What Do You Think Today?

[Avatar]

Well goodness. Something of the end of an era, what?

Inevitable as it was, am sorry to see the old bird go. Not a sentiment shared by everybody obviously, looking at the outpouring of vitriol from various sources, but nonetheless.

I thought she had a few more years in her at least. Probably the best thing would be for Charles' caretaker reign to be a fairly short one, all things considered, but I suppose time will tell...

--A

[peter]

I think that's a pretty much given Av. He just doesn't strike me as having the constitution of his mother and while he isn't exactly falling apart, to push another 23 years out might be an ask to far.

Apparently William will take on the Prince of Wales title, contrary to what was speculated yesterday. Charles, like his mother, has kept his regnal name as the same as his christian one - something of a break with tradition in the case of kings of this country. Something in me would like him to have chosen Arthur, but that is never going to happen. Too much expectation and mythology surrounding that particular moniker.

I saw a particularly interesting little YouTube clip earlier, in which the girl commentator drew attention to the slightly odd relationship that always exists between a monarch and their heir. She quoted the reported words of Mary, Queen of Scots, who upon being handed her son at his birth (the chap who would later become James VI of Scotland and Ist of England) apparently said, "Think you I could grow to love my own winding-sheet?" The tension that every monarch knows, that the child before them can only come into its own upon their death, makes for a slightly odd - and not unusually strained - relationship between them. I think that Charles and the Queen largely got over this....but not completely. It was no secret that she was closer to Andrew from day one of his life than she ever was to her first son.

Another interesting thing about the monarchy and heirs to the throne comes out of a book on the royals written by Jeremy Paxman. He observed that for the rest of us, we have our lives in which stuff goes on, but along the way we have certain big events, marriage, birth, deaths etc, that come into them.

In the case of monarchs and close heirs, said Paxman, this is all there is. These are the seminal events around which everything - everything - else revolves. There is (no matter how much they might pretend differently) nothing else. They could travel to the moon, or spend all day, every day, in bed and it makes no difference. These events, their birth, the choosing of a spouse, the production of an heir, and then their dying are all and only what matters. Everything else is as nothing. All the talk of service and commitment and the rest is so much flannel. Now this, if being true, must have an effect on you. You cannot be the same as a person like you or I, who can define themselves along different and alternative parameters. This has to effect you, and not I suspect for the better.

[peter]

It's an interesting fact that the main Tory organs of communication, the Times, Telegraph and in particular the Mail, have for years been no great fans of King Charles.

I suppose many of the views he has expressed have been a bit too socially oriented for their liking (Rupert Murdoch seems to have a particular dislike for him) and he has not been shy in expressing his climate concerns, a topic that always makes the capitalists uncomfortable. There have been for years a succession of stories (most recently of his accepting suitcases full of cash from Saudi donors) designed to undermine his image in the public eye.

The Mail in particular has sought to so denigrate him, even to the extent of promoting the idea that the succession should have 'skipped a generation' and passed directly to William. This of course was nonsense. Such traction it did/does have with the public is based more on William and Kate's photogenic nature as an attractive vibrant couple than any understanding of the way that the succession works. The passage of the Crown from one monarch to the next is always a time of danger for the monarchy - a point at which, alongside the obvious grief they feel at the loss of the late sovereign, inevitably questions are raised within the public as to what it all means, what is its function. The steady unbroken line of succession is critical to the ongoing survival of the monarchy. To begin to tinker with it by hopping over individuals, jumping sideways as happened in the abdication crisis, is to sign its death warrant.

But now that the Queen is dead and the new King in situ, it presents a particular problem to these papers as to how they redefine their relationship with the monarch they never wanted. How exactly do they elide from the position of hostility that they have shown in the past, into the kind of reverent respect that they always gave to his mother. Not an easy transition and perhaps (depending on how Charles does in terms of restraining himself) one that they will not even try to make. Certainly he's going to get a few days or weeks of slack, but what then? Will they resume their campaign of attrition against him? Will he and the Queen Consort be subjected to the same level of negative press coverage that has hitherto been the case, or will a truce be called based on the grounds that he is now monarch and beyond such criticisms?

They will speculate that Charles is of sufficient age that he won't be in situ for any great length of time and on this basis might be prepared to give things a rest for the duration of his reign. Or they might have actual respect enough for the monarch (respect that doesn't extend to an heir that consider to be meddling in the interests of business) to back off now he is king. Perhaps they'd fear a public backlash against them if they started to revive their old tricks? Who knows and only time will tell.

But it would be a mistake to believe that the Tory press have any particular monarchist leanings, a position mirrored by the party itself, if oddly, not by the people who tend to vote for them. The position that they take will I'm thinking be one of keeping their distance beyond this obvious time where they have no choice but to rally round the monarchy and the new King. For all they are not themselves particularly royalist, they do recognise that their readership (or a significant portion of them) are, and this has to be catered for. And there's something about tradition and protocol that demands a certain type of response. But beyond this I'm thinking that their attention will be more towards the youth and vigour of William and Kate, than the staid respectability of the King and Queen Consort.

But it is not going to be easy. The media are past masters at forgetting what positions they have previously taken, the words they have previously printed, and this applies most specifically to the right wing press who are happy to forget their championship of appeasement with the nazi administration of Adolph Hitler - indeed their support and approval of the man himself. They will have no problems in forgetting what they have previously said about Charles and Camilla, in brushing it under the carpet. As I say, more problematic is the actual stance that they will now adopt and heads will be being scratched over this as we speak.

[peter]

As I watched the extraordinary first televising of the Accession Council followed by the ritualised proclamation of the new monarch made from the balcony of St. James palace, I realized for the first time really what this was all about.

Well of course it was for the first time - it's never happened before in my life......in any of our lives - but nevertheless something became clear. It's all about seamless continuity. I'd heard much being made of the importance of seamless continuity, particularly in the transition of power from one president to another in the US - how everybody seemed to breath a sigh of relief when it had gone well (and the consequences when it didn't as witnessed during the last contested handover), but I hadn't really taken on board the significance of the thing until yesterday.

Because in the UK it's not really a thing that we are exposed to very often. Yes of course we have changes of administration, but this for us, is not the same thing (although in terms of constitution it should be). Because above the level of our polity we have the binding force of the monarchy. It's very clever really. The tension that could otherwise occur at points of political transition is hoiked upwards into a much rarer event, the transition between monarchs - and there cannot be too much question about that because one of the protagonists is already dead. And that is why it is so important that generations are not skipped, that the crown doesn't pass sideways, or any other kind of malarky take place. It must be a seamless and ordered transition with no question of where it is going.

And that is what all the pageantry and flummery is about. It's about making the whole thing continuous. There is no break at which everyone is milling around wondering what happens next. A short reading of a history of the French Revolution will soon aquatint you with what happens when such a protocol is not laid down. And we have an absolutely cast in stone mechanism for dealing with this difficult moment of transition - one that comes with all of the knowledge and wisdom of a thousand years of managing such transactions, organic and fine-tuned - one that puts all others the world over to shame.

