High Farce

HERE IS AN OXYMORON. The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) - is there another example of such a committee, with such a name, allowing representatives from such countries as Iran, Angola, Algeria, Cuba, Pakistan, Belarus, Russia and the Sudan to make up its membership.

            The United Nations is a feeble and shabby excuse for what it was originally intended to be. It is a weak and scrawny institution that fabricates itself as being important to the world; when, in reality it only causes contempt, anger or resentment. The thousands that work within the United Nations are either despised or simply ignored by millions of citizens working in the West.

            Today there comes a story that will only exacerbate the contempt of millions for this idealistically, ill-conceived institution. The UNHRC has just issued a report into human rights abuses in the UK. The Russians attacked the British police for  using ‘excessive force’ during demonstrations and made the claim (hopefully tongue in cheek)  that prison conditions ‘amounted to torture’; while the Pakistani representative said that Britain should do more to ‘promote multiculturalism’.

            Cuba’s contribution involved us in damaging economic social and cultural rights with public spending cuts marginalising women and the disabled. While Sudan accuses us of torture by law enforcement officials, persistent human rights violations including killings and enforced disappearances; as well as arbitrary arrest and execution – all as representatives of  the United Nations.

            Why any Western democracy wishes to remain part of this, black comical institution, is beyond common, sane and rational comprehension.

            These reports by the UNHRC are a form cheap fiction – ask the Israelis about those reports the UNHRC composed about the state of Israel. A human rights committee represented by so many rouge states should tell you something about the institution that allowed them to participate in the first place.

            Either the United Nations is a serious body, or it allows its more bestial members to become members of a human rights committee which only breeds further contempt for the organisation. The UN is a pliable, putty-like institution which allows room for tyrants, oligarchs and dictators, to sit among them and have equal power with democratic states within its institution.

THE TIME IS APPROACHING WHEN  the democratic world must turn away from this body that seeks to bring together all sorts of different rogue states and seek to make them, in some way, compatible with truly democratic states. Such a formula can however, only result in the blaspheming of all forms of elected government.

            The United Nations is anything but, and has never been united throughout its existence. It is a kind of diplomatic social worker that, as we see today in Syria, can do very little to mould peace in the world. Yet it still harvests  billions from the world’s taxpayers in order to continue with its own self-aggrandisement as  an international dove of peace.

            The UN should be vacated by Western governments. Why should the Western democracies have to remain part of such a circus? The worlds’ democracies should re-create an international body more limited than the early idealists proposed with the creation of the UN.

            I propose an international body of United Democratic Nations. It should involve all countries from all parts of the globe that have a settled and working democracy. Only under such an administration can such silliness as that demonstrated by the UNHRC be brought to book and rejected.

           

THE REPUBLICAN CROAKERS TRY THEIR LUCK

THERE WAS SOMETHING OF A brouhaha regarding the use of 220 unemployed young people who were brought to London over the weekend to act as stewards at the Queen’s Diamond  Jubilee.

            There was talk of ‘labour camp conditions’ (John Prescott). This was a reference to claims that the young people were told to sleep under London Bridge in what were cold and damp conditions as well as having to go without toilet facilities.

            It was the republican Guardian that led the charge followed by the BBC’s Today programme and the World at One. This in turn led to the Prescott intervention, followed by the Labour Party’s deputy chairman Tom Watson who chimed in on Twitter with: ‘Young people as commodities with few rights in a show of opulence by state elites? Isn’t there a powerful symbolism to that?’

            Out of the 220 young men and women who participated just two complained about their treatment; and based upon their evidence, the Guardian, which was so pleased with itself that it had managed to pour cold water on a grand royal occasion, apparently decided to take the two complainants evidence as sufficient  for their front page story.

            Why were the investigative standards of the newspaper completely ignored on this occasion? Why were reporters not sent forth to seek out verification of their two witness statements? If the Guardian had done so, then they would have quickly found that  there was a more overwhelming point of view to be had from interviewing the stewards.

            First of all, the coach that brought 80 of the volunteers from Bristol, Plymouth and Bath, arrived early and according to the Daily Mail, ‘… the coach company mistimed the length of the journey and dropped them off at 3am instead of 5am. Instead of staying, the drivers left the drop-off point.’
            As one volunteer, Robert Cooke, from Plymouth said, ‘A couple of people have complained about things that weren’t controlled by CPUK – the coach drivers who insisted on leaving, and the weather.’ I wonder if the un-obliging coach driver was a member of a union?

