ANOTHER COSTLY PANTOMIME IN LONDON PARTLY PAID FOR BY US

Every year Elizabeth Queen of Scots and various other places, has the demeaning job of reading out the words of such literary luminaries as Dave Big Society Cameron, the posh boy; Gordon Moral Compass Nokia Broon, the clunking mobile; Pope Tony Blair I, the war criminal; John Egg Woman Underpants Major, the bore, and Margaret WE have become a Grandmother Thatcher, the loonie.

It is a ridiculous job for someone of 87 and should be delegated to a kitchen maid or under gardener at Buck House or anyone who can read.

The script is so leaden that even Larry Olivier would have had a job to put any life into it. Given that speaking has never been the Queens forté I found myself thinking that maybe they could offer the gig to Sandi Toksvig next year. She's every bit as posh and a lot more animated. Not sure she'd like the costume though!

It is ridiculous in the 21st century that the head of state be wheeled out to perform this preposterous  duty, which should, by democratic right, have absolutely nothing to do with her.

And at what cost?

I'm sure that it would be impossible to get a proper costing for today's meaningless event. They would cite security as the reason, but it must have cost tens of millions. They will say that it is great for tourism. Aye well, that's as maybe, but I'm not noticing any more tourists in Clachnacuddin, or Ecclefechan. So, I'm all right Jock Boris can celebrate.

The Queen was driven from Buckingham Palace to the palace of Westminster in a new state coach, which was the gift of an Australian. The poor man, one Jim Frecklington, mortgaged his house to pay the bill of $5 million. Nice gift to get for the woman who has everything. Trouble is "everything" includes a fine collection of state coaches. So maybe next time, Jim, you could get her a gift token, but not a Harrod's one. Since they accused her husband of murder she's had to start shopping in Liberty.

The contents of the Speech from the Throne (well it sounds like Cameron wrote it when on the lavatory, so I suppose it is appropriate) was its usual boring self. People complain that there are only 11 bills and that MPs will have an easy year doing next to nothing for their money (like that was something new). In any case they have a lot of "bills" of their own, settees and curtains to be purchased. After all some of them will pretty surely lose their seats, eh Danny, then who will buy their furniture for them?

Personally I think that the less they do, the less mess they are liable to make and I don't give a flying fig if they sit around on their back sides doing nothing all year.

Most of the new legislation will apply only to England, although I suppose Scotland had to pay its share of today's medieval pantomime. But again, that's fine with me. I really don't want that pile of toffs making any laws I have to live by and that they will end up making a good cash profit from.

Since the House of Lords took away Scotland's right to control fracking in the country, I expect the new bill making it legal for companies to frack under your house if they want to is a tad on the worrying side. But there are a lot of MPs and Lords with serious interests in fracking, so it is bound to pass with little fuss and a few greased palms. We just have to cross our fingers for September 18 on that one.

The only excitement of the day occurred when a pageboy fainted as the Queen was speaking, or droning on, about what her cack handed government was going to do. Right wing Tory MP Mark Pritchard gushed that: "The Queen carried on reading without interruption. As ever Her Majesty was the consummate professional." I suppose the oily little sod is aiming for a knighthood or a seat in the lords when his constituents get fed up of him.

In any case, I'd have had a great more time for a woman who as a mother, grandmother and great grandmother, would have shown a little concern for a fellow human being who was taken ill. After all, when the boy fell to the floor it could have been that he had died. 

Think how she could have endeared herself to people had she stopped reading Cameron's crap and shown some concern for the lad.

Kudos to Charles and Mrs Parker Bowles who appeared to have notice and may have even cared a little.

For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more

Well, hard times there may be, but at least one person doesn’t have to stint themselves when it comes to getting things done about the house.

It has come to light that, in the year since David Cameron moved into Downing Street, more that £680,000 has been spent on it by the pm, including £30,000 on his private apartments (above).

Now I didn’t know it, but it seem that an annual allowance of £30,000 is available to prime ministers for the upkeep of their personal accommodation at Downing Street, and that Mr Cameron has spent the lot. I wonder what he’ll use it for this year.

