Yesterday’s revelation that Prince Charles sees Cabinet Office memoranda denied to most ministers did not spark as much public outrage as might be expected. Part of that is because of the view that, by and large, Charles is a fairly decent old stick with some surprisingly progressive opinions.
The problem is, of course, that with a monarchy you have no choice what you get. The defence deployed yesterday across all media was that this is a longstanding practice, in place for many decades. What they did not tell you is that it was instituted at the insistence of the Prince of Wales who was the future Edward VIII, and at the very least sympathetic to fascism. Strange how the media omitted that bit, don’t you think?
I am given to understand that William has very much the private political opinions you would expect from an extremely rich and not very bright person educated at St Andrews University, that strange foreign neo-con enclave perched on the Neuk of Fife. The only university with not one but two professors on the board of the Henry Jackson Society.
“I am given to understand that William has very much the private political opinions you would expect from an extremely rich and not very bright person”
It’s a tragic comment on British politics that this revelation will be saddening, shocking, and even unbelievable to many otherwise intelligent supporters of the Labour Party, and, I presume, of the SNP. Whereas if it weren’t for the mystique of monarchy, “No shit, Sherlock!” would be the obvious response.
…it has the lowest percentage in the entire UK of all students from low income groups.
If you’re well heeled, think Dundee’s dangerous, and little Calum is a bit thick, that’s it’s USP…
…its. Damn. Now I’m doing it.
Indeed Edward VIII appeared very enthusiastic about Fascism.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/18/queens-nazi-salute-sun-front-page-sparks-mixed-reaction-on-twitter
I find it very hard to peel potatoes since I stopped buying newspapers. How do I catch the peelings which land everywhere, without a spread out newspaper? This is difficult.
China furious as USA sells $1.83 billion dollars worth of arms to Taiwan.
China vows to take measures to curb arms sales to Taiwan.
China resolutely opposes the sale of weapons to Taiwan by the US,” Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang said in a meeting with Washington’s second-highest ranking diplomat in Beijing.
“In order to safeguard the nation’s interests, the Chinese side has decided to take necessary measures, including the imposition of sanctions against companies participating in the arms sale to Taiwan,” Zheng said, according to a statement posted on the ministry’s website.
Will the Taiwanese allow such a measure?
http://m.firstpost.com/world/china-us-cross-swords-over-1-83-billion-arms-sale-to-taiwan-2549764.html
“I find it very hard to peel potatoes…”
If only you had 2 years of military service in Red Army? Peeling potatoes skill would have been polished and no need for newspapers would have existed.
Trowbridge
“Nothing is said about what fascism is in today’s world.”
We certainly need an updated definition, but as to who they are, and as someone once said, the fascists of the future will call themselves anti-fascists.
Ba’al Zevul
Yes, agree that Tories would take care of no more “accidents” like that. What else would they take care in the next 9 years?
Bevin
I do care about Labours ineluctability with current leadership because I DO NOT want to live in One Party state. I have lived very long time (ago) and it turned out to be nasty experience. Mock opposition is bad, no opposition is even worse, ineluctable opposition is not better either.
“I find it very hard to peel potatoes since I stopped buying newspapers. How do I catch the peelings which land everywhere, without a spread out newspaper? This is difficult.”
_________
Well according to this site, you should peel them right on to a roasting tray, then roast them. Apparently they taste delicious roasted.
http://www.thekitchn.com/heres-why-you-should-never-throw-out-potato-peelings-tips-from-the-kitchn-212565
Craig
The Telegraph is still worth buying for lighting the fire (the pages of tabloid-format papers such as the Mail don’t scrunch up to a satisfactory size), so it may also be useful for collecting potato peelings.
They also give it away for free quite regularly at newsagents and petrol stations if you don’t want to be seen supporting the rag financially. You can also enjoy watching your favourite writers burn, or perhaps stab them with your peeling knife .
Alternatively you can peel potatoes in the sink, or bath if you are that bad.
By the way, King’s College, London, has two professors on the board of the HJS, as does the LSE, making at least four for the University of London, plus any more from other colleges.