            Mr Cooke’s views were not solicited by either the Guardian or the BBC. His views turn out, however, to have been a truer reflection of the  volunteer’s appreciation of the whole experience.

            Another volunteer is reported as saying they were, ‘treated with the utmost respect and highly praised for the work we had done’. Indeed Close Protection UK (CPUK), the company that  brought the volunteers to London has received much praise from those volunteers who took part in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee events since the criticism began. All were now looking forward to the Olympics were they will be further appreciated for their work by the general public - if not by the BBC and the Guardian.

DURING THE DIAMOND JUBILEE extravaganza, members of the Labour opposition have remained, no doubt sulkily, silent. So when the Guardian broke their ‘story’ it became manner from heaven to the likes of Prescott and Watson.

            Hoping it would reflect badly with the British public, and even worse, reflect badly on the  monarchy; the BBC, Guardian, as well as a majority of the Labour opposition, became overexcited by the possibilities of embarrassing an institution they all loath deeply.

            This is probably why the story was mismanaged. Over eagerness allowed standards at the Guardian to slip. One must, in a way, feel sorry for such people. How they must have lamented every minute of the jubilee celebrations; until that is, the Guardian gave the Labour Party republicans their cue. At least the small group of republicans that demonstrated near Tower Bridge had the courage of their republican convictions, and bravely stood their ground.

            Where were all those opposition backbench republicans when the celebrations were taking place? Unlike Peter Tatchell for instance, who was the star turn among the motley bunch of 90 or so members of Republican at Tower Bridge, they were probably sulking over a pint of subsidised beer in one of the bars within parliament.

            The Left-wing were thrown a rather dirty bone by the Guardian, but they eagerly chewed it and licked every piece of marrow from it. They thought they would, at the very least, put a spoke in the wheels of the monarchy, and leave themselves gratified and a small part of the nation confirmed in their prejudice of the monarchy.

THOSE WHO SERVED as stewards did a vital job. They gained experience, and one of their merry band, Mr Cooke, mentioned above, told the Mail this, ‘They have paid for all the training for my licence and an NVQ in crowd safety.

            ‘They gave us boots worth £80, and a uniform. We worked out that what they’ve spent is the equivalent of us being paid £45 an hour.’

            Hardly the kind of Dickensian nightmare in which the Left has chosen to colour the whole episode. They have made fools of themselves, and will now wish it to go quietly away.

            The only ‘good’ this has done from a monarchist point of view is to have clarified to the institution its many enemies; all of whom emanate from the Left.

            I cannot for the life of me see what harm the modern monarchy does to our nation or its people; the majority of whom support the institution. Only class prejudice or a woefully misguided belief in an elected president, could possibly harm our country’s future. An elected president is a vacuous example. Our people, at the moment, are truly fed up with elected representatives who they  believe have brought the nation to its current sorry pass.

            Why the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee is proving such a success with the British people, is because of the monarchy, and in particular Queen Elizabeth II, who represents a constant in a world of political mismanagement by our elected politicians.

            Republicanism holds not bolt hole for the British people in times of difficulty. What is needed is an institution, benign in power, but powerful constitutionally. An anchor point that can rally the nation and its people. The British people have turned to the monarchy because the democratically elected politicians have let the nation down; and what represents our nation more than its constitutional monarchy.

            Under a similar circumstance, as we are seeing in Greece today, political extremism fills the vacuum which in our nation the monarchy stands as a stabilising force that any elected president could not match.

            What would be the background of an elected president anyway? An ex-political hack (Tony Blair)? A celebrity (Joanna Lumley has been mentioned), God forbid? Perhaps a fabrication of black skin, female, and lesbian, to fit with  modern requirements of diversity and political correctness.

            To believe that contenders from such quarters would prove a fitting replacement for today’s monarchy beggars belief. The hereditary principle works; as with voting for a head of state, you take the good with the bad; and in a world of change (some of it bad) there is an anchorage – a place that remains constant in one’s life. I was born three years before the Queen came to the throne, and throughout my teens and into my early forties, I was a republican making the same arguments they are making today. But the current monarch has been constant backdrop to my life, and whereas my old Marxist entanglements have been undermined by history – the monarchy remains, and hopefully will continue to do so.

