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.
The case for monarchy as opposed to the so-called democracy that we have in the West that Hans-Hermann Hoppe makes in his book Democracy: The God That Failed is that monarchs are concerned about the long-term welfare of their realms, whereas politicians in representative democracies are onl;y concerned about re-election, and thus about very short-term matters. I wouldn’t say I’m convinced, but I think he makes a case worth considering.
In any case, his argument doesn’t apply against the Athenian type of democracy which I favor, where rule is by citizens randomly selected. Citizens appointed in this way have no reason to be concerned about re-election.
Is St Andrews University still a key repository of baby spooks (I was going to say, ‘spook chicks’, but thought that might be misunderstood!), especially for the SIS? I’ve read that it was always St Andrews and certain colleges in Oxbridge. The tap on the shoulder and the phrase, “I did some work for the government…” (which means, clandestine work – no bin-man ever intones, “I did some work for the government” unless of course he wasn’t really a bin-man.
RobG
Spitting Image was indeed very funny, even to people who supported its targets.
The reason why we no longer have the likes of Spitting Image on TV is because there isn’t the talent or originality to write/produce such a show.
So no great conspiracy there I’m afraid, RobG. Back to the drawing board for your “fascist Britain” comedy sketch, as presented from Poitou-Charentes by a drunk expat.
“… monarchs are concerned about the long-term welfare of their realm…” Lysias.
Really?
A figurehead elected ‘statesperson’ president would be far better than an hereditary constitutional monarch whose institution owns vast tracts of this country and who sits atop an edifice of aristocratic privilege and wealth. Rotten to the core, going back a thousand years.
I’d get rid of the lot (I mean the institutions).
Reminds me of the movement in Scotchland to seize the moorland from the Aristocracy. What the fuck are you going to do with it?
St Andrews has been a main source in Scotland for recruting for MI5, which has apparently an office in Glasgow. But it’s also home to the likes of William Walker, an expert on International Relations, who seems to have been broadly sympathetic to Scotland’s Independence in terms of the EU and NATO membership. Many Indy supporters cast it as a Unionist hotbed during the Ref, well, it’s very diverse. Same as Edinburgh Uni.
Loony @ 17 Dec, 2015 – 6:34 pm
“… GBP 40k in debt …”
I may be wrong, but aren’t Scottish universities free to Scottish students?
“Reminds me of the movement in Scotchland to seize the moorland from the Aristocracy. What the fuck are you going to do with it?”
http://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk/News/Councillors-to-discuss-proposed-giant-windfarm-at-Lybster-14122015.htm
“I may be wrong, but aren’t Scottish universities free to Scottish students?”
Only tuition fees. Students still have to live and student grants have been cut.
@Suhayl
“I’ve read that it was always St Andrews and certain colleges in Oxbridge”
Don’t forget Exeter, Durham, SOAS.
SIS have a presence one way or another at all Oxford and Cambridge colleges, not just “certain” ones. What do you think is one of the functions of the tutor system? (I’m using Cambridge parlance. Known at Oxford by whatever name they call it there.)
One of the main figures at St Andrews was Paul Wilkinson. Met with Oliver North if I recall correctly. St Andrews is a joke. It does not by any stretch of the imagination house the main SIS post in British academia.
“(O)ne of Scotland’s great Universities”
Oh come on, be serious!
Not that your use of a capital U for “university” gives an impression of good judgement.
Scotland’s only university which might possibly be on a list of “great” universities – and you would be stretching the definition of “great” a lot – is Edinburgh.
And by the way I am not in any way biased towards either that
university or that city.
St Andrews isn’t a good university. It’s just old. And a joke.
“St Andrews has always attracted international students, and has always been one of the most successful in doing so.”
That’s not exactly a fucking achievement, is it? Any old dickhead can advertise British academic places that come with visas.
Hoppe, being an Austrian, no doubt had the Habsburgs first and foremost in mind, and perhaps his optimistic view of monarchy fits the Habsburgs better than the Hanoverian usurpers. The last emperor of Austria, Karl, apparently was quite an idealistic fellow. He did his best to end World War One, and he has been beatified by the Catholic Church. However, I recently read a book about Austria in World War One, Geoffrey Wawro’s A Mad Catastrophe: The Outbreak of World War I and the Collapse of the Habsburg Empire, and that book makes Franz Joseph look much worse than he is portrayed in nostalgic movies.
@N_
According to the league table of the world’s finest institutions. Edinburgh is 21st, Glasgow 62nd and St Andrews 68th. Aberdeen is 137th. So, cough, mneeerrr, yah boo sucks to you and your Scottish cringe, it’s one of Scotland’s great “U”niversities.
Good new Alert from Medialens about the the principle of causality, addressing the hypocrisy & the myth of non-connection between State violence & “blow-back”, as some as our resident pro-Establishment apologists would have us believe;
http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2015/808-the-new-mccarthyism-keep-the-war-versus-stop-the-war.html
@Node, you certainly know how to push somebody’s button ! 😀
In the absence of Mary, it falls to me to announce tonight’s Question Time panelists…
Piers Morgan – selected for his unique insight into American politics tonight, that tells us Donald Trump is a racist redneck (applause).