These sorry earthlings still peeling potatoes by hand. Cue gales of robotic laughter.
I’m going to have a rant about ‘christmas’ jumpers. People are shivering round paraffin heaters, others homeless on the streets, food scarce, shoes letting in and people are buying stupid novelty jumpers they’ll wear for a few days then never wear again and eventually bin, or bag for a charity who never return to collect. Supermarkets too are outfitting their entire staff in the hideous things. It is a sign I think that this country has gone absolutely round the bend, how utterly senselessly pointlessly wasteful is this? It’s a form of madness, this better not be becoming though I suspect it is, another newly-minted ‘tradition’ stretching all the way back to the olden-days, last year. Like this black friday wtf, that saw places decked out in black balloons and such garbage, and a sure sign their prices were in the first place absurdly high. Buy a decent ordinary jumper you muppets, that’ll last you well, keep you warm, can be worn other than on one day that year, or wear to a party and gladly discard at the earliest opportunity. It’s just so wrong in so many ways. If you have the urge to buy something in order to make you appear zany and wacky to your peers, with leering penguins, snowmen and reindeer complete with red pom-pom for a nose, or other commercialised claptrap, what does it say about you and about our society, are people really so shallow, so bereft of reason, have lost all sense of proportion, that they’re prepared to encourage a whole new genre of additional mass-produced clutter, to add to the already over-whelming and burdensome output already of things of negative utility.
Bad news from the dark side, as Darth Vader hides the Empires bad news until the last day of parliament when most MP’s are absent, and unable to object.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/12/17/bury-bad-news-government-_n_8825664.html?utm_hp_ref=uk
Who’s got the knives out for the Brit crown prince? That’s what I’d like to know.
Many decades ago US spooks such as James Angleton got in an awful tizz about how Lord Mountbatten was insufficiently security vetted for the kind of information he was getting.
“(T)he private political opinions you would expect from an extremely rich and not very bright person educated at St Andrews University”
You mean views such as “cull the chavs”?
What a surprise.
His father is as thick as shit too. He got into Trinity College, Cambridge because of who his family were, with something like two E grades at A Level if I recall.
In his truly moronic book Harmony he refers to the knowledge among the truly wise, those who really know their geometry from their manservants’ arseholes, that the ratio between the side-lengths of a golden rectangle, which is 1.618…, is the square root of three. It isn’t. It obviously isn’t. I mean how much does someone have to know about what they’re talking about to know that phi is half of the sum of 1 and the square root of 5?
The interesting thing here isn’t just that the man is a total fuckwit. It’s that none of his ghostwriters, copyeditors, proofreaders or editors at his publishing house – or those who squeeze his toothpaste for him when he does his unwitting Prince Ludwig of Bavaria impersonations – dared to raise with him any of the many many cases of his making himself look the idiot he is.
Enoch Powell even suggested that the pederast Mountbatten was offed because of the nuclear policy of the US.
Tony M
Are you sure the energy expended typing out that great chunk of text wasn’t an even greater waste?
“Lobbying” is a thinly-veiled intimation that the crown prince makes use of his access to cabinet documents not just to line his own pockets but to line the pockets of unnamed interests with whom he has business interests.
In simple language, he’s a crook and a traitor.
Frankly, how much does it take for the penny to drop?
Boris Berezovsky – admitted friend of both the Bush family and the British royal family.
Need I draw up a list?
The British royal family has interests in places like Bermuda, Thailand and the Gulf, as well as many other places, and they are deeply involved in international business-politics at the billionaire-bracket level.
They’re corrupt money-grabbing mafia scum.
Or will “early memoranda receipt for the tweaking of green-ink letters” become the 2010s equivalent of that famous euphemism for corruption, “cash for questions”?
Russian president Vlad the Impailer Putin, speaking to an audience, in which says (correctly in my opinion) that Turkey licks the USA’s arse.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/vladimir-putin-lashes-out-at-turkey-in-crude-new-attack-over-downing-of-syria-warplane-a6776886.html
The heir to the throne, who could become head of state at any moment, is actually taking an interest in how the country is governed? Wow.