So not only is the transition of actual power shunted down to a less dangerous level (by the separation and raising of symbolic power above it) but the danger of that period of transition of the perceived highest power (though not in actuality) is diluted by virtue both of its not having to be done very often, and its being formalised to the minutest detail when it does. There is no moment when everybody does not know what the next moment will bring. And to slip a knife between any of these moments would be as difficult as doing the same between the fabled giant blocks of Machu Piccu.

And what we have witnessed, the way it has been honed and developed, polished and ordered to within an inch of its life, tells us yet another story. A story of times less assured and more turbulent than our own when such transactions truly were times of real and existential risk for the system within which we live and the upper echelons of our society thrive. A time when things were by far from so sure, when a period of chaos and extreme nervousness surrounded every such transition, every such event. Put shortly, it's all designed to keep us in our place, a smoke and mirrors trick par exelance to misdirect our gaze, say "Look over here!", when perhaps we should be looking over there.

Because, as one BBC commentator oddly reminded us yesterday - and it really was a pretty subversive thing to say given that the bulk of us never even think about it - ours is a consensual monarchy. It only exists by virtue of the consent of the people. If by raising awareness, it became apparent that there was a rise in the desire for a republic (and the BBC man reminded us of this as well), then it would be recognised and debated in the House of Commons and subsequently put to a referendum.

But our BBC man assured us that we are a million miles away from this. Well maybe. But oddly enough, for all I've just said about the misdirection and that - I've suddenly come to realise how clever and important it might actually be. It really does take the steam out of moments that would otherwise be dangerous, are dangerous, in any society.

I'm not sure I've had a damascene conversion or anything, but I've suddenly been given pause to reflect, now I've seen the thing in operation. That it might actually have its merits. It can't, and neither should it, be used to justify a system whereby 100 people have ownership of twenty percent of the country's entire wealth (or whatever ridiculous state of affairs currently prevails in our wildly unbalanced society), nor should it be used to prevent the people from exercising their democratic rights in the formation of laws to the best interest of all the people of our nation. But there is more to it than this. In it's purest application, our system of monarchy sitting above polity might actually be an ordering of things that confers great advantage to our nation. I suspect that the trouble creeps in at a lower level - down at that of the aristocracy (traditionally at odds with the monarchy itself) and yet further down where our elected representatives with all of their greed and cupidity enter the system and start bending the rules to breaking point in pursuit of their own personal gain (or others of whom they are in cahoots).

It is in the Lords and the Commons that we ought perhaps to seek root and branch reform, not in the structure and mechanism of monarchy, the well-oiled and importantly stabilising function of which we have just been given a pitch-perfect demonstration.

[peter]

It was amusing yesterday to see all of the papers lauding the four royal 'next gen' members (the two siblings William and Harry and their two spouses) rapproacment as they walked out together shaking hands and chatting with the gathered crowds along the Windsor Castle approach road.

Anyone with a pair of eyes could see that it was an awkward and uncomfortable experience for all four members, and that rapproacment was the furthest thing from their minds as they studiously avoided any actual contact or communication between each other.

Far from being the 'putting behind' them, that the papers were applauding, this show of disunity merely further served to demonstrate the million miles that now separate the two brothers - a distance that I fear will never be breached. The reality is that what Harry and Meghan have done will never be forgiven, quite possibly by Charles (which is especially sad) but most definitely by William, who one suspects that, despite the plaudits from the media about his being the 'modern face' of the new generation of royals, is in fact a traditionalist of the highest order who absolutely understands the necessity for unity and careful control of the image that the family projects to the public. For William, the airing of dirty linen in public that Harry has indulged himself in is an absolute no-no that renders his brother beyond the pale in no lesser way than his abdication did for the Duke of Windsor to the then family some eighty years previously. This family rests absolutely on the goodwill of the public. They can have no wants or desires they can indulge, if such run contrary to the formalised protocol of the system. To do so is to undermine the entire structure and shake it to its foundations. Whether the public is sympathetic or not - and many people including Winston Churchill were sympathetic toward Edward's dilemma - to indulge that sympathy is to invite a degree of humanity into the equation, to reduce the necessary distance between monarchy and public, a distance upon which the very foundation of the institution rests.

This is hard medicine for any person, young or old, to swallow, but it remains what it is nevertheless. The institution of monarchy rests upon very unstable ground at best, and Charles and William both get this. Harry, for his part does not seem to have grasped it (or for other reasons I will not speak of, has no particular desire to see the monarchy thrive into the next century, as they have done in the past). The public are fickle - fickle and dangerous as far as the continuance of the institution goes. That very sympathy that they display at one moment, that drawing close to the essential humanity of the individuals they have raised upon these pedestals, can rapidly transmute into something different in which they become questioning of what it is all about - or worse, even angry that those they have raised so high have turned out to be ordinary flesh and blood after all. Before long, such sentiments result in the figures on those pedestals, like Edward Coulston's, being pulled down.

Harry has done, is doing, and will continue to do, inestimable damage to the institution of monarchy. By his actions over the past few years it will entirely possibly fall. Maybe that is what he wants. No-one can know what has transpired behind closed doors - whether the slighting of his bride, the questionable remarks and frosty distancing is for real. Or maybe it is simply an imaginary figment of the mind of a lady not prepared or capable of dealing with the world she married into. Who can know. 'The Firm' is a strange beast, as noted by that other victim of its hard and demanding nature, Harry's mother Diana, the first to fall in pursuit of a romantic dream that could not be. Harry has remained true to the pledge of his marriage vows. He has placed his wife and offspring before that of his duty to his broader family and I can respect that. That is entirely his decision to make. But that decision comes with consequences - consequences for which his brother will never, can never forgive him.

The relationship between the two brothers - no matter how much the papers pretend it to be otherwise, no matter how much we, the 'subjects' of this family, would want it to be repaired - is over. I'm saddened by this, but will not refuse, like our media, to acknowledge it.

[Forestal]

This relationship between William and Harry does at least demonstrate how far we've come as a nation in the last few hundred years; In times gone by if the future King's younger brother disagreed with him fundamentally, when it came time for the older brother to take the thone, there would be a war. Hundreds if not thousands would be killed on the battlefields. Now at least that war will be in the media and financial, millions would be spent, but at least no one would die. That's progress.

[Avatar]

Good posts, and I suspect you're right on both the continuity aspect, and the relationship one.

--A

[peter]

Thanks for the compliment Av .

You have to look fairly carefully, but if you do there are the odd little signs that the country is not quite as paralysed with grief as first appearances might suggest, as the media might like you to believe.