Last year’s lot was spent on plumbing, rewiring and redecorating the place. Apparently the furnishings (loadsa money, but precious little taste in my humble opinion) were paid for by the Camerons.

Another £653,192.34 was spent on external and internal renovation work to the offices and reception rooms in Downing Street. This included cabling, plumbing and energy efficiency improvements. (Jeez, I wish we could have some of that.)

Downing Street would not comment on exactly what the money was spent on and refused Freedom of Information requests asking what changes have been made to the Grade I listed building which the state owns and so is a council house by any other name.

No one would expect the prime minister, or our own first minister for that matter, to live in a slum, although god knows we expect a fair number of “ordinary people” to do so, but you’d have expected a little better in a year when austerity has been the name of the game and Cameron even made a big show of travelling to Spain on holiday with the most awful budget airline, and cancelled his Christmas holidays in Thailand, just to show us “ordinary people” that even “important people” were having to slum it...(well, except Osborne who doesn’t care for that sort of nonsense and trotted off to Klosters).

You see, I can hardly believe that the Browns, weird though they are, would have lived in a slum with water streaming down the walls and dodgy plumbing that required £30,000 spending on it to make it habitable.

It all reminds me of when the Queen Mother died and Charles got her old house. He was given £5 million of state (our) money to do it up. Now I grant you it is a big, no massive, house, but £5 million worth of repairs suggests that it’s hardly any wonder the poor old dear died, as there wasn’t a bloody roof on the place. OK, the decoration might not have been to Mrs Parker Bowles taste, but it was hardly a ruin with the paper hanging off the walls.

And so with Downing Street. They can’t be there THAT much. They have their constituency home and a country estate provided by us. Surely they could have tolerated the Browns’ decoration a bit longer given that some of the rest of us can’t afford to eat.

Why do these people think that they are worth things that we are not? Why do they think that we should pay for them? And why do they refuse us the details about them?

Between the foreign aid budget increases that this man has agreed to and his own insatiable desire to spend our money on himself, no wonder Osborne’s books get in a worse state by the day.


Nauseating picture of the "little women in the kitchen, wearing pretty dresses and talking about recipes while the men get down to talking about important things that they wouldn't understand". (Particularly idiotic in this situation as Michelle Obama could out-think David Cameron before she opened her eyes in the morning.)

POLL RESULTS: 8% FOR SHOOTING PEASANTS!

Thanks to everyone who took the time to take part in the poll on the English police’s reaction to His Royal Highness The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, Duke of Rothesay, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, Prince of Wales, Knight of the Thistle, Knight of the Garter, Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Bath, Member of the Order of Merit, Knight of the Order of Australia, Companion of the Queen's Service Order, Privy Counsellor, Aide-de-Camp, Earl of Chester, Duke of Cornwall, Earl of Carrick* and his companion Her Royal Highness Mrs Parker-Bowles being disrupted on their way to the theatre in a Rolls Royce and provocatively bedecked with more bling that any of the rest of us are likely to see in our entire lives.

It had been suggested by the London police chief, Paul Stephenson, that his officers, specially attached to the royal personage, had only one duty, and that was to get their “principle” to where he was supposed to be going. Nothing else mattered. I remember listening to him and his mate Boris Johnston spluttering on about the outrage of the heir to the throne having to be delayed getting to the theatre, and Mrs Parker-Bowles frightened out of her life by ordinary but angry people. He was adamant that his men had behaved with restraint because they had the right to shoot people. ...And not one single soul had been shot! Goodness. Copngratualtions to the police for that excellent piece of work. And not a passing newspaper vendor killed either. Magical.

The argument then opened up beyond shooting peasants to the use of various and sundry other crowd control methods, such as tazers, tear gas and water cannon. Boris Johnston chuntered on in buffoonish fashion that we British peasants were lucky that, unlike these Europeans, OUR lovely rozers didn’t use these methods of crowd control. (Although that’s not entirely true, and they do in any, case kettle people for up to 12 hours without toilet facilities, charge at them on horseback, turn them out of their wheel chairs and drag them across the road, and of course kill the odd passerby on his way home from work (although clearly not if he is on his way to the theatrein a dinner jacket).

