It’s the beginning of the end for the monarchy

In the next few years the monarchy is going to work harder and more ferociously than ever to cement public support in time for Prince Charles’ succession. The upcoming Royal wedding will be celebrated with a crazed fanfare like never seen before. Glossy editorials will commemorate the blue blood’s wedding with even more sickening adoration than in 2011. Plastic union jacks will be sold by the imperial ton and gaudy royal crockery will be trolleyed out in suburban bungalows across the nation.  Strange men in union jack suits will sleep on Windsor’s pavements 3 weeks before the day of the wedding. News crews will be cookahoop at such a spectacle- capturing their garish fancy dress devotion rather than advising them on a more suitable place to frequent. A local hospice perhaps? Giant life size Victoria sponge cakes depicting a waddling Prince George will continue to be baked by culinary royalists (I’m not even kidding).

In fact, long discredited commentators are already lining up to announce their long held “affection” for the aging Elizabeth; how her privileged and unelected grandchildren show so much “dignity” in their vast richness. The establishment media will goose step onwards, presenting the public with a never-ending conveyor belt of complimenting sycophants. BBC correspondents won’t question whether weddings for billionaire castle owners should be paid for by the tax payer. They won’t mention that the queen’s estate has been avoiding paying taxes through offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands. They won’t question whether palace refurbishments should be paid for by the tax payer in an age of austerity, rising homelessness and NHS deficits.

But here’s the rub.

Well informed readers know better than anyone the monarchy’s sheer absurdity – but above all else they know the monarchy isn’t fit for purpose. And the very first death blow to the monarchy was inflicted this week. It didn’t come from anywhere within the UK and it shouldn’t be underestimated.

On Tuesday the Commonwealth met in secret to discuss who should succeed the now frail and 91-year old unelected head of state. Colonial subjects as it were, in the Royal’s back garden so to speak, deciding upon the end of the Commonwealth, as they know it.

Although the role of head of the commonwealth is technically not hereditary the thought of a meddling and unpopular Prince Charles as chieftain of another 53 countries is clearly too much to bear for some.  So, the Queen has been working in secret to try to ensure that “Prince Charles does succeed her”. Elizabeth has sent “senior officials around the world to lobby Commonwealth leaders.” Desperate indeed.

Prince Charles claims on his website that he is a “proud supporter” of the Commonwealth.  What will it mean if democracy and greater sovereignty continues to edge forward in the Commonwealth? If Charles fails to succeed? Further title stripping of Royals will likely follow in the years ahead.  This secret meeting might be the first organised attempt at restitution on the claims of our miserable monarchy.

The last few years have seen unimaginable political change not least in the form of Trump, the fracture of Syria and in the rise of viable left-wing alternatives in the West. Could we have envisioned change like this just several years ago?  A recent poll found that 63% of Australians now don’t want Charles to replace the Queen as their head of state. An Australian referendum on the matter has been proposed for 2022.

The Commonwealth, which represents 2.4 billion people on earth, can do better than a having a head of state who has been appointed only by virtue of his ‘noble’ birth. 

Michael Fallon must ‘Cease and Desist’

UK Defence Secretary Michael Fallon is turning a dangerous course on Russia. Barely a month goes by where he doesn’t strike up a threat, lambast Russian policy, or urge the incoming Trump Administration to act ever more belligerently towards Russia. In fact, Fallon, once the very epitome of a soulless Westminster suit, is now beginning to look more like a spurned lover or infatuated stalker rather than Her Majesty’s dignified principal Secretary for Defence.

Appearing increasingly agitated, this bizarre Westminster prowler has in the space of only a few months indulged in some astonishing outbursts. This December, he blurted that the UK must not treat Russia as an ‘equal’.  In November, he pleaded with America to ‘stand up to Russia’ and has since issued oversized overzealous threats to Donald Trump himself. Fallon has seized upon any media opportunity to repeatedly showcase NATO as the only military force capable of pursuing Russian military might. 

Is Fallon suffering delusions of grandeur?

You might have been mistaken for thinking that Fallon was representing one of the world’s super powers rather than an ailing imperial power suffering prolonged economic hardship and mismanagement. The UK is suffering a striking, aging discontent public with an apparent funding black hole when it comes to basic public services. Yet this hasn’t deterred Fallon. He’s happy to force a confrontation with Russia on credit, on our behalf.

To make matters even worse the good old British media have shrink-wrapped Fallon’s frenzied sound bursts as ‘common sense pearls of wisdom’.  They’ve assisted in jousting the ‘wild Russian behemoth’ rather than scrutinising his crazed outbursts and holding him to account, as perhaps they should.

Is Fallon acting in the interests of the people of the UK, in the interests of peace and stability or is he sabre rattling on behalf of NATO and the by-gone old-world order?

Fallon has a history of blindly supporting military aggression overseas and represents the very worst of British foreign policy. Simply, he must ‘cease and desist’ from his swivel eyed and obsessive attacks on the more serious world power of Russia if we are to enter 2017 with some hope for peace and stability in the world. 

The Curious Absence of the MP for Norwich South

Clive Lewis, Labour MP for Norwich South, was curiously absent during the vote calling for the UK to stop backing the Saudi bombing of Yemen.

Evidence had been uncovered to suggest British made cluster bombs have been used by the Saudi Regime in the Yemen. Bombs have been dropped on schools and now the UN has put the death toll at over 10,000.

On the issue of arms sales to Saudi Arabia Lewis was of previous good character - attending protests against arming the violent head chopping oil rich state.  

Lewis claims had he been present at the vote he would have supported the Labour Leadership's three-line whip.

But he wasn't and he didn't. 

 

And now Lewis is refusing to answer questions as to why he missed the vote. 

One list suggests Lewis was 'ill'.  

If Lewis is genuinely so unwell that he is unable to attend such a significant vote why hasn't he or his office released any kind of statement?  The public are rightly sympathetic to genuine illness.
   

Lewis isn't responding to direct questions on his absence either but instead has now begun disseminating fairly obsequious social media posts on the matter - removing himself from any kind of culpability.

How ill do you have to be to miss a vote that could potentially save the massacre of civilians? 

In the 1970's the terminally ill Labour MP Alfred Broughton was wheeled down from hospital into parliament in order to vote on a far more trivial matter.

Lewis' absence is curious.  His selective responses are curious also. 

In September he distanced himself from the Labour grassroots by performing a staggering u-turn and appearing to support renewing Trident's WMDs. His speech at the Party Conference, although amended, undermined the Labour Leadership in a manner more befitting of the Blairite clique. 

Was Clive Lewis exacting his revenge on the Labour Leadership at the expense of Yemeni civilian population?