Diamond Jubilee Bollocks

I was going to write a serious piece on Her Maj's Diamond Jubilee. You know the sort of thing: professionally investigative; full of well-researched facts; conclusive arguments and solutions. Then I thought...nah. Ill-informed, judgemental hyperbole is what I do best...

And 600 million inglorious pounds later...

It's not really about the money. Compared to the country's deficit and the crippling debt burden we labour under, a few million quid for the odd lavish party and a one-thousand vessel flotilla closing down London for a day is chicken feed. Sure, queenie is putting her hand her purse for the dinners with all the world's mad despots and imaginary monarchs...but that'll the purse that we filled with our money, then. And the country - well, Londoners anyway - have to pay for the 5,500 police officers and 7,000 security stewards that'll be on duty over the jubilee weekend to make sure that everyone behaves. But no, it isn't really about the money...even though half of the population can't currently afford to eat anything other mechanically reclaimed burger meat while she feasts on swan.

Let's start with the cult of monarchy and its lunatic perpetuation. It is the duty of the press and media broadcasters to be impartial and, largely, they are these days although that has nothing to do with Leveson or the toothless Dacre fiefdom that masquerades as the Press Complaints Commission. Independent, my arse. Hacks are allowed to criticise David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the other bloke, er...what's his name...doesn't matter, each with equivalent gusto. They can be uncommonly rude about George Galloway, Nigel Farage and Nick Griffin, especially. They can also be very impolite about people in business and freely libellous in the extreme about the new whipping boys, the bankers. They can even be just a bit rude about fundamental Islamlists, as long as they have hooks and eye-patches and/or are called Abu. And, of course, they can take the piss out of Anglican bishops and accuse every Roman Catholic priest of kiddie-fiddling. But partial, negative comments about Her Maj are strictly taboo. Why?

To an anti-monarchist republican (like me) this seems like madness. I have tried to put myself in the shoes of the people that are in favour of having an unelected Head of State that is given millions of pounds every year to go on holiday, have banquets and read a little book (written by a twelve-year-old policy wonk) in front of their Lordships and a few MPs to announce what 'her' government will be doing badly or pointlessly over the the coming parliament. It isn't even 'her' government. She doesn't fucking vote! It's our government (well, the 35% of us that cast a ballot, anyway - the rest should be ashamed of themselves). I've tried. Really, I have. But I can't.

I've even tried to consider the specious arguments about the royal family being 'Good for Britain'. The one that is usually trotted out by credulous fools is that the royals - and in particular, the Queen - bring in shit-loads of tourists and their wallets thus boosting invisible earnings for the country. This is mostly utter crap. Sure, there are a few idiots (usually Americans) that believe they are somehow related to the royal family and want to 'come visit'. The rest wish to see the palaces, the jewels, and the pomp. Just like they do in Russia and France; one republic and one totalitarian dictatorship that had the sense to dispense with their royalty years ago. But it doesn't stop the tourists in their hordes queueing for hours to see the Winter and Summer Palaces of St Petersburg or the magnificence of Versailles. If anything, it encourages people to go to see where some privileged, in-bred tossers used to live but now are places that ordinary people can gawk at. Obviously, I'm not suggesting that we guillotine or shoot our royals. No. They could have a modest pension and a council house; possibly even somewhere nice.

Another argument (equally specious but also utterly moronic) for continuing with this farrago is that 'the people' love her (the queen) and the public mood is lifted immeasurably, simply by her sitting in a golden carriage or a big, shiny car and waving at them. Have we lost our minds? And the sycophantic reporting makes me gag, especially when the odious, little turd Witchell, or before him the equally fawning Jennie Bond can find nothing better to toss off about than which shade of lemon her hat is, but not which arsehole was paid £5,000 for making it.

Cheesecake?

Then there's the position many take; telling us that the queen does a 'very good job'. Yeah. This a job that comes with at least six huge houses to live in, a throne, an art collection, some lovely jewels, an income Bob Diamond can only dream of, countless foreign holidays, hundreds of servants and lackeys and, until recently, a personal cruise ship. And if that idiot Gove got his way, she'd get a new one. Is it just me, or does the Education Secretary have the sort face that you'd never tire of smacking? The queen's 'job' is also pretty much unique, in that she can never be sacked (except by revolt - and that's not really getting sacked, more 'overthrown'). The argument is that the queen, as Head of State, is actually a real Head of State. After all, she has the uncommonly difficult role of having to meet with the Prime Minister regularly and 'agree' to his or her mad ideas about governing. What on earth do they talk about?