           

           

           

             

A LATTER DAY CHARLES I

THE OUTBURST BY KENETH CLARKE, the Justice Secretary, over the need for an  in/out referendum over Europe reminds me of the superciliousness of Charles I whose insistence upon ruling by Divine Right, eventually cost him his head.

                One can imagine a bewigged Ken Clarke sputtering and spitting at the suggestion that democracy  should take a hand and be allowed to decide upon whether we continue or not within the European Union: ‘I cannot think of anything sillier’, he fulminates, ‘to do than hold a referendum. I’m not keen on referendums, I see no case for this referendum.'  Blood pressure rising and cigar smoke billowing from his lips, he defies all challenges to the ancient regime of European bureaucracy, with its political appointments to high office within the European Super State, like those wretched all powerful, all knowing, and all seeing unelected commissioners and the token EU president - as well as a lamentable corruption and abuse of financial privileges given to EMPs.          Indeed, one would scratch his or her head to answer a pub quiz question about the last time the EU finances were signed off by their accountants.

                Describing his opponents as just ‘frenzied eurosceptics’, he suggests that calls for such a referendum simply represents; ‘the demand of a few right-wing journalists and a few extreme nationalist politicians’. But as today’s crop of newspapers point out, this is not the case. The latest polling suggests that 70 per cent of the population wish for such a referendum – are such quantities of the electorate to be called Right-wing and to be dismissed as ‘frenzied eurosceptics’?

            According to Adrian Hilton writing in the Daily Mail; ‘Kenneth Clarke should keep his extreme pro-European, pro-State, anti-individualist, socialist, federalist Bilderberg beliefs to himself. There are very many intelligent, reasoned and discerning people who want a referendum because we’ve never been asked. And those of us who were asked were manifestly lied to’

                Mr Hilton sums it up succinctly. It is, on the other hand, easy to see why our latter day Charles Stewart is ‘… not keen on referendums’. For such a voice to be given to the people over an issue that Mr Clarke holds so dearly to his breast would no doubt, like the Divine Right of Kings in earlier times, have been purged – that is if the popular will had been allowed its say.

KEN CLARKE’S somewhat aristocratic dismissal of a referendum follows his earlier wisdom of supporting our joining the euro. Democratic politicians of all major parties have no sense of shame or inhibition, and why should they? They do not, after all, suffer the same retribution as a dictator might after being overthrown by the people. They, in a democratic society, continue to be listened too and reward by appearances on the media, no matter how great their ill-performed governance of the nation.

                Ken Clarke has long since passed his sell-by date. He should not have been given a position in the Cameron government. His political career has extended itself beyond John Major’s somewhat brief reign. He should have been gotten rid of on the 28^th November 1990 when Margaret Thatcher was overthrown by the party’s Left-wing (which included Michael Heseltine).

                But to such people as Michael Heseltine and Ken Clarke; they were determined to remain to try and guide Mrs Thatcher’s successor toward a pro-European destiny for these historical isles; and they almost succeeded with John Major.

AN  IN/OUT REFERENDUM has become more important today than at any other time or chapter in our relationship with the continent of Europe. Clarke’s  exuberant dismissal of such a prospect merely reflects his fear of the result. He knows all too well where the British people stand on the prospect of a United States of Europe; which is, after all, where political and monetary union leads.

                Clarke can no longer dismiss a referendum as representing a minority of ‘extremists’ on this issue. On the question off Europe; the position no doubt taken by Ken Clarke on the subject of a United States of Europe is still to disabuse the right-wing of such a project.

                He is behind the times; he is a steam engine struggling against the tide of electricity. Yet he wistfully believes he can manufacture a mainstream in support of a United States of Europe. But this support negates any kind of vote and relies upon the wisdom of Mr Clarke, above which (including God) there appears to be no equal.

                The British people must have a say on their country’s destiny. If they are not, in accordance with Mr Clarkes wishes, to have such a voice, then voting in a general election becomes nothing more than a sterile exercise in rubberstamping. Already our politicians promise us to implement on our behalf those things close to our hearts in their manifestoes, only to backtrack once in power.

                It is a shameful disgrace, and an abuse of democracy to suggest that we should not be allowed to have any kind of say on the dismantling of our nation - which is effectively what monetary and political union means for us.

                The hushpuppied, cigar puffing, and haughty Europhile, is thankfully no longer on the rise politically, having done his worse for the country by cheerfully encouraging our membership of the euro, while demonising those who warned against such a foolish venture.