Yes wherever you go there are black and white pictures of the Queen, placed in shop windows, above the mastheads of websites and business advertisements, on the television channels and on magazine covers. But it doesn't have the 'feel' (if I can put it that way), the shock impact, or indeed the outpouring of grief, that the death of Princess Diana generated all those years ago.

Nothing surprising here. The old girl was after all 96 years old and in very poor health. I suspect that were (God forbid) something to happen to one of the younger royals, Kate in particular, we'd see a similar shock reaction to that of the death of Diana. (Also worth noting that the rift between the royal family and the Princess Diana played into the event, even in the first hours and days after her death, creating a strange admixture of anger and grief that was peculiar to that particular tragedy.)

So no, this is fundamentally different in nature and while the loss is deeply felt and regretted, most people find it entirely right and proper that daily life should continue pretty much as normal with periodic dipping in to the coverage of the various ceremonies and events on television or whatever, as time allows. I didn't actually think that the crowds attending Buckingham Palace were as big as I'd have expected them to be however, and I have a feeling that this was also felt by the various commentators on Sky and the BBC, who seemed always to be telling us that ''thousands are already here - but many more will be on there way!". A bit like Billy Bunter's postal order, which was continuously expected to materialize but never seemed to show up.

But it does seem that the business of mourning is getting into its stride at last with the movement into lying in state of the Queen's coffin. Up to thirty hours queuing times are predicted, and pretty uncomfortable ones they will be as no tents are allowed for the overnight parts and airport levels of security will put many items on a proscribed list that would otherwise make the vigil somewhat more tolerable. I'm not sure I'd be up for it under those circumstances, even if I was physically up to it, and I expect many people who otherwise might join a queue might also be put off by the whole thing. An hour or two, yes - but thirty?

Yesterday I went to my local cathedral to sign a book of condolences and while there were plenty of cathedral visitors (as is usual at this time of year) only my wife and I were there actually signing the book at that moment, and this was in the middle of the day. When I signed the book following the death of Diana there were numerous people doing the same, and that was days after the accident in which she died.

And then we come to the knotty problem of protesters.

It is reported in the Telegraph that although the royal train had been kitted out especially for the job of transporting the coffin from Edinburgh to London - a route that would have allowed many people to pay their respects by turning out track-side as the train passed - the idea was abandoned in favour of a flight to Northolt Airport instead, because the route would have been impossible to police and would have become a "magnet for protesters and reckless behaviour."

And on the issue of protesters, little has been made of this, but a number of arrests have been made of individuals protesting against the monarchy at the various events and walk pasts. One man apparently called out, as Charles drove past in his limousine, "He's not elected!", which was enough to see him carried away by the police. Similar occurrences, not of violent or abusive behaviour - simply the holding of placards and chanting of slogans - have seen arrests being made, and in one particularly nasty incident, a woman who posted a disrespectful video of herself outside her business, found herself surrounded by an outraged mob and had to be rescued (in this instance, rather than arrested) by the police.

Now clearly both the woman who posted the insulting video (she showed herself cracking open a bottle of bubbly and cheering the Queen's death outside her fish and chip shop) and the mob who hurled bricks through her windows were equally stupid (in my opinion) - but the arresting of people for making peaceful protest? I think it ill becomes protesters to sully the grieving or those people deeply affected by the Queen's passing, but understand that this might seem (to them) the ideal moment to do so. But while I would perhaps have raised a voice in protest against the protesters had I been there as a mourner (or more likely, just out of interest), I don't think I'd have been happy to see them manhandled into police vans and carted away.

But this is just me. I'm relaying these things just because in the face of all the wall-to-wall coverage of deeply highly respectful tributes and the deep sense of mourning that they are presented with, there is actually another side. That life is going on, that people are interested, but not incapacitated - and that there are instances where the very freedoms that I have no doubt the late Queen would have championed, have perhaps been sacrificed on the alter of a misplaced degree of overzealous respect.

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I'd like very briefly to return to the subject I addressed in the last but one post I made, that of the smooth transition from one monarch to the next. The transfer of power, albeit symbolic, while at the same time keeping up the appearance of continuity.

I'd like to use an analogy to illustrate what I think has just been done.

In the course of my work within the veterinary practice, it was often the case that we would have move a large and fractious animal from one place to another, perhaps into a lorry or a new/different house or whatever. This was dangerous work because animals in high dungeon are unpredictable and are wont to go where they will rather than where you want them to.

Consider the public here as the equivalent to this large and dangerous animal that has to be moved. And like this animal it might take this opportunity to make a bid for its freedom.

One of the tricks that we would employ would be to create an illusion of continuity between the house where the animal was kept and the place where we wanted it to go. A lorry might be backed up right to the doorway, a ramp lowered through the door and straw run seamlessly from the house over the ramp into the lorry bed. Food placed within the lorry might complete the trick. Given time to settle, and just a little cajoling, the animal could be guided to where you wanted it via a combination of smoke and mirrors and inducement.

In our case, I think the smoke and mirrors of the clockwork pageantry, together with the inducement of the bright shiny new monarchy shaken temptingly before us (like a choice bunch of carrots before a hungry bull) has worked much the same oracle.

It's damn clever and I respect it. We're, like that bull, moved without our even realising it.

[peter]

There are signs that the new Government is going to live up to its reputation as a significantly more right wing and utilitarian style of administration than we have previously been used to.

In a move that was pretty much unprecedented, the new Chancellor Kwasi Kwartang on his first day in office, sacked the permanent secretary to the treasury, Sir Tom Scholar - chief mandarin of the so called "bean-counters" that PM Truss has said she will go to war with.

While it is not unusual for top civil servants seen as not in step with the government of the day to be eased aside, the full on defenestration of one as long standing and respected as Scholar is both unprecedented and unorthodox. It has an absolute smack of an intention to politicise the treasury, to remove its impartiality and turn it into an organ of active support for the administration of the day rather than simply a functional mechanism whereby Government policy is made manifest.

Now we have news that the Home Secretary Suela Braverman is to take an axe to the Home Office, slimming down the bank of available staff and insisting on a return to the office of individuals now used to regularly working from home instead of making the daily trek into central London from the suburbs.

Braverman has a reputation for being a bit of a tough nut.

One might imagine that the daughter of refugees escaping persecution in Kenya might be sympathetic toward the plight of the immigrant boat travellers similarly trying to escape their own travails, but not so. Elected as the only real possibility as a candidate for Home Secretary further to the right than her predecessor Priti Patel, Braverman is a keen supporter of the Rwanda policy that even our new King has turned to look askance at. Braverman has also famously expressed her position on benefit recipients - that half of them are fit for work shirkers who should be kicked off the list forthwith. Braverman considers the British Empire a force for good, Twitter to be a sewer of left wing bile and wants us out of the European Convention on Human Rights without delay. It is, she believes, the only way we can ever get to grips with the asylum seeker problem. She has been likened to "Priti on steroids". (It's funny that both Braverman and Patel are so.... opposite to what one might expect given their backgrounds. Is this some kind of 'overcompensation' mechanism in play do you think; a position they feel they have to adopt in order to get acceptance in the milieu they circulate in?)