As they were talking, I was imagining what would have happened had the royal protection officers decided to kill a few people as examples to the rest, obviously in order that they complete successfully their mission of getting this "principle" to his night out. I had my ideas as to what would have followed, but I was interested to see how people, from a fairly wide political spectrum and an extremely wide geographical area, who read this blog, felt.

So, here we have the results:

83% felt that shooting the protesters would provoke much more severe problems including civil disobedience. (Personally I would be surprised if someone didn’t burn down Clarence House and then Scotland Yard and then the Houses of Parliament.)

14% felt that it would escalate crowd trouble.

I was actually quite surprised that only 5% thought it would be reasonable to use water cannon, tazers or tear gas, I’d have thought more might have been happy to see control brought back to the streets by these methods, used commonly elsewhere in Europe.

That 8% thought that the police should have shot people who were threatening a late arrival at the theatre of their Hallowednesses, was I thought, quite shocking.

But I suppose we should know that in this country, the value that is put on the life of a newspaper salesman is not necessarily the same as the value of the life of a son of the Queen.

Grateful thanks once again to all who took part.

(*PS: It seems to me like Charles Philip Arthur George has around 15 jobs there. Does the government not think that in these times of economic depression it is unreasonable that one man hole down 15 government funded jobs? Should he not lose 14 of them to other people about to be made redundant?)

IS THE ESTABLISHMENT AND CLARENCE HOUSE OUT OF TOUCH?

Bruce Anderson, The Daily Telegraph, the paper of the establishment:

“....... Most of the students still do not understand the damage that Thursday’s riot did to their reputation and the extent to which they have alienated every decent person in this country....... The public is beginning to draw the obvious conclusion: if the police cannot even protect the Duchess of Cornwall, why should we believe that they will catch a burglar?....”

Of course being Scottish and having no need of any more qualifications may affect my views, but should this make my views so different from Anderson’s “decent people”? Will the Telegraph’s establishment move forward on this, based on what they fondly imagine “decent people” feel.

The riot was unfortunate, no doubt about that. There are people in hospital, one having had brain surgery. There are broken windows in the Supreme Court and some other government departments, and there is graffiti on some statues. Someone tore down the union flag.

Apart from the first one, none of these things really matter. I suspect that there are people working in Whitehall who will be relieved to know that their bombproof windows have been tested and found wanting, and hoping that the authorities will replace them with something that works. As for damaged statues and flags? Insulting to people’s memories, yes, maybe, but in the end they are stones and cloth. “Clarke’s Criminals” or “Smith’s Slackers” can repair the damage.

So am I out of line with “decent” people; am I an “indecent” person; or just a Scot? Or is Anderson’s, establishment coming at this from the wrong angle?

If they cannot protect Mrs Parker-Bowles how can they protect the masses from burglary?

Simples.

Clarence House sent the prince and his ‘wife’ out in a large-windowed Bentley or Rolls, her replete with jewels and clothes worth a fortune; him looking like a tailor’s dummy, and straight into the riots? I suppose they knew that there were such things as riots, and students, parents, lecturers, ordinary people? Yes?

Did it not occur to them that to rub this outrageous display of publicly funded wealth in the faces of people who were facing a struggle for the rest of their lives with the fees repayment, was a tad on the insensitive side? Do they not care, or are they just too stupid to understand? Or was there something more sinister?

Recent polls have shown an overwhelming majority of people don’t want Charles as king, or Mrs PB as queen. If Anderson and his like think that the days of “decent” people being repulsed by people standing up for their rights against a shower of lying, self serving MPs and an imperious, self important, relic of a prince, they are bang out of line.

It would be incredibly stupid of them to plan for future events, of which I’m sure there will be many, based on these suppositions. ‘Off with their heads’ was probably not really what the students, parents, lecturers and other people on Thursday’s protests had in mind. But it could easily come.

And Cameron-Clegg may wish to reflect that what happened to Charles the other day might spread to people who will promise anything to the public to gain power.... and once they have it discard their promises and pledges like Tesco carrier bags.