                Now he once more advises his own peculiar brand of lunacy by suggesting that we forgo our nation state without ever having a say on its avoidable death. If this does not meet the description of  a politician with the political instincts of a dictator, then I know not what would.

                Clarke should be treated as an elder ‘statesman’ now embarking upon his dotage and  contender for a place in the upper house, where Cameron should immediately dispatch him – unless, that is, Cameron seeks the same end, but through a different means to the justice secretary.

               

               

                 

ROGER GRIFFIN, MUSIC TEACHER

LET US SALUTE A TEACHER. Roger Griffin 66, once of Beechview Primary School in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, is a music teacher who has been summoned before a Teaching Agency conduct hearing being held in Coventry.

            Mr Griffin, a music teacher, is facing a disciplinary panel because of the language he used toward his pupils. He branded some of them as ‘pests’ ‘idiots’, ‘clowns and buffoons’. He is also being accused of playing his piano in the school hall while an Ofsted visit was in progress. He had been told by assistant head Beatriz Melero to remain at home for the day, but, as Mr Griffin wisely counselled, 'Surely it is a function of Ofsted to identify bad teaching as well as good. They should not have the decision made by the school management for them.

                'I would have thought that I was entitled to have Ofsted see my work as much as anybody else in the school. I don't see the fuss about my reaction to being told I couldn't have my work inspected.'

                The Deputy Head, Miss Melero, also lays accusations that Mr Griffin disregarded her directions that he should follow the National Curriculum in his music lessons, to which the increasingly likeable Mr Griffin, agreed that he had not used the National Curriculum in his teaching of music because; 'I made it quite clear that I never will follow the Qualifications and Curriculums Authority (QCA)  schemes of work as they contain an error and I will not teach an error’. He went on to insist that the schemes he devised himself were in advance of those created by the QCA; 'My scheme of work is much better than the QCA scheme of work,' he said. 'My work supports the National Curriculum to levels that by itself the National Curriculum can't reach [probably because of dumbing down].’

                As for the language he used toward his pupils, he justifies such expressions thus; 'Persistent miscreants who act like delinquents can expect to be treated as such.

                'If they don't like being called idiots, fools, clowns, buffoons or any similar epithet, there is a very simple solution: don't act like one.'

MR GRIFFINS’ appearance before such a body tells us a lot about modern teaching in this country. Miss Melro it appears, was seconded into her role as a trouble shooter to boost the school’s ailing fortunes after its previous head teacher went absent on a ‘long term basis’.

                Something tells me that all is not well with Beechview School; and why was Mr Griffin told to take the day off during an Ofsted visit? Did he have something to tell which Miss Melro would have sooner been kept from Ofsted?

                Beechview School seems to have been an unhappy one before Miss Melro took over to boost it. It must have needed boosting, if Mr Griffin’s use of such language was necessitated. He seems to me to be a man that will not tolerate fools gladly and should have been elevated to the same position in the school as the previous absentee head master.

                All Mr Griffin, it seems, wanted to do throughout his teaching career was to advance knowledge; in his case the advance in knowledge was concerned with his love of music. He was a man who believed, as any teacher should, in educational standards, whatever the subject being taught.

                In the modern era where the slipper or the cane causes a seizure among modern educationalists; what is left in the teacher’s armoury to eradicate  bad behaviour if not language? Mr Griffin never used common (and I do mean common) swear words toward his pupils. He told it as he saw it in terms of the children’s behaviour, and his own life-long experience as a teacher.

                Mr Griffin has lived long enough to see both sides of the teaching coin. Remember, he was taught under a far stricter disciplinary regime than exists today.

                I, like Mr Griffin, was inducted into this country’s education system at about the same time. My school years covered the decade between 1955-1965. During these years teachers were allowed to physically punish pupils; but, as with modern ASBOS, a certain minority looked upon such a punishment as a badge of honour – but one which they were loath to repeat. Once was enough for  recalcitrant pupils then. The slipper and the cane were, like the sword of Damocles, hung over the heads of pupils, and this proved enough to keep discipline in the classroom then.

                The cane was the nuclear option which was rarely  used and only by the headmaster; but we pupils knew it was there, and the teachers also took comfort in its existence. No teacher then, would have taken the type of behaviour from a pupil that they are expected to take today without the option of physical punishment.