But be that as it may, I post this little contribution just to remind us that while things of moment are occurring in other places, while our attentions are correctly diverted towards the constitutionally important events surrounding the Queen's death, other things are happening - things which we hope are for our best interest, but experience tells us we must view with a watchful eye. No fascist power has ever taken hold via the action of revolution. Without exception they every single one, have been voted into power prior to a showing of their true nature.

------------------0----------------

The police made an arrest - I'm not sure who off (of?, off? - I don't know) - during a scuffle that broke out when a demonstrator held up a placard saying 'NOT MY KING' at a drive past by the new King Charles. I don't know that there is much point to making such a demonstration myself; my normal position on the Queen prior to her death was that as long as she didn't interfere with my life, I wouldn't interfere with hers, but nevertheless I would defend the right of someone to hold up such a placard as this to the death. Andrew Marr made the observation that it would be a pretty flimsy sort of a monarchy that could not withstand a woman holding up a cardboard placard with such an innocuous sentiment expressed on it, and I agree.

And further. I'd say that this a right that we should be proud of - a right that would have been well appreciated by the late Prince Phillip's father's subjects in Greece, who were wont to be bludgeoned to the ground by the militia who preceded him as he moved down the street, if they failed to show him their full attention or were deemed otherwise than to be giving him his full due of respect. And not only this - it actually represents an honourable tradition in itself. Such protests have been an integral part of crowd behaviour in the presence of monarchy since time immemorial - and their presence is good. That we can do such things without being arrested, without being beaten up by angry crowds, that people will just raise their eyebrows and give a 'tut' under their breath before turning back to the matter in hand......these are fine things are they not? They are indicative that everything is going right. And the moment that fists are raised, that police vans appear and it is the protesters that are hauled away, then we have the first signs of things beginning to go wrong. Which in its way is not a million miles dissimilar to a permanent secretary to the treasury being sacked in preremptory manner without an eyebrow being raised in the media about it.

[Forestal]

While I appreciate your takes on the cummings and govings of the UK (I like that pun, well done), I'm surprised that you make not a mention of the fact that Ukraine has liberated an area half the size of Wales in the last week. I know it's not internal politics, but surely merits a sentence or two, eh?

[peter]

If you remember Forestal, I got into a nasty situation over in the Tank when I opined on that particular subject (you might not have seen it perhaps). I resolved at that point to stay away from the subject because it seemed to be that my thinking on it was not sufficiently anti-Russian to meet the tastes of one member in particular, whose description of me was apoplectic and verging on the unbalanced (go check it out if you want to see what he called me). It wasn't nice to be referred to in such terms, nor good (I'm thinking) for the poster to become so enflamed. In my defense, even the Ukrainian poster who occasionally put in his position on the matter (both here and over there) did not feel I was deserving of the tirade that was unleashed against me, and commented as to this effect. He did not agree with my position, but saw no anti-Ukranian sentiment in it, and said as much.

But in fairness, I cannot really use this as an 'excuse' for not mentioning that the Ukrainian forces have been reported to have been making gains in the war of attrition that has developed in the region. In truth I've simply been too tied up with the subjects that I have been commenting upon. Besides which, despite my being the chief poster in this place (and that, not by choice I assure you - when I started this thread it was never meant to turn out like this), it remains open to all to post in respect of what they are 'thinking today' as well. What I post is exactly what it says on the tin - what I happen to be thinking about today. No more, no less.

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There has been something of a controversy over the wearing of military uniforms by the royals at the various state events surrounding the death of Queen Elizabeth ll, and certain incongruities have arisen thereby.

A quick glance at the clothing worn by the Queen's children and grandchildren at yesterday's lying in state ceremony will illustrate the 'problem'. Of all members of the family who stood to attention in front of the coffin, only the Princes Andrew and Harry were not in dress uniform. And this is odd because these are the only two members of the family who have served as working members of the armed forces on active duty in battle situations. So how should this be, that the only 'real' servicemen among them should be excluded from the right to wear their service uniforms, while the other 'show' members should be able to wear theirs?

The answer begins with the fact that the rules state that in order to wear the uniform, a person must be an active member of the forces or hold an honorary title therein. This, despite his honourable record of service, puts Harry at least, out of the picture. Following his removal of himself from active royal duties, he was obliged to surrender his positions (honorary) within the various battalions etc which he held, and at this point became ineligible to wear the uniform of any service, which had previously been his entitlement.

Andrew's situation is more complex and is where the logic seems to have broken down.

Because while he is still an honorary vice-admiral within the navy and as such, entitled to wear the full dress uniform of the position, yesterday we saw him in civilian clothing with only his medals on display to show that he had ever served. (Incidentally, I heard an admiral talking on the radio who praised in the highest terms Andrew's gallantry at the Falklands, those years ago, during which he served as a naval helicopter pilot ferrying troops and injured in and out of the conflict zone.)

Why this should have been is a mystery to me. Was it out of respect to his former service, not wanting his own shame to be reflected upon them, that he desisted from exercising his right? Was he pressured from within not to do so, or was this personal choice? It is no secret that the King is/has been furious about the discredit which his brother has brought down upon the family. Is this perhaps, something that has been offered to Andrew as a way back in: that should he agree to accompany Harry in his not wearing military dress for the occasion, some measure of readmittance to the royal circle, some sop of minor duties, might be thrown him? It's no secret that Andrew is keen (to put it mildly) to get back into the club, as it were, and this might be the beginning of his rehabilitation perhaps? Truth is, we'll probably never know.

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Just a couple of things to juxtapose to give us a flavour of where the new Truss administration might be taking us as it heads toward the 'glorious sunlit uplands' of post brexit UK.

Kwasi Kwarteng, the new Chancellor of the Exchequer has plans to lift the cap on bankers bonuses in order to "boost the City of London's global competitiveness."

Meanwhile, Jacob Rees-Mogg is seen on video explaining why he doesn't believe that workers should automatically qualify for paid holiday as they do at present.

Race to the top - race to the bottom. It just depends upon the way that you turn it.

[peter]

There has been speculation in the media about how well King Charles will behave himself now that he is monarch.

Not famous for his reserve when it comes to putting his views forward, the topic has come up a few times during the BBC coverage of events, and two or three times I've heard the commentators say that it is the right of the monarch to be consulted, to advise and to warn, but no more. I'd assumed that this was just a sort of accepted way of putting it, but last night I learned that these limits to royal power were first formulated - or at least written in this overt way - by the constitutional essayist Walter Bagehot in his seminal work on the subject The English Constitution.