Emily Thornberry -ghastly beyond words.
Mark Reckless – not sure what he’s doing these days but perhaps ought to go back to the day job.
Jacob Rees-Mogg – always worth having for a laugh.
Hannah Bardell – who said in May 2015: “There’s a real diversity [about the SNP], I mean we’ve got a surgeon, we’ve got a QC, we’ve got lawyers, we’ve got a former MSP – a real diverse range of people!”. Bless.
____________
Brought to you in front of a hand-picked, bussed-in, multi-cultural Labour audience brimming with right-on opinions and hosted by a doddery old git who ought to have been put out to pasture years ago.
“Thanks to the unique way we’re funded.” 🙂
Yesindyref2
I have no idea why the Scottish taxpayer funds an institution of which only 16% of the students come from Scottish taxpayer funded schools. I have nothing against St Andrews, I believe in freedom. I would merely remove all of its state funding, distribute that among universities which actually do educate ordinary Scottish people, and leave the upper classes entirely free to do whatever they want at St Andrews at their own expense.
“The reason why we no longer have the likes of Spitting Image on TV is because there isn’t the talent or originality to write/produce such a show”
Dunno, I thought it was because there just aren’t those characters around in public life anymore, the type that can be profitably caricatured every week. These days, once you’ve done Cindy and Barbie and Action Man and Ken, who are you left with?
The writing is on the wall:
Persecuting Human Rights Groups Won’t Hide Israel’s Injustices
On goes the tyranny of the supremacist vermin in that shitty strip of land (as referred to by French Prime minister)
Tony M :
“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.”
____________
This Tony-come-lately is another one. With his 95-word drivel of a sentence, he makes Macky look good. And that too on the top thread, 40 comments deep.
Do some people here have no bearings, sense of perspective or self-awareness at all?
Oh for feck’s sake, I went to the best university on the planet.
It’s an old cliche called ‘life’.
MJ, it’s because the likes of Spitting Image are no longer allowed on our screens.
Wake up, for godsake.
Our present mob in Parliament are ripe for satire (coke-head Osborne being an obvious one).
Whatever your politics you should be very, very worried about what’s going on.
” That’s not exactly a fucking achievement, is it? Any old dickhead can advertise British academic places that come with visas.”
So you think that forrrreignnnners come to this country by lure of Uni visas? Pretty disgusting worldview I’d say.
RobG
“Wake up, for godsake.”
Whatever you do, don’t open the third bottle.
That’s when the death threats start.
Bleb – Yes Scottish Universities are free, in terms of fees, to Scottish students. However there are not that many people in Scotland.
All UK universities probably seem cheap to US citizens when compared to what they have to pay at home. Aggregate US student debt is now $1.2 trillion.
Clearly there is an urgent need for more people to go to University so that they can be taught that $1.2 trillion is not an interesting number. No doubt educated people will argue that this $1.2 trillion should be classified as an investment. It is unlikely that these same educated people will volunteer any view as to why something like 2% of the US population identify Ukraine as being somewhere in Kansas.
But who cares about maps when there is an unlimited range of micro aggressions to be rooted out and held up to the ridicule of cold hard logic.
Anon1 I never issue death threats.
What I do say is that you lot are all going to be put on trial.
Make no mistake about that, Vivian.
And where is the Habba creature this evening.
Perhaps having a blood transfusion from a bat?
Just remember, prisons are systematised brutality and torture.
@Craig
Thanks for that clarification about wanting to remove any state funding from St A’s, I’m sure both St Andrews and other university principals will be pleased to hear that. You seem to be unaware that most universities in Scotland also take students from “abroad” or the rest of the UK, including Edinburgh and Glasgow.
So, basically speaking, for the sake of around £50 million, you’d like to disenfranchise one of Scotland foremost universitites (they’re all good), deprive around 2,500 undergrads from Scotland the opportunity to go to a top university, as well as the other 5,000 students who may well settle in Scotland or at least take away goodwill with them, and over 2,000 post-grads, research facilities. Just because it doesn’t meet your approval because it had Prince Willie go to it. Fortunately for Scotland it isn’t your (very provincial) decision.
However, I see you declined the opportunity to correct your use of statistics where you repeat the mis-statistic of “16% of the students come from Scottish taxpayer funded schools”, without comparing that to the (according to your Scottish proportion of 31%) “15% come from Scottish private schools”. In other words, slightly more DO come from state schools rather than private schools.
Hopefully this is not too off topic but apropos Craig’s former role, I am reading and enjoying Jane Thynne’s “Black Roses”, a fictional spy yarn set in the 1930’s.
I have no idea how accurate it is wrt the inner workings of the powers-that-be/diplomatic service nowadays, but there are all kind of chimings about the rise of fascism in Europe in those days: the increase in surveillance, the emphasis on the need for conformity, the provision of bread and circuses and the ratcheting up of the fear factor among hoi-polloi. Plus ca change and all that …