                Mr Griffin is obviously old school, while Beatriz Melero represents all that has gone wrong within the modern school. Pupils need discipline at school and boundaries set at home – a very high proportion of today’s pupils are unfamiliar with both concepts; and Mr Griffin realises such slackness can only increase innumeracy and illiteracy , as well as the criminal population.

                Children are untouchable and they know it. They hold all the cards as has been shown by the way Mr Griffin has been treated.

               

               

               

               

ALL WILL HAVE PRIZES

POLITICIANS HAVE BEEN bludgeoned by press and public as hypocrites for so long now, that it has become like water off a duck’s back to your average spin-meister on the green benches.

                The latest to be accused of charlatanism is none other than Nick Clegg. This time it is over the education of his children (a popular vehicle for insult among politicians), who he is thinking of sending to be educated at a private school. Having himself been educated at Westminster, Mr Clegg sees no reason why his own children should not also share his ‘luck’ as he calls his own private education.

                The trouble is that Mr Clegg is fond of making statements (like all of those from the same political class) which their personal lives contradict. Here is Mr Clegg sprouting off about equality in education; 'Right now there is a great rift in our education system between our best schools, most of which are private, and the schools ordinary families rely on. That is corrosive for our society and damaging to our economy.'
                You can see that his critics have a point: for unless the Great and Good who, like Mr Clegg, believe in equality, subject their children to the failings of the comprehensive system as millions have to do, then hypocrite just about sums up Mr Clegg.

                Our private schools give a superior education to our children than the comprehensives. If this were not the case, people like Nick Clegg would never consider them an option for their own children.

                When talking of social mobility Mr Clegg uses figures to persuade us of his argument, an example of which is the fact that  70 per cent of High Court judges and 54 per cent of company chief executives were given a private education.

                If this does not convince you of the excellence of the private education sector then what would? But Mr Clegg is not trying to persuade us of the private systems excellence but of its unfairness. It is, I assume, unfair because people like Mr Clegg can send his children to such institutions while the great majority lack means to do so.

                If so he has several options to pursue. He can do what the previous Labour government did for the whole of its 13 year tenure in government and close even more Grammar schools out of a vindictiveness that only added to the inequalities of our state education system: or he can reinvigorate the state sector by re-introducing the grammar school as an integral part of the education system as it once was.

                The grammar school helped those whose parents could not afford what Mr Clegg’s children will undoubtedly get - the finest education. The grammar school was an entry into such a world. It gave the educationally gifted from working class backgrounds the help up the academic ladder that Mr Clegg feels is no longer available to them.

THE SYSTEM OF the 11-plus was the great demon that post war Labour governments set about seeking to destroy; and with it many of our grammar schools. The streaming of ability into A, B, or C at the time was loaded in favour of middle class children. It was exemplified in my time at my junior school by the divvying up of streaming according social background. Remember, at that time, we had arrived from infant school where exams were never given, and so when we moved on to junior school there was no academic reference for streaming the pupils

                At my particular Alma-Marta the A stream seemed over populated by children from the middle class areas of the catchment area of the school.

                This was blatantly unfair because those picked for the A stream were to be coached to pass the 11 plus.

                Streaming needed reform, but what it got was revolution in the form of Shirley Williams; yet another beneficiary of private education. Her early Alma-Marta was St. Paul’s Girls School, which, according to the Good School’s Guide, was for the ‘bright, talented, motivated and confident girl [it is an] exhilarating start to the big adventure’.

                So exhilarated was Baroness Williams that she came up with the comprehensive system of education that has added to the blighting our society ever since. She systematically threw the good out with bad of the old system of selective education, and brought a dull and collectivised system into being – while persecuting the private schools, which forever afterward were to become the main targets of the socialist dumbing down that we remain infected with today.

                Even under the old 11-plus, those who failed it were not forgotten. They had a whole array of options left to them. Apprenticeships, vocational training at technical colleges or polytechnics. Today these latter institutions have been turned into universities for fear of making their students feel in some way underprivileged or under appreciated.

DUMMING DOWN has been the preoccupation of the state sector in education. Politicians have set a new low in order to make every student feel good about themselves and, more importantly from a voting perspective, also their parents.

                State education has been dumbed down by vote hungry politicians, and has been found wanting. The Comprehensive sector is a worthless enterprise with little academic credence left to it. Of course there are fine examples of schools within the state sector; if there were not there would be little left for the politicians to defend.