Cameron (bowing and scraping): "Good morning Ma'am."
Queen (seated on throne): Good morning. Have you come far."
Cameron: "No, Ma'am. Just across London Town."
Queen: "And how are things in my realm?"
Cameron: "Splendid, Ma'am. Couldn't be better."
Queen: Really? I thought one had heard something about a recession and one's subjects having to eat gruel."
Cameron: "Not at all, Ma'am. Everything is wonderful."
Queen: "Excellent. Is there anything else?"
Cameron: Nothing at all, Ma'am, except, and if I may so bold, may I wish you my sincerest felicitations on your diamond jubilee?
Queen: "Very well. You may."
Cameron: "My sincerest felicitations upon your diamond jubilee, your majesty."
Sir Mortimer Fitztightly: "Her Majesty is tired. You may leave now."
Cameron: "Thank you so much, sir.' (Bows, scrapes a bit more and walks backwards to the door). "Your majesty, I am your humblest subject..."(exits)
Queen: "Sir Mortimer, who was that awful little man?"
Fitztightly: "That was David Cameron, ma'am, the Prime Minister."
Queen: "Oh, dear. Can one have a new one? One used to like that splendid lady that used to come and have a chat with one over tea and those frightful Duchy Original biscuits, oh...so many years ago. Can she come back again to see one?"
Fitztightly: "I'm afraid not, ma'am. She went mad."
Queen: "That reminds one. Where's Philip?"

There is a misguided school of thought that the royals are useful in promoting international trade, too. By that, of course, we mean selling arms to despotic regimes that have their own 'royals'. It's almost worth keeping the royal family just for that, then, really...

There are also legal issues. This country has a constitution. On the whole, that's good thing - having a constitution. It's what's in it that's the problem. Constitutionally, the queen is indeed Head of State. Constitutionally, she inherited her position as monarch and when she dies, the whole thing carries on, only next time with a real loony. It is argued that changing the constitution will create so much upheaval that it's simpler, cheaper and therefore more appropriate to let things stay as they are. That's how the House of Lords see it, of course and, sadly, every bloody parliament since Richard Cromwell screwed up the republic in 1659. Twat. The constitutional premise is therefore one of apathy, buoyed by the speciousness referenced earlier in this post.

R Cromwell: Useless Republican

A small segment of the population argue that the queen is 'appointed by god'. All the ridiculously anachronistic bollocks that makes up coronations and enthronements of the monarch refer to this. The small segment (and one that's getting smaller by the minute) is the Church of England and its Bishops, who, by coincidence, are the twenty-six Lords Spiritual that get to sit in the Upper House and have a say in government despite being unelected. Another brilliant reason to retain the monarchy, then... And the loony heir to the throne is maybe not as nuts as I thought. He wants to be not the 'Defender of the Faith', as in the CofE being that faith, but 'Defender of All Faiths', thus prompting a call, perhaps, for the house of Lords to be filled up with Roman Catholic bishops, Chief Rabbis, Ayatollahs and the rest, including Sung Myung Moon and the Buddha, probably.

And now, the country is required to be in rapture over the fact that an elderly woman has been in a cushy job-for-life (to which she was appointed by an imaginary super-being) for sixty years. The coalition thinks it's a great idea to further damage GDP by giving "non-essential" workers an extra day off so they can 'celebrate' the grandness of the occasion, thus providing a boost to morale before we all have to deal with the horror of it all again on the Wednesday. But that's OK, too, because it won't be long before the bloody Olympic Games.

Oh, and by the way, I've had to make all this up because - surprise, surprise - the royal family is exempt from requests made under the Freedom of Information Act.

Tch! The things you see when you've gone out without your gun again...