* I abridged Mr Anderson’s comments. He does question Stephenson’s management of the riots. Click on the quote or here for his piece.


Pics: Mr Anderson, who writes for David Cameron, wrote for Mrs Thatcher and who, according to Wikipedia, approves of torture, even of children in supposed ‘ticking bomb’ situations. (Wonder if he would do it himself, or who exactly he’d find who would.) together with scenes from the London protests

OUT OF THE WAY PEASANTS: HIGHNESSES COMING THROUGH

My jaw hit the floor this morning listening to the Today programme. Sarah Montague was interviewing Paul Stephenson the commissioner of the London’s Metropolitan Police, and Boris Johnson, mayor of London.

Boris has always seemed like a bit of a clown to me, a strange choice to have as the mayor of the capital of England, but a relatively harmless old thing. However this morning he came over as barking mad. His biggest concern, it seemed, about last night’s disturbances was the shock caused to Mrs Parker-Bowles. I’m not entirely sure where Boris is coming from on this. Many of the people who voted for him are those whose kids will be worst hit by the £9,000 fees. Yet in his outrage at the shock caused to Mrs Parker-Bowles he forgot all about them. We were lucky, he told Sarah; the authorities allow people to do this kind of thing in this democracy; there could be water cannon, but no. And still, for all that freedom he gives them, people have the audacity to frighten the life out of Mrs Parker-Bowles!

Is Mrs Parker-Bowles one of Boris’s paramours, I began to wonder as he ranted on about her.

And the “incredibly lucky to still have his job” Stephenson was no better. It was outrageous, he spluttered, that “the highnesses” (yes he actually said “THE highnesses”) had been so disturbed by what, presumably, he would call “the lownesses”.

He seemed not to respond to Sarah’s point that most half way sane people wouldn’t have driven through that part of London on a night when they knew that there were riots, inconvenient though that might be. He eventually replied that the situation changed very rapidly and they were caught unawares. Imagine being caught unawares with “highnesses” in the car ....Oh NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

He would have no truck with the fact that it was idiotic for two people dressed up in theatrical costumes, paid for by us, costing many times the entire wardrobe of any of these students and all of their friends, in a car also provided by us, that probably none of them would ever aspire to owning, in a convoy of protection agents, again provided at our expense, drove straight into the middle of the riots.

Sarah asked him if it would not have been sensible for them at least to have been in a less conspicuous car, but no. He was having none of it. The “thugs” (yes he called them that), were at fault.

But I keep the best for last. He said that the protection officers had done a wonderful job and that they had acted with restraint. They were armed. He left it hanging in the air...

Clearly somewhat flabbergasted Sarah asked if he thought it would be reasonable in the situation for protection officers to shoot people, and he simply repeated that his officers had acted with restraint, that their job was to get what he called their “principles” to their destination safely by whatever means.

Sarah gave him several chances to disclaim the obvious inference to be drawn from that... that it would have been in order for them, if they thought there was a possibility of the “principles”, or “highnesses” (whichever, I was getting confused about who they were by now) not getting to the theatre on time, to simply mow down the “lownesses”.

Boris, was asked his opinion and declined to disagree with the commissioner. I fear he may have forgotten in dismissing the "thugs" with such disdain, that when he was their age his hobby was getting drunk and smashing up restaurants in company with the prime minster and the finance secretary.

I have to say that it must have been a frightening experience for these "highnesses", and I can feel sorry for them, but there are other issues here, and the idea that crowds could be shot at because "highnesses" are being threatened is simply ridiculous. They should not have been out in that situation. It's not like they were going to some important function on which the future of the state relied. THEY WERE GOING TO THE THEATRE.

Anyway, there you have it. Middle Class students and parents be warned.These “principles/highnesses” people must get to the theatre on time regardless of how many of you are sacrificed in the process.

You really would think that the theatre would just hold the curtain, wouldn’t you.

Post script: I read that no less an august and respected personage than the prime minister, Boris's wrecking mate, Camerclegg, has said that the mob which attacked the "royal" car must be punished with the full force of the law. What a prat.