                If Nick Clegg is serious about equality in education, then he must realise that it has its limits. We are all different. Educationally speaking, any system of education worth its salt must select the wheat from the chaff. The wheat being the brightest and deemed fit for academia and its mental disciplines. The chaff  on the other hand, go where those who do not make the  grade turn to.

                For the so-called chaff, skilled and highly paid work awaits them. For those who cannot (like myself) make the intellectual grade; then opportunities await them that many of the so-called well educated cannot financially compete with.

                The trouble is, that the real snobs are not the blue blood Tories, but the egalitarian leftists who believe they rightly know what is best for their children and it usually means the private sector, while serving up their egalitarian gruel by the bucketful to those now left without even a grammar school to help them up the educational ladder.

                These people are not only hypocrites, but dangerous ones at that. By their social engineering of the education service, they have left both academics and businesses complaining about dumbing down, while at the same time students believe they have earned their A levels, and believe them to have had the same rigour attached to them, as at any time in our history.

                Every August more and more students make the grade, and soon a 100 per cent pass rate will become the norm – what then for our overcrowded universities. There must not be losers in ‘modern’ liberal, egalitarian Britain, and this applies to every level of education, whether academically, or on school sports day.

WE HAD AN education system under the old 11 plus which was blatantly unfair in the 1950s; but could have been reformed. It did not need Labour’s cultural revolution which now undermines the legitimacy of exam results.

                If I had had wealth and children, I would have sent them the best private schools from an early age. They would have been given the best chance in life that the best education in the world could buy.

                Nick Clegg is right to send his children to a £30,000 per year private school. He should not feel that he has to justify himself. But because of his misguided loyalty to the comprehensive system, he will no doubt, as he loves his children and want the best for them, send them to a private school.

                But being a liberal, he will, no doubt, suffer the pangs of conscience that being a member of such a club requires – but as the bard noted; ‘a conscience makes cowards of us all’.

               

God bless the Queen, and the misery she continues to heap upon embittered republicans

THE GUARDIAN HAS sad news to give its readers. The paper decided to test the popularity of the monarchy in this jubilee year; so they commissioned ICM to conduct a poll. Asked by ICM whether they thought Britain would be better off or worse off without a Royal Family - the respondents were unanimous. Those who thought Britain would be worse off numbered 69%, while those who thought Britain would be better off accounted for 22%; with 9% not knowing.

                If the republican inclined Guardianistas hoped that things would change once the present popular Queen was out of the way and Prince Charles took the throne, then they face further disappointment. While it is true that  48% believe the crown should pass to William, and 39% to Charles, only 10% believed that we should become a republic and elect our head of state.

                Support for the monarchy crosses all party political boundaries and is not confined to elderly Tories. Both the Labour Party and Lib Dem supporters believe in a monarchy.

                Even at its lowest ebb, during the period of Princess Diana’ death, support for the monarchy remained at a healthy  48%. But still the republicans believe history to be on their side. They cannot comprehend anything other than the meanest of slights to be given this institution.

                They have been pickled in class hatred for generations and cannot contemplate any kind of need for a modern monarchy, bereft of the Divine Right since the Cromwellian constitutional revolution. Modern day republicans have little to offer by way of a system of elected presidents.

                The Queen, as head of state, is politically neutral. She cannot and would not wish to take sides between the political parties, if only because to do so would threaten the very foundation of the institution of monarchy. She councils and advises; she is trusted by all prime ministers when they meet her each Tuesday. Unlike a president, the Queen does not have a political axe to grind, and she cannot go to war or have any say in whether the nation should do so or not.

                Paradoxically, she is as much a servant of her people as those who have been elected  to serve in parliament.  We are very lucky as a people to have such a constitutional arrangement that, over centuries, we have managed to broker for ourselves.

IN EUROPE, THEY ALSO BELIEVE in having a presidency. The president of the European Commission for instance, is José  Manuel  Barroso, who, like the Queen, is unelected and has, arguably, far more power within Europe than our Queen does over any single English county.

                Indeed, the European union is replete with such unelected power brokers. This is the EU’s idea of republicanism, and our own republicans would be better deployed in getting to grips with this anomaly in what is after all meant to be a democratic union; before chastising the British monarchy.