AND THE WINNER WAS....None of the Above

So...farewell, then, Ken. Londoners can look forward to another four years of Boris. Just over half of the eventual poll, including the second options, returned BoJo to City Hall by a margin of 62,000 votes, or around a three per cent majority. Ken has indicated that this was his last attempt at the top job. Johnson has indicated that he will work hard to cut Council Taxes, put more bobbies back on the beat, improve infrastructure and Transport For London and...basically all the things that Ken said he would do. The difference is that Ken knows how to run things and Boris...well, he knows how to run a campaign for Mayor and he is, you know, a funny bloke and all that. Just what London needs, of course, rather than a dull, leftie technocrat that can actually deliver on his promises in these difficult times. And what Londoners need right now is a jolly good chap that can carry off all the hand-shaking required for the Olympics and someone who knows how to behave at a jubilee pageant...

"OK, then Bozzer, the job's yours in 2015..."

With all the hype around the London Mayoral election, one could be forgiven for thinking that the voters would have turned out in their droves to cast their ballot for the Old Etonian toff or the Old School GLC wunderkind of days gone by. But no...the turnout was as apathetically low in London as elsewhere in the UK; somewhere around one third of the electorate being bothered enough to vote.

What does this mean? Well, first of all, it means that we get the government (local or national) that our apathy deserves. It also means that, whomsoever is elected in any poll, cannot assume to have a mandate to govern when the majorities are often tantalisingly slender, which means that the successful candidate/party is probably in a seat that has been voted for by about one in six of the electorate. However, it could be argued that it is democracy at work. It's as if two-thirds of the adult population had read PJ O'Rourke's seminal work ("Don't Vote, It Just Encourages The Bastards") and taken it literally. This could be true as two-thirds of the adult population rarely get beyond the title of a book, these days, before deciding they can't be arsed to read it or won't do so because it isn't available as an 'App' on their bloody i-phones.

But let's assume, for the moment, that one third of the electorate is sufficiently representative and, if we do, then here are the highlights of last week's elections:

D'oh!

The Liberal Democrats have been utterly shafted. They lost almost half of the council seats that they had. And why? Because Liberals Democrats cannot possibly sit comfortably in a coalition with Conservatives. That's all...that's it. What on earth was Clegg thinking back in 2010? Well, the first thing was that he could be "Deputy Prime Minister" and that it would be a power base for Liberal policy delivery. The second thing was, er...OK, there wasn't a second thing and the first thing didn't work. The saddest aspect of all of this is that Clegg still believes that he wields some power. And yet some of the main post-election interviews on the BBC were with Lembit Opik, who was allowed to voice his pointless opinions on the leadership of the party, and with Paddy Ashdown, who has been a marvellous apologist for Clegg over the last two years but the weariness in his responses were all too telling. 

Twenty-six per cent of the council seats that were fought over on May 3rd were won by "Other" parties' candidates. That's the likes of all the Independents, UKIP, Galloway's "Respect" Party and some loonies. The "Others" lost about ten per cent of the seats they had in the previous ballots in the councils that were up for grabs this time but that was compared to the forty-two per cent lost by the Lib Dems and the twenty-eight per cent by the Tories. Four per cent of the 181 councils that were voted for on May 3rd are now controlled by "Other", compared to only three per cent controlled by the Lib Dems. Opik has suggested that Clegg has to stand down as leader of the Lib Dems and - for the first time ever in my life - I agree with the Cheeky-Girl-Banging self-publicist (although Opik was also of the opinion that Clegg should remain as Deputy PM - I don't get that bit).

 

And that's it...the only highlight of the local elections and the London Mayoral elections is that the Liberal Democrats are the spent force that we always knew them to be. The rest of it is pointless rhetoric. Miliband cannot take the high ground because the turnaround in Labour's favour this time is less than it was last time (mid-term) when the Tories were in opposition. Cameron can't ascend the hill that Miliband wishes to climb either, even though his mid term loss was less than thirty per cent. Harriet Harperson's conclusion was that "the people" had become disillusioned with the coalition and had decided not to turn out to vote. That might have been the case but it didn't take the cleverest hack to point out that her argument was self-defeating for Labour...D'oh!

Two ordinary voters on May 3rd

Turn-out at the polls was obviously a factor, though. There was a time, years ago when I started voting, when poor weather could dictate the turn-out and that it was siad that rain favoured Tory voters because they were more likely to have their own cars. But one of the things that has a mjor impact is that here, in the UK, we seem always to vote on Thursdays. Not that I'm a fan of doing things the French way, but why don't we vote on a Sunday? We don't because we have failed miserably to separate church and state, but with only a handful of practising christians left, the objections to voting on the sabbath are minimal. Besides, we could use churches as polling stations (as well as synagogues, mosques and other temples just to be fair all round) which would please the bishops as they could claim greater attendances. What we can't do is go down the Australian route (and that of some totalitarian states) that makes it illegal not to vote, because there is the option to cast for "None of the Above", so you can guess who'd win every time.