Margret Thatcher was at times ridiculed for her use of the so called 'royal we'. Queen Victoria famously said, "We are not amused" and, like everyone else, I'd assumed this to be a sort of affectation on her part, indicative of an elevated way of seeing herself in comparison to other lesser mortals. It appears that I did her an injustice. For as Jeremy Paxman explains in his first class book On Royalty the term is used rather as an expression of the monarch as representative of all his or her subjects. In other words, the 'we' in question is in fact us - you and me.

Similarly, when the monarch has his/her weekly meeting with the Prime Minister, it is us who are having that meeting. Even though we never get to hear a word of what is said, that isn't important. Because the point is that neither does the Government. Neither Prime Minister nor monarch ever break this rule. And this is suddenly where the point of the, consulted, advise and warn thing begins to make sense - because as our representative in those meetings the monarch and the people are one, and thus subject to the same rules.

We live in a representative democracy. It is our right to, once every four years or so, elect an individual to represent us in parliament. And that's where it ends. Beyond this it is the right of our representative to vote as they see fit. It is our right to be consulted, to be able to advise and to warn - but not to compel. So at those meetings the monarch and the people are truly one, subject to the same constraints.

As to the limits of royal power, well yes, they are pretty strict - but there have been numerous occasions when that power has been shown to be greater than many imagine. On a number of occasions in the last 100 years the monarch of the day has actually chosen the Prime Minister - and not always in accordance with what parliamentarians or the Government of the day have advised. In the formation of the National Government of unity this was the case, and when a Prime Minister (Eden I believe) became too sick to continue with no viable successor. In fact in the case of the National Government, the PM of the day actually came to George V to submit his resignation (due to the extremity of the Great Depression and having lost the confidence of his Government) and the King simply refused to take it. He (the King) then called the leaders of the political parties of the day together and told them to work together to sort things out. Thus was born the National Government.

So yes - the power of the monarch is limited, constrained and severely watched over by parliament, jealous of its own precedence. But it is our power - just as in its own way is that held by parliament itself. When We speak, We expect to be listened to.

[peter]

I've been reading Jeremy Paxman's book On Royalty and very illuminating it is, particularly in the light of what we are currently going through as a nation following the death of Queen Elizabeth ll.

Written in the middle of the first decade of this century, it is oddly prescient of what is now happening, but has the virtue of looking at it in a more detached manner and casting a spotlight on just how thought out the conducting of such periods in the monarchical history are.

Of particular interest to me was Paxman's account of the death of Princess Diana and how it rocked the monarchy to its heels in terms of the backlash against the Queen's perceived 'coldness' toward the news of her daughter-in-law's death. Rather than come out in overt sympathy for the lost Princess, the Queen and her retinue holed themselves up in Balmoral Castle and made no official statement on the matter for days following her death.

While public grief and anger grew, they refused to be drawn and the situation was made even worse by Tony Blair's lachrymal speech about the "Queen of Hearts" (Blair always knew how to work a crowd using the media as a manipulative tool). Eventually the monarch was forced to come out with a statement of sympathy, but by this point the damage was done and public anger and contempt was at an all time high.

The chance to reverse this came with the death of the Queen Mother in 2002 and the palace took full advantage of it to reverse their fortunes and rehabilitate themselves in the eyes of a jaundiced public.

Where previous royal funerals had been modest affairs conducted away from the public gaze, for the dead Queen Mother all the stops were pulled out. There was a full state funeral in which for the first time the family was presented in its grief as a typical family, mourning the loss of a loved mother and grandmother. It utilised every trick in the book to pull the public back on-side, emoting public sympathy for the cause and manipulating it to the nth degree.

And it worked the oracle exactly as it was intended to. By the end of the period public perception of the royals had been pulled back into line and the ground that had been lost following the Diana debacle had been regained.

And suddenly, reading this, much of what we are seeing today in respect of the Queen's lying in state and funeral arrangements falls into place. Tonight we will see the 'vigil of the princes' in which the King and his brothers (not sure about the Princess Royal) will stand at the four corners of the coffin, looking downward in a display of public grief and respect to their mother. To one side will be the rest of the family (and Harry, by special dispensation from the King will be allowed to wear his military dress uniform) will also observe the vigil, with the cameras of the world looking on. This is not an old custom, having been observed first time at the funeral of George V, but it is an ideal opportunity to present the royal family as just that - a family - and to cement the sympathy of the public firmly on their side in respect of the knotty subject of republicanism and the debate thereof.

It is this kind of clever manipulation of the public that has allowed the monarchy to stay always one foot ahead in front of the game. For this reason the debate on republicanism has simply failed to find its legs in the public mindset, and regular polls, both public and parliamentary, show that there is simply no appetite for such a move towards full emancipation of the society.

Again, as with the earlier stages of this whole process, one is simply amazed if one steps back, to view it from a distance, how adroitly the whole thing is being managed. It would be easy to view it with a 'fish-eye' if one were so disposed, but then one plunges back into the coverage and one is immediately swept away once more by the whole enormity and emotive nature of the thing - just as one is meant to be. I'm not saying that this is either good or bad. In fact I find myself in a very strange position of ambivalence (is that the right word). On the one hand I see the monarchy as the key-stone that holds the arch of our entire and very special society together - our peculiar system that allows me to rip our political leaders to shreds, to abuse them roundly, without fear of the 'jackboots' on the stairs. On the other hand I see them as the key-stone that supports the arch of the elite controlled society that prevails, where the interest of the small man is and will always be subordinate to that of the one percent, and while it sits in place there is no hope of ever - ever - changing this situation into one of equity and fairness. What am I to make of this - both situations can't be true......can they?

But there you have it. It's been an interesting ride and one that is rapidly reaching a conclusion. But make no mistake, be under no illusion. You are not making your own running in this. Powers above you are leading you by the nose where they will. Again, I'm not saying it's necessarily bad - just that it's good to be aware of it.

[peter]

I think I've sussed it out (see above) and the answe was staring me in the face all the time.

The monarchy, and the hierarchical structure it supports of elitist interest and inequality, is the price we pay for never having a Stalin or a Hitler to grind us underfoot and make slaves of us all.

The rise of such a figure is inconceivable while ever there is a monarchy sitting above it, demanding the attention and ultimate loyalty of us all. It is the thing that saw us through the dark days of brexit, of the pandemic, without there being an uprising or civil disobedience of a massive order. That the two sides, particularly in the case of brexit, did not go head to head in all-out confrontation can quite possibly be attributed to the presence of this unthought of glue that binds us at a level higher than the mundane considerations of workaday politics.

As such, and subject to this being correct of course, I would have to class myself as a reluctant royalist. This being me, I could of course change my mind at any point, but today it seems to fit the bill, and that's probably as good as it gets.

[peter]

I suppose it was inevitable that there would be the odd incident here and there amongst all of the myriad arrangements set into motion by the Queen's death, and last night was no exception. It occurred when a man stepped toward the coffin at the lying in state ceremony and was arrested for so doing.