1. Pics: (1) Sarah Montague in the 'Today' studio with John Humphries; (2) A highness looking a bit high, but then if I had to live with that idiot, even in a 200 room council house I'd get drunk too; (3) “I’m bored with all this election stuff; just appoint me Mayor for Life. quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur. I was at Eton and Oxford you know.”; (4) Paul Stephenson in yet another one of the Met’s disasters; (5) “Do you think that this £9,000 dress was provocative to these lownesses?”

PROTESTS AT PARLIAMENT: WELL NO ONE IS LISTENING, WHAT DID THEY EXPECT?

I watched this video of the demonstrators outside the English parliament building tonight with mixed feelings.

I deplore (I really mean that) violence of any kind and I’ve spent my life trying to avoid it and discourage other people from it, but I guess sometimes you have to ask yourself, what else is there to do?

We live in a democracy, people say, so what you do is you wait till the next elections and you vote for the other lot. (Of course the other lot is just as useless and have almost identical policies so that’s a bit of a non starter.)

But what if you have a situation where one of the parties voted into government said that they would not do ‘something’. In fact they said that to do even half of that ‘something’ would be a disaster, never mind the whole thing. They even went so far as to sign a pledges not to do this “something”. They achieved a deal of publicity about swearing and promising that they would not do this ‘something’.

Then, lo and behold, and quite unexpectedly, they found themselves in government, with flashy cars, and massive offices; with staff bowing and scraping; with people calling them “Minister”, or “Secretary”, or, in one case, “Deputy Prime Minister” and every principle they ever had went flying out of the big posh office windows.

And what of this pledge that they had trotted around every university town in England? What of the photographs in the local press the length and breadth of the country? Well, at the first sniff of the Ministers’ Dining Room Wine List, they scrunched it up and dropped it into the ministerial waste paper bin to be emptied by the ministerial lackey.

So... what’s the option? Wait till the next election? Vote for the person who signs a pledge to repeal the law? Take the word of the prospective MP?

Huh?

What happens if he too drops his pledge into the ministerial waste paper bin as soon as he is comfortably ensconced in his ministerial armchair?

Peaceful protest is fine, indeed it’s right, except that this far from an election no one pays any attention to it.

The only time that the people in England have managed a change in the government’s policy was when they turned London upside down over Thatcher’s Poll Tax. The government listened then, just like the French government does.

Do you see where we are going with this? It’s not a pleasant picture, is it? But what is the alternative?

Tonight there will be arrests, but the real criminals will ride out of the building with their fat, self satisfied, lying bottoms on the rich upholstery of a ministerial car paid for by us, safe in the knowledge that they had their university education for free. Paid for by us!

Fair? Thought not.


Pics: (1) Qu'ils mangent de la brioche. Ex-Saint Vince laughing it off, after all he got his car and his office...and his doctorate; (2) Fires near the Westminster parliament. It will soon be the only way many of us can keep warm; (3) His magnificence Charlie and Mrs Parker Whatist’s car was hit by missiles and daubed with pain as they tried to get to the theatre. I can just hear his “ghastly people”. Don’t worry Chic, the feeling is mutual. Nice car by the way. Who paid for it? (4) Nick the Dick doing an advertisement for furniture polish. It’s clearly the only kind of pledge he knows.

FMQs totally devoted to snow today, can be viewed here.

FRANKLY MY DEAR I DONT GIVE A DAMN PARKER-BOWLES

IT’S A LONG TITLE BUT IT'S THE ONE YOU, THE PEOPLE, CHOSE

Mungin's Republic's poll on the future title and status of Mrs Parker-Bowles has now closed.

I’d like to thank everyone who took part. It wasn’t open for long, but I hate these polls that go on and on, and by the time they close everyone has forgotten what they were about, or indeed how they voted...well particularly when it's on such a daft and trivial subject as this.

It goes without saying the results are hardly representative of anything.. other than the views of the 45 people who voted on royal matters on a blog with the word “Republic” in its title! But it was all a bit of fun and Mr Yougov need not worry that Munguin’s Republic will be taking over from him anytime soon.

The outcome, given the parameters, was predictable, although I was surprised that 11% of voters (all of 5!) favoured Mrs P-B being called Queen. (Did you vote 5 times Dean?)