Of all the people attempting to influence our government, corporations, oil companies, arms manufacturers, foreign states, I think Charlie is the least of our worries.
An interesting recent speech from Mnar Muhawesh.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/selling-hate-fomenting-fear-about-muslims-to-expand-us-corporate-empire/212095/
It runs to about 45 minutes and is well worth listening to. I highlight it, though, because about 25 minutes into the video much of what Muhawesh is saying about Palestine gets drowned-out by static. It’s a video posted on YouTube.
I mean, who are these unelected psychos in the security services who try to kill free speech? Why are the wages of these psychos paid for by hard working tax payers? Why are these security service psychos totally unaccountable?
Questions, questions, questions…
Israel’s Evolution towards a Fascist Racist State by Max Blumenthal, Nation Books, 2013, illustrates how a state becomes fascist without the help of a monarch.
And talking of racist fascist behaviour, here’s a sumMary of 13 December 2015, just another day of genocide in Palestine:
Israeli air strikes hit Gaza City and Northern Gaza
Israeli Navy opens fire on Palestinian fishing boats
Israeli Army position opens fire on Gaza farms
Armed Occupation settler opens fire in Silwad
Young woman shot and wounded by Israeli troops
Israeli soldiers assault and terrorise 2 Palestinian youngsters
Night peace disruption and/or home invasions in 2 refugee camps and 8 towns and villages
2 Israeli air strikes 2 Israeli Army attacks (4 Israeli ceasefire violations + 1 Palestinian)
12 raids including home invasions 2 beaten – 3 injured 1 abducted (aged 17)
2 acts of agricultural/economic sabotage
19 taken prisoner – 10 detained –
123 restrictions of movement
http://palestine.org.nz/phrc/index.php
@craigmurray
Perhaps I didn’t make it clear. In terms of UK students at St Andrews, over 50% are of Scottish Domicile. St Andrews has always attracted international students, and has always been one of the most successful in doing so. Approximately one-third of its students are from outside the EU, mostly from the United States where it has for decades marketed itself actively and very successfully, but also from Canada, and most countries thoughout the world. This is not because it’s a “disgrace”, but because of its very high reputation, and, perhaps, because of its cosmopolitanness and openness.
It did this long before Wills went there, though I did and still do share the annoyance that his going there made it more popular, not for its academic excellence, but for “rubbing against” the royals that some like to do “Oh, I went to the same university as the future King of England [deliberate] did”.
For someone from Scotland to rubbish one of Scotland’s great Universities is very very sad, and that IS a disgrace.
As far as the education origins are concerned, this is a separate subject from your posting which is about William, and I note you treat percentage statistics the same way Unionist do – use the smaller figure rather than the properly comparitive figure to try to make your point in a deceptive manner. Look at your own reply to see what I mean.
“For someone from Scotland to rubbish one of Scotland’s great Universities is very very sad, and that IS a disgrace.”
I must have missed that.
Vivian, you always jump in to prove what I say.
Well done.
How’s the grit in the bed?
Craig – People adapt to the positon they find themselves in.
With some exceptions for what reason would a person from a non privileged background consider going to University? To end up about GBP 40k in debt – only to be told that the thing to do is get some more debt and take a masters course.
Non privileged people tend not to have any particular interest in micro aggression or any of the other narcissistic preoccupations of the intellectual elite.
The fact that people from state schools are in a minority at any partiular university is not a disgrace. It is a sign that in aggregate poor people are defending themselves from the rapaciousness of the higher eduation system to the best of their ability.
Oh, and in case anyone doesn’t know what I was alluding to…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ocngVQ4XaE
But getting back on track…
Spitting Image: Royal Family lose fortune in recession & move to council flat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xujHlWzWW98
If the Spitting Image team were broadcasting today they’d be arrested for being ‘non-violent extremists’.
That’s why we no longer have the likes of Spitting Image on tv.