There are no details at present as to what his intentions were - he might have been moved to kiss the catafalque for all we know - but the security at the event was sufficiently tight that in short order he was arrested and gone. It might have been a simple case of a mentally unbalanced individual loosing it, or perhaps there was a demonstration of some kind in the planning.

But let's hope it is nothing too serious and will be resolved without anybody having to pay to severe a penalty for a momentary lapse of judgement.

If on the other hand it was one of those red under the bed pinko fence sitting nimby republican nutjobs, then hang him up by the balls!

-----------------0--------------

At my age it can take a while to 'make water' (lovely expression) and standing to attention in the smallest room in the house yesterday, it occurred to me that it might be time for a prostate check up to make sure that everything was in order (so to speak) and there are no issues that might need attention. (Quick aside - a doctor once said to me that as far as he was aware, his profession was the only one where you get to put your finger up a person's bottom five minutes after you first meet them. I can possibly think of one other, but we'll let that go - hem hem!)

Standing there I was reminded of a chap I knew, a Mr Coomber, who had had a prostate operation carried out some time previous to coming into my place of work. I asked him how he was doing and he replied that it was tip-top. He could he said, "piss like a seventeen year old", the only problem being that he seemed to get only minimal warning that it was coming. He then said that he had only a short time to dash for a toilet if 'an accident' were to be avoided.

There was he said, one fly in the ointment however. He had been contacted by the hospital to postpone the second part of the two part procedure he was undergoing. The receptionist who contacted him explained the situation; that the surgeon who had carried out the first part of the procedure had "been downgraded. He isn't a surgeon anymore."

Have a good weekend.

[peter]

Things are not going to be easy for Liz Truss when, following tomorrow's state funeral for her majesty Queen Elizabeth ll, she has to return to 'business as usual' and the spotlight of media attention turns finally upon her and her new Government.

Her start hasn't been exactly auspicious, what with her first major policy announcement being a U-turn of humongous proportions. Then we have her Chancellor's plan to 'grow the economy' - giving bankers the opportunity to trouser six million quid a year (or whatever amount their executive boards decide to hand them) instead of the paltry three they might be able to pack away now.

And while businesses try to accommodate the already ruinous increase in energy costs they are already facing (some experiencing costs rising by five hundred plus percent) they have to consider how they are going to proceed in the knowledge that the momentary reprieve they have been given only lasts for six months, after which it's the wild west again. And knowing that, they have to decide whether they are going to increase their exposure in this country, invest in their businesses here, put up the cash to expand, and grow - or whether to hunker down or even run for the hills?

What would you do? Grow the economy - your 'aving a larf! At what point can the party that single handedly cut us off from our biggest neighbouring market and now considers it wise policy to potentially drive us into a trade war with the same, adding insult to injury as it were, be said to be concerned with growing the economy. It's ridiculous!

And in the in next few days, as the shock and awe of the historical period we have just experienced is suddenly past, then the reality of where we were is suddenly going to crash back in on us. As the trade unions take up the mantle once again, and the ever barer shelves not filled with the food that we couldn't afford even if it were there, stare us in the face. And the cold dark days of winter gather ominously in the very near future.

Come October the first, when the Enough is Enough campaign is set to hold the first of its rallying days across the country, how will our new political masters react? Will Patel's Police , Crime, Sentencing and Court Act finally be used to show its teeth? Will the new Public Order Act be rushed through so that any gathering demonstrations can be nipped in the bud, like in Russia, or China, or North Korea?

Will people like me with a history of internet criticism of the government suddenly find that our access to this platform of dissemination is curtailed (the police now have the power to do this, you know); will we be visited, electronically tagged and forbidden from taking part in any public demonstration? Again, this is already within the powers that sit at the state's disposal via execution by the police, if they choose to do so.

There is a saying that the freedom of a country is not measured in terms of the benign nature of its laws, but rather by how much is not covered by law at all. I have a feeling that, what with this Government's propensity for bringing in new laws and beefing up those which we already have, that on this measure we might be judged and found to be pretty wanting? What do you think?

(Thanks to Michael Lambert who's excellent YouTube post forms the basis from which this synopsis is drawn.)

----------------------0-------------------

There have been a couple of nasty incidents during the lying in state of the Queen - one in which a man apparently rushed the coffin and may have even gotten as far as picking up the royal orb if internet rumours have it right - the video footage of the event has not been released to confirm or deny this - and another where a bloke whipped out his pecker (I kid you not) and started waving it about to the consternation of other people standing in the queue. I have no idea what size of offence the latter will constitute - possibly measured in inches, think you? - but the former will certainly not be taken lightly. Both are resulting in charges being brought - a sort of cock and balls (orbs - balls....geddit?, oh never mind) story for the press to get their teeth into in the weeks ahead. Prepare for lots of innuendo worse than mine when the cases hit the courts. I'm off to observe two minutes of silence and woe betide anyone who pulls out his todger in my shop; I'll sell it back to him wrapped in newspaper! (Speaking of which, I wonder what my missus is putting up for lunch today? Not sausages I hope!)



Be lucky.

[peter]

And so we come today, to final farewell of the nation to the late Queen Elizabeth ll.

I'm not going to pretend that it hasn't been a long haul, these 10 days of mourning since the death was announced, but it has certainly been a valuable insight into who and what we are as a nation, a people and as individuals who have been moved (or not) in so many different ways by the events as they have unfolded.

For my part, I intend to go down to my local cathedral to watch the service on the big screen provided there. I have my doubts that I'll sit the whole thing out - my various medical conditions will make it pretty uncomfortable at best I'm imagining, but I'll stay as long as I can.

In the shop last night, I did my best to observe the minute's silence, but it was a pretty lonesome attempt really as most of the customers in the shop seemed oblivious to its even taking place. They walked to the counter and spoke to my colleague even though he was clearly trying also to maintain the silent tribute. One minute. That's all that was asked. I say no more.

From across the world they have come, leaders and politicians, celebrities and well-wishers, to be part of the final act. Some will get front row seats for the event itself, others will line the roads and streets along which the funeral route will progress, throwing flowers and gifts as the hearse passes slowly by. There will no doubt be the odd protesters amongst the crowd, but wisdom should tell them that today of all days, a modicum of respect is required. People these days are not as restrained as they have been, anger seems to sit closer to the surface ready to erupt, and it would not be sensible to trifle with such such an unpredictable sentiment at a time of high emotion and public grief.