Rather than force people to vote, we should try some encouragement that has nothing to do with politics. There are 45 million people eligible to vote in the UK. £10 each is £450m. The banks aren't lending any money so they've got plenty lying around so this can be funded by a levy on UK banks proportionate to their capitalisation. When you turn up at the polling station and have your name ticked off, the officials give you a crisp tenner for your trouble. Voters who feel patronised can have the opportunity of foregoing the £10 or dropping it into one of an array of charity boxes on offer.

If the great unwashed and other scumbags are encouraged by £10, then the demographic of the active electorate will change dramatically and, as a result, government and opposition manifestos to woo them.

On the other hand, it might just be better to go with O'Rourke.

Parent Licensing

I learn today of some extraordinary draft legislation...if Steve Hilton's ideas about Parent training don't work (and they won't), then this stuff will be enacted...

Parent Licensing Act - 2012:

Before attempting to become pregnant, a government-issue licence must be obtained by both the prospective father and the prospective mother, independently. The licence will only be valid for the progeny of these two people, jointly, and is not transferrable. The licence will be valid for two years and covers the prospective parents for one child only.

The licences will be issued upon the parents both passing the Parent Licensing Act aptitude test. This is a simple test that must be completed in person at one of the appropriate government-approved licensing offices. The test will be based upon psychometric profiling but can only be completed by applicants if they pass the pre-test questionnaire: All the following questions must be answered 'NO' to qualify for the Licensing Test:

1) Are you illiterate? 

(That should stop a number of unsuitable people getting beyond Q1).

2) Is your BMI over 35?

3) Have you ever been convicted of a criminal offence?

4) Are you unemployed?

5) Is your alcohol intake in excess of 30 units a week?

6) Have you ever used illegal drugs?

7) Have you had sex with more than ten different partners?

8) Do you believe in God?

9) Are you a monarchist?

10) Do you already have children?

If any applicant is discovered to have lied in the pre-test questionnaire, they may never apply for a child licence, ever.

Only three applications can be made during any lifetime, regardless of whether successful joint applications fail to achieve pregnancy within the two period of the licence.

This is a very straightforward legislative approach to containment of population and the reduction of the unsustainable benefits bill faced by governments in the UK and must not be confused with eugenics, really... It also deals with the whole secularisation thing and should lead to the establishment of a secular republic within a generation. 

However, due to human beings' propensity to have unprotected sex and, on the basis that even after the Act has been passed, they will probably continue to do so without the necessary licence, then a series of legal sanctions must be made available to the authorities:

a) If a woman becomes pregnant without a licence (even if the man has a licence, or she has a licence and the man doesn't) then the pregnancy will be terminated, free of charge. Terminations can only take place up to 20 weeks into the pregnancy. Both the woman and the man will be allowed only one unlicensed pregnancy; after all, mistakes happen, and this isn't a totalitarian, police state (well, maybe it is, a bit). If they have another unlicensed pregnancy either together of with other partners, they will be banned for life from applying for a license.

b) In the event that the woman doesn't 'fess-up to being up the duff, and is discovered to being pregnant, both she and the man will be banned from applying for a licence for life. 

c) A 'Pregnancy Grass-Up Hotline' will be established for informants to let the authorities know if a person has become pregnant and they suspect that this may have occurred without a license. Substantial rewards will be offered for grassing-up an unlicensed pregnancy.

d) In the event that an unlicensed pregnancy continues undetected and goes beyond the 20 week termination deadline, the woman is allowed to go full term. (The license must be produced at the government birthing-stations). Once the unlicensed child has been born it will be removed from the mother and offered for adoption to licensed parents that have used all three licenses but have failed to produce a child. That's only fair, isn't it? I mean, they qualified, after all, but just couldn't get there. If no suitable adoptive parents can be found then the child will go to Madonna, or Angelina Jolie. The natural mother and the father will be banned from applying for a license for life and, under no circumstances whatsoever will they ever, ever get a council house, OK?

Apparently, this will be in the Queen's Speech next year...