The full result was:

Queen: 5 votes, 11%
Princess Consort: 5 votes, 11%
Duchess of Rothsay: 1 vote, 2%
Duchess of Kernow: 2 votes, 4%
FMDIDGAD: 32 votes, 71%

There you go Charlie. According to the readers of Munguin’s Republic, you can call her what the hell you want.

So he should be happy. Just one small drawback. I remember reading that Charlie’s dad once said that the moment that people lose interest in the royals is the moment that they might as well pack up and go.

If they cease to provide entertainment for the people, the people may start wondering why they cost almost as much as a banker to keep!

So, maybe we should have a poll on where they should set up home?

If you do have any ideas for polls that you fancy would work on the blog, let me know. (Sensible ones please, Niko!)

Pic: Joking aside, what in the name of all that's right is Chic wearing. I mean was he on a fancy dress party the night before, got blootered and stayed over at a mate's place and had to put his fancy dress back on. I mean not a thing matches. I'm no snappy dresser, but I wouldn't change a tyre looking like that. And as for that pheasant, I know they are stupid birds, but that's about the last place it would be sensible to build a nest.

Can Charles possibly be the future?

This blog is, as we’ve said before, Republican in nature and was gratified the other day to find in our poll a pretty hefty support for a republican future for Scotland...

However, I have no gripe with the Queen personally. She’s an old woman who has done a job for us for nearly 60 years. She’s actually 83 and like most people of that age she’s starting to slow down. It’s not the personality of the Queen, but the nature of monarchy that I have a problem with, and I’ve always hoped that the independent Scotland that I feel will someday come, would opt for a more modern and democratic form of government.

With monarchy you get what you get, instead of what you choose.

So, whilst the Queen has done her job pretty steadfastly, sometimes even with a smile, and kept the crown out of politics, her successor has poked his nose in to all and sundry, fired off letter to ministers demanding meetings, involved himself in all manner of things including, most recently, planning permissions and generally ‘got political’. Furthermore, it has been reported that he would hope to carry this political involvement into the future and his kingship. Now Charles may sometimes be right, at least in the opinion of some people, but that doesn’t matter at all. In that the present situation has worked at all, it has worked on the basis of complete neutrality from the palace. Rather like the civil service, the monarch has to work with whatever government the people choose with no bias, and as far as we know the Queen has done that.

Both the Queen and Prince Philip have toured the world many times. In fairness to them they have never shied away from the work, even in recent years when they are both into their 80s.

Prince Charles insisted that he be allowed to marry Mrs Parker–Bowles, despite the fact that the Church of which he will one day be titular head could not approve this marriage, Mrs Parker-Bowles being a divorcée with a living spouse. He has also indicated that he wants her to be crowned Queen, when he becomes King. This will put the Church in a position where they will have to recognise their marriage, although it goes against their teachings. However Charles does not like to tbe thwarted and will probably have his way.

At the same time it appears that Mrs Parker-Bowles does not care for touring around the world on official duties. She recently pulled out of the final leg of a tour of the Far East and looked very far from happy on a recent tour of Canada. A palace source apparently said that the last thing that she wants is to have her calendar packed with foreign tours. There’s nothing she likes better than having her kids and grandchildren over for Sunday lunch. She finds the heat in the tropics unbearable and just wants to spend time with her grandchildren.

It might be as well for her to remember that she is in receipt of a large sum of our cash.... and has several homes at our expense.

I respect the views of the monarchists in our midst who wish to maintain Elizabeth on the throne, and personally, I’d be the last to throw an old lady out of her home, but I do feel that, when the Queen finally dies, we may need to consider whether or not we want a non-executive hereditary head of state who insists on being executive, and who insists on his wife being crowned Queen despite the fact that this will be contrary to the teachings of the church of which by that time he will be the head, especially when all she really wants to do is stay and home and have meals with her grandchildren.

Maybe Prince Charles has chosen the wrong woman for a wife, again. She seems rather badly suited for the work. The photograph above certainly suggests it.


Source for much of the information here can be read by clicking on title.