I'm not going to pretend that I know how things are going to be tomorrow. The period of national mourning officially ends with the funeral service today, but I believe that the royal family will themselves remain in mourning for a further seven days. Following that, we return to business as usual, until the announcement of the King's coronation, at which point we will see yet another period of historical import unfold as the people once more are shepherded, physically and emotionally, to where they are meant to be. For my part I'm hoping that the delay between the funeral and the coronation is not too great; clearly there has to be a certain amount of time allowed to pass as a mark of respect to the departed Queen, and also the logistical challenges of organising such an event with not be met overnight (though preparations must have been ongoing for the event for years, if only in round the table planning), but these considerations aside, I think it would be circumspect not to allow too much time for any lingering republican sentiments within the population to gain momentum.

There will be elements in the media who will begin working toward this end very quickly once the mourning period is over - and not just amongst the fringe outlets. I'm betting that the Mail newspaper will renew its calls for William to take the throne with pretty immediate effect as soon as it is 'respectable' for them to do so. They know that there is a residue of dislike for King Charles out amongst the public for them to work with, and their relationship with the new monarch has been fraught in the past, to put it mildly. Charles' hatred for the press is well known and it is returned in full measure by the printed media as a whole. They've had little choice but to muzzle it for the past 10 days, but now that the mourning period is due to end expect the gloves to come off. William and Kate are running high in the public perception at the moment - he is dashing and handsome, she beautiful and charming.... the public would not take much persuading that they would make a better royal couple than fusty old Charles and Camilla. Prepare for this to be brought to the fore in the weeks ahead; the press would dearly love to see the Wales's walking down the aisle toward the crown instead of Charles and Camilla, and will at least try to see if such a possibility has legs, if nothing else. Some papers - the Guardian possibly - may even revert to their republican position and give that chestnut an outing. So from these considerations, a fairly quick coronation would be in order, if for no other reason.

Myself, I'm just looking forward to seeing a coronation from the point of what new insights it will throw up. I've been surprised at how much of our system has become much clearer to me in the last ten days - far more than I would have expected - and I'm excited as to what new food for thought the coronation might bring. This and because I like the idea of seeing history unfold before my eyes. These events will be in the history books of school kids of the future, and we're getting to see them first hand. That's exciting to me. (Also, I'm looking forward to seeing the ceremony itself, and in particular the crown jewels being wheeled out. The Kohinoor diamond (only ever worn by the Queen Consort because it is unlucky for male owners to wear), the nine fragments of the Cullinan diamond (the man who did the cutting having studied it for two months before plucking up the nerve to make the first blow - and then promptly fainting when he did, in relief that it did not shatter into a million pieces), the Black Prince's Ruby in the imperial state crown (complete with the ruby 'plug' used to fill the hole drilled in it by Henry V in order that he could place a plume of feathers in it when he wore the gemstone on his helmet in the Battle of Agincourt. I mean - how much history is that? The pearls that Queen Elizabeth I wore in her hair - look closely and you'll see them!

So yes. I'm excited about the idea of a coronation and I'm looking forward to it. I make no apologies for that.

[Avatar]

Well, I guess that's it. The old dear has been effectively, if not technically, planted and we prepare to move on...

Speaking of Truss, has anybody said where they're planning on getting the money they'll need for the energy subsidy / thing (and the rest) from? What with taxes being cut and all?

And as for William, while I agree it would probably be better for him to accede sooner rather than wait another 10/15/20?!? years, I don't see it likely...ERII was very clear about the need for following the line (a hangover from her own father's sudden elevation), and I see no reason Charles will feel differently, and several reasons he will be in favour for his own account. .

--A

[peter]

Truss is going to borrow the money Av. A whopping 150 billion for the energy cost handouts rising to 200 billion if you add in the cost of her tax reduction promises.

Of course the energy subsidy, not being targeted, will be of proportionately more value to those on higher incomes than those at the bottom end of the scale whose energy consumption tends to be less. The ostensible reason for this is the difficulty of targeting help as opposed to just making it a general payment. And the irony of the whole thing is that the money will actually be given to the energy companies whose windfalls have already put them quids in, through no actual work on their part. The European policy of saying that the energy companies should not profit as a result of war and levying a windfall tax on them seems more logical to me, but there you have it. I don't suppose that it has anything to do with the fact that they (the energy companies) tend to be big Tory Party donors though.

On the William accession thing, I think it's more than that Av. I genuinely think that the Queen and other members of the Royal family was/are aware that to start tampering with the line of accession would be to hasten the end of the whole institution. Charles might serve a five or so year stretch and then step aside for his son. This I think would be acceptable in the eyes of the public - but it would have to be done very formally and not as though it were on the whim of public taste. The line of accession and the rigidity it follows forms a large part of the certainty that the monarchy bestows upon our system: they would not tamper with it lightly.

Sticking with the royals for a moment, I went down for the service yesterday and was amazed at the turnout. In my local cathedral there was standing room only and people were subdued and very respectful. They followed the service in Westminster Cathedral to the letter, singing the hymns, standing and sitting with the attendees there, and saying the prayers etc. This scene will have been repeated the length and breadth of the country.

I took on board the Archbishop of Canterbury's swipe at political leaders in general (and one assumes our recent ones in particular), comparing the Queen's dignified reign of service with the grasping and clinging to power of the politicians, but have a certain.... reservation about this. In fairness to the politicians, they have to be re-elected every four or five years where the Queen never had to suffer that indignity. Had she had to do this, I'm thinking we'd have seen a lot more clinging done on her part as well. (In fact, they've clung on just as tenaciously, if in a softer, less visible way, themselves when you come to think about it.)

--------------------0------------------

But enough about that, I'd like briefly to talk about the ex-radio presenter turned YouTube blogger Alex Belfield, who was last week jailed for carrying out a campaign against three of his former colleagues including the well known radio and tv presenter Jeremy Vine. Vine described Belfield as the "Jimmy Savile of trolling" and the judge in the case clearly agreed. Belfield was handed down a five and a half year prison sentence, despite never having actually been near any of his victims or indeed made any physical threats against them.

Now I should say that I know nothing about this character, nor what he did that so distressed the individuals who he so ruthlessly pursued. To be honest he seemed like a right twat to me on the few times my YouTube algorithm threw up one of his posts, so I quickly stopped bothering to watch them. A few of my work colleagues however, did find him amusing and this was probably where I first heard of him.

But what I want to address here is the wider issue of how the sentence was passed on this nasty character. He was convicted on four counts, two of simple stalking, and a further two of stalking. I'm not sure what the distinction is between them, but do bear in mind that these offences were all committed online. At no point did Belfield approach his victims.

Now when the particular laws were passed under which Belfield was convicted, a case had to be proven that the complainant had suffered actual harm by virtue of the accused's actions. Some years after the law was originally introduced (2012 I believe) it was ammended to reduce the level of proof required to that of perceived harm. In other words, the accuser only had to say that they believed themselves to have been harmed, and if the judge agreed, then the case was considered proven. It introduced a subjective element of 'feeling' into the proceedings that could and can never be measured in any objective way.