                The Guardian is pro-republican, as well as Europhilic. The paper believes that this country should have an elected president instead of an unelected monarch; the paper does not exactly remain silent on the democratic abuses that infect the many institutions of the European union at every level; but it does not at the same time press the issue to the same extent that it is happy to do with the institution of the British monarchy.

                José  Manuel  Barroso was in attendance at last week’s meeting of the G8, as the only unelected president on show. He behaved then, as he still behaves, like many a 16^th century monarch once did, who, like himself,  believed in their own Divine Right to rule.

                The Divine Right of unelected politicians to oversee and effectively govern Europe (i.e. the EU Commissioners), have replaced that of kings; and yet the Guardian, that supposedly stands full square against such medievalism remains incoherent on the subject.

               

WHEN I READ the Guardian on the net, I cannot resist the comments that always follow from their readers. The Guardian reader is a veritable source of amusement for the amateur psychologist (not to say psychiatrist) among those trawling the net.

                For instance, after the Guardian published its poll findings into the state of the British monarchy, I must admit that I was as presently surprised by the contributions made, as no doubt were the paper itself.

                I was amazed at how sympathetic many comments were toward the monarchy and can only assume that many of them were from readers of conservative papers like the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph.

                However, the authentic voice of the Guardianista was heard, and it was epitomised by a contribution from ‘Essextronica’. Essextronica wrote the following: ‘In these difficult times it amazes me that people aren't bothered by the queen bling-blinging it up the Thames in her yacht, rubbing it in or the millions spent on the royal wedding. No instead we cheer them on. I could cope with the concept of a hereditary monarchy if it wasn't for the extreme wealth and privilege and instead they had proper jobs and earned a living like the rest of us. 
                I agree that most of the population are too thick to understand the issue. On one of her recent visits the BBC interviewed some of the spectators asking them what they liked about the queen and these were clearly not people who were capable of critical thought’.

                This lady or gentleman is as arrogant as any aristocrat at the court of the Sun King. Essextronica would no doubt consider his/herself (it reads like a women, so I will use the appropriate pronoun from now on) above the common heard. She condescendingly believes that, ‘…most of the population are too thick to understand the issue’,(let them eat bread).

                Essextronica has a high opinion of herself and has a low opinion of those who disagree with her. She believes herself, like many of the Guardian’s ever diminishing readership (it no longer makes a profit) to be gifted with liberal certainty, despite the failure of the eurozone, multiculturalism, comprehensive education, immigration and every single social experiment conducted over the past four decades of this country’s history.

THE BRITISH MONARCHY, HOPEFULLY, is here to stay. The French rid themselves of their monarchy by a liberal use of the guillotine. The German monarchy, like that of the Russian, fell fowl of revolution following the First World War, the former proving more ‘successful’ than the latter.

                In Europe after the First World war, the kings departed, leaving the UK untouched by revolution. In Russia tsar Nicholas had overseen a form of Divine Right to rule and pressed such a ‘right’ upon his people goaded on by his wife, who in turn was under the spell of the monk Rasputin.

                The British however, had long since found a formula that worked. The Constitutional Monarchy found its place in the lives of the British people via an advisory role; as well as a client role to parliamentary procedure.

                We do not need a president to mismanage our lives. A prime minister should prove adequate for such a purpose. Having a monarch as a head of state has proven its worth in this country, and the people recognise this, as the ICM poll proves.

                The monarchy in Britain acts as a source of conviction when the politician’s fail them, as they often do. Elections have proven as unreliable as the hereditary principle when choosing a leader.

                Democracy is the best and only way forward for a free people. But we in the UK have also benefited from a constitutional monarchy, which provide stability and brings tradition to our nation.

                We in the UK are unique throughout the world in the way we govern ourselves as a free people who never fear free speech, or the vile and vindictive probing of republicans

                Our constitutional monarchy has proven itself; and will surely continue throughout the generations (if, that is, Charles does not f***-up).

SCOTLAND THE…CANTON?

TODAY BEGINS THE START OF the Scottish Nationalist Party’s (SNP) referendum campaign for Scottish independence  which could, may, or might be held in 2014.

                Alex Salmond the SNP leader  will, according to Simon Johnson of the Daily Telegraph, ‘…be joined in Edinburgh this morning by celebrities and the leaders of minor left-wing parties to formally start his bid to end the 305-year-old Union between England and Scotland.’

