies, and all that useful stolen income, himself... I mean he had a bit of a helping hand.
ReplyDeleteIt’s a bit like Churchill (good though he was) didn’t win the war entirely by himself, there were a few blokes (some who weren’t even Englishmen....that went out and actually did some fighting and losing lives and losing legs and stuff... without all the brandy and cigars!!!!!)
But I digress. It seemed that the Civil list was a good idea at the time. I have a feeling that Georgie was a bit like Charlie and his grandmother. He spent money like it grew on trees. And of course it more of less does for Charlie.
Before we had the 10 year settlement, there used to be a fight in parliament every year about how much of our dosh they were going to get. I remember at one stage reading that Princess Margaret (an old soak who was the Queen’s sister) was getting £400,000 or thereby, a year plus a free apartment in Kensington Palace, Windsor Castle and Holyrood, plus transport wherever and for whatever she needed. And all for doing NOTHING. She spent half the year in Mustique with a succession of toy boys, whom, one imagines we kept in champagne.
I remember reading too that on one occasion she wanted to take a party of friends to the races at Ascot. There was a perfectly good train service from Windsor, where she was staying, with a return fare of about £7. She however arranged for the royal train to be deployed at a cost to the state of some £50,000.
Topday, Charles uses the royal train, flies by private jet with Princess Crocodile Parker-Bowles and we are allowed to know how much it costs, but from now on.... no. So the most extravagant royal in living memory (yes, even more ridiculous than his grandmother) will be allowed to spend whatever he wants on whatever he wants...
And we suck it all up Dean. You are right. We must be mad.
Witless lot.
"And do women want to spend the day gazing at what other women, with a million times (literally) more to spend on clothes, are wearing."
ReplyDeleteQuite a lot of them do, yes. Who do you think it is buying all those copies of 'love it!', 'More', 'Take a Break' etc.?
LOL NB... it never occurred to me that anyone really did, although I recently saw someone reading on in the dentists' waiting room...
ReplyDelete... Gee ... oh well, I suppose it will serve a purpose.