In other words, if I say that I feel you to have done me harm and the judge agrees that this feeling is of itself a cause of harm, then the case is proven. And on the back of this type of judgement it appears that Belfield has been sent to prison without the right of appeal for five and a half years. The book, as they say, was well and truly thrown at him.

Now that's harsh by any standards. I don't think that anyone, Vine, his other accusers or indeed the prosecuting council can have seen that coming. Belfield himself clearly did not - he was apparently posting on YouTube the very morning of his trial, saying what his plans for the afternoon were - and it must have come like a bolt out of the blue.

Undoubtedly the man deserved to get punished if what he did was as severe as was claimed - but five and a half years with a minimum of two and a quarter to be served inside?

But the problem for me - and this is why I'm posting, because I've had some experience with this - is that there is another lesser thought about aspect to this that I find troubling. You see, Belfield took the unwise decision to defend himself. Not only that, he also did not enter a defence at all, clearly believing himself to be on such solid ground that it was unnecessary. In this last, he is now no-doubt disabused, and perhaps at last beginning to understand that because you are posting online, does not mean that the normal rules of slander and abuse etc do not apply.

But on the point of his defending himself, there is this to consider. He was entering a gladiatorial field where the professional practitioners jealousy hold on to their hegemony of the arena. The Law is not an area where the uninitiated are expected to dabble - and woe betide them if they have the temerity to do so. Just imagine what would happen if people in their thousands decided that employment of a barrister costing tens of thousands of pounds was not for them? Ir would be a virus that would spread like wildfire and pretty soon there would be no arena left for the professionals to practice in. Now the legal practitioners are well aware of this - but more to the point, so is the judge. A product of - indeed a member of - exactly the same club, he or she is going to look askance at the practice of self-representation in the Court just as much as the lawyers themselves - and is going to do everything in his or her power to discourage the practice. And what better opportunity to do so than on a stupid and unpopular YouTube troll who no-one from the establishment and only fools from the general public likes.

Oh certainly, of the judge's being able to justify the extremity of the sentence he handed down, there is no doubt; he will cross reference on this other case and modify on the basis of that other one, there will be extenuating circumstances here and precedents of case law there. But under it all will be the message. We are the legal profession; we are the Law. Do not fuck with us!

The reason I am pretty sure that this has played a part, that justice has been subverted in the interest of professional expediency: because I too once went into the gladiatorial arena like a lamb to the slaughter. On the advice of a solicitor, who said I didn't need a brief, I represented a business I was employed by, and was destroyed - eviscerated - by the opposing legal professional and the judge, who barely bothered to hide their contempt for me. And when I went back to the solicitor who had advised me, and holding a penalty of twenty times greater than he had predicted at worst if we lost the case, he was ashen faced. He had never seen the like, he said. He didn't know how it could have happened.

And I imagine that on that day, I probably felt pretty much like Belfield feels today. The difference is that I got over it in weeks (after some pretty vigorous raising of money and selling of stuff) - he will have the next five years to think on it.

[peter]

Okay - let's get this show on the road.

There is so much to talk about following the effective hot-dog stuffing fest of the royal coverage of recent days, that I barely know where to begin.

Let's start with the Liz Truss comments that she is "prepared to be an unpopular Prime Minister" made I believe, in interview from the top of the Empire State Building in New York. Not much need for preparation dear - you are already an unpopular Prime Minister with only twelve percent of the public believing you will do a good job and your party already plotting your downfall. And when your first policy was to remove the cap on bankers bonuses (put in place in order to try to prevent another economic meltdown ala 2008), helping the already richest members of our society and precisely no-one else (despite the fool Kwarteng claiming it will "grow the economy") is it any wonder.

The tax cutting agenda that Truss intends to unleash - stamp duty, national insurance, corporation tax, income tax.... you name it, it's coming down - is all going to mean that the monies flowing into the exchequer are going to be reduced to zilch - at a time that we are going to be servicing the biggest national debt since the term was invented. How is that going to work? There is only one way - cuts to expenditure. This means services like the NHS, social care, defence, education, the civil service and local services, all cut to the bone as we race helter skelter toward a third world level of existence and status within the world.

And quietly across the country, unreported and unremarked upon, the Muslim and Hindu communities seem to be preparing to go head to head. I've no idea what about (some speculation that social media has been fuelling allegations of abductions or something), but it has the potential to be really nasty. Trouble has been rumbling on nightly in Leicester for weeks apparently (not that you've heard anything about it on the news) and it is now spreading to Birmingham by all accounts. No doubt now that the period of mourning is over some coverage of other matters such as this will resume.

The Daily Mail tells us today that "Freedom Begins With Tax Cuts." Yeah? Don't know about that, but I'm pretty sure it ends with the new Police, Crime and Sentencing, and Public Order Act's that your lot have bullied through the House in recent times. Don't go out and protest is my advice - you're likely to finish up with a tag on your ankle, a boot on your neck or worse. If your PM is prepared to be unpopular she's also prepared to be feared.

The BMA (effectively the doctors union) is pressing for consultants within the NHS to be paid 250 pounds per hour for overtime. Let's just see..... that means they would be able to make as much extra money in around 60 hours overtime as a person on minimum wage earns for forty hours work a week for a year. Glad to see that nothing has changed since Bevan decided to get the consultants on board for the NHS by "stuffing their mouths with gold."

Truss is dead keen to present herself as the new Margret Thatcher while Joe Biden pours scorn on the idea of 'trickle down economics' that her tax policies seem to be espousing. It's the first little sign of a distancing between their respective outlooks - a distance that I think is going to become much more apparent as the days go on. We'll see.

Fracking is to be brought back onto the table in the Truss program for our becoming more energy independent. I don't know much about it to be honest, but it's going to cause a bit of an outcry no doubt - as will her intention to pull back from many of our net zero commitments, which she seems to see as excessive. I've got a feeling that our Liz is a bit of a climate change denier at heart - time will tell on this, but expect her policies to receive a frosty reception from the tree-huggers and road-gluers in the coming months. Mind you, even the FT seems to be a bit climate sceptical, with a front page referral to an inside article with the words "No Magic Number - why climate change thresholds are counterproductive."

The lugubrious looking King Charles is set to slim down the monarchy and has the full support of the public in doing so says the Express. In a rare occasion of agreement with the Express, I'm on board with that. At a time when I'm trying to decide whether I'm going to heat my bedroom or my bathroom in the morning during the winter, I'm not sure that I want to be heating the Ninth earl of Nitwit's golf caddy at the same time.

And finally we have daytime TV stars Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield in schtuck over their queue jumping antics during the Queen's lying in state (when members of the public were facing waits of up to fourteen hours to do what the couple did in a couple of minutes). The TV couple's boss ITV, has been forced to issue a statement following the public outcry in which they are slated roundly for their actions - and according to this it is all okay, we needn't worry at all, because you see, this was a work event. Ah, okay......??.....but haven't I heard that before, somewhere......