                Alex Salmond’s announcement comes however as a YouGov poll published by the former  chancellor Alistair Darling, which shows that 57 per cent of Scottish voters opposes independence, compared to 33 per cent who said they would vote for.

                It is not an auspicious way to herald the venture, and Mr Darling must have chosen his release to do the maximum damage to an imbecilic notion of independence at a time when all the nations of Europe are embarking upon a journey which will bring an end to the nation state. Under such a dark cloud, Scottish, English, Irish and Welsh nationalism are all meaningless - as for independence, ditto, and for the same reason.

                If the poll proves correct, then the Scottish people can readily see that which Alex Salmond fails to. ‘Scottish independence’ is an oxymoron at this time in European history. No nation will remain a nation, either independent or safe.

                According to Simon Johnson, Salmond will be joined by celebrities (e.g. Sir Sean Connery) as well as the leaders from ‘minor left-wing parties’. Like the minor left-wing parties, the SNP has outlived its purpose; for both socialism and notions of nationalism are now passé as far as modern history and Europe are concerned. Socialism still thrives within Europe, but it does so by going against the grain of history, resulting in the mishandling of the eurozone.

THE SCOTTISH people, unlike the parade of celebrities at today’s Edinburgh ‘event’, know on which side their bread is buttered. If Salmond was serious, he would be telling the Scottish people to vote UKIP. By doing so Scotland, as well as the other nations within the UK would be given an in/out referendum on Europe. The UKIP route is the only route that Salmond and people like him can take, if they wish to see an independent Scotland, as Scottish nationalists.

                As things stand at the moment, Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales, are all facing canton status within a United States of Europe. Scotland can only have a credible independence from England if the people, including Alex Salmond, vote out in a referendum. Otherwise the SNP is behaving fraudulently by leading the Scottish people into believing in Scottish independence – for all they will be doing is swapping what Salmond believes to be one master (England), for another (Europe).

                On the very day the UK joined the European Union, when we were told that it would only ever be a trading alliance, a United States of Europe was always meant to mark the end of the journey. It was the ambition that dare not speak its name – especially by generations of Eurosyphilis UK politicians.

                I believe that we will not see a referendum for Scottish independence because, firstly, Alex Salmond will not, in the end call one because of the sane opinion of the Scottish people toward such an arrangement will remain. Lastly, he, as well as the Scottish people, will, by 2014, when such referendum  may or might be held, both realise that Scottish independence  will have become obsolete as far as any true meaning of the expression is concerned.

               

THE 305-YEAR HISTORY of Scotland’s union with England has brought many benefits to both peoples. We in England have always profited from the vital Scottish contribution to British culture. For all our put-downs of each other, we have built an empire together and been the midwives of an industrial revolution that put science in the forefront of our civilisation. We have, between us, helped rescue a European continent from Nazi barbarity and in doing so helped free the whole continent of Europe.

                Scotland has seeded more than its fare share of world-wide respected scientists, novelists, economists and philosophers; as well as exported through migration many entrepreneurs who have succeeded in foreign lands. Indeed, considering its demographic paucity, Scotland has proven itself to have been a marvel in the aid to building civilisations, in whatever part of the world their citizens found themselves.

                I could have written a whole piece on Scotland’s impact on world-wide civilisation. But, in terms of Scotland’s population, its contribution has been, if not superior to England’s, then equal to it. England has, however, been responsible for many bitter memories among the Scots.       

                 What Alex Salmond wishes to resurrect is the ancient antagonisms that go far back to William Wallace in the 13^th century. This is where the ancient resentment begins for a Scottish nationalist and may explain their ignorance of the world in which Salmond, as a Scottish nationalist, now lives.

                Hollywood’s treatment of William Wallace, played by Mel Gibson, must have seemed like a gift from heaven to Alex Salmond. But it is a shame that he prefers Wallace’s medieval ambition for Scotland to the modern world’s dichotomy, which would either makes his nation redundant through Europeanization, or able to cling to its union with England and defend itself from such mediocrity as being a canton of Europe.

                The UK must stand together as a whole against its Europeanization into becoming a mere canton that threatens all nations within the UK. It is not Scottish independence that is important; simply because it would be taken from them by Europe.

                If Scottish Nationalism wishes to breath freely of its many desires for its nation’s future; then Salmond must secure Scotland’s release from Europeanization. If he fails in such an ambition then Scottish Nationalism would become a prisoner tied in far more weighty shackles than they ever felt they had under the union with England.