The Jubilee is a Celebration of 70 Years of Elizabeth Windsor Living At Our Expense

 The Monarchy is the String that Ties the Robber’s Bundle – We Have to Make Sure That There is No Charles III

Platinum Jubilee - The Great British distraction

I imagine that like me you are sick to the backteeth of the servile, sycophantic, fawning tone of BBC broadcasters and news readers as they compete with each other to find the most obsequious and servile adjectives to describe a seriously dysfunctional family.

Their purpose being to convince us that the idea of a hereditary head of state is somehow compatible with democracy. Even the bourgeois kind. One wonders whether there are any other professions - teaching, mathematics, history, which use the hereditary principle as well?  Perhaps they operate it at the BBC too, which might account for quite a lot!

For the past 2 weeks, whether we like or not, we have been bombarded with messages about how grateful we should be that Elizabeth Windsor has agreed to live a life of unparalleled luxury at our expense, aided by a subsidies of over £100m annually.

Even the right-wing Tax Payer’s Alliance isn’t happy with the amount of money spent on the Royal Family.  They wrote:

However, there are also clauses in the Sovereign Grant Act 2011 which are completely unfair on British taxpayers.

The Act includes a provision that prevents a fall in the value of the Sovereign Grant. It was put into force this year when the Crown Estate portfolio fell by more than £500 million in value, after land and property investments went sour during the pandemic. Instead of taking it on the chin like every other business owner who has seen their assets hit due to covid-19, the taxpayer has bailed the royals out – ensuring that the Sovereign Grant will not fall in value for the next financial year....

The bailout by HM Treasury means that money that would have been spent on public services has now been diverted to the royals. This is expected to give the monarch a grant of £86.3 million for the year 2020-2021. Despite the Act guaranteeing the royals will never make a loss, the Sovereign Grant has ballooned in size, giving them year on year increases for the past decade above levels of inflation. In 2016-17 the grant was worth £42.8 million, which steeply jumped to £76.1 million in 2017-18 and continued to rise handsomely until this year. The royal family have a rising income under this system...

Today’s royals have hardly been as thrifty, showing little regard for value for money. The Sovereign Grant financial report uncovered that Prince Andrew squandered £16k on a private jet travelling to Londonderry from Belfast in his capacity as Patron of the Open Championship at Royal Portrush Golf Club in July. As eighth in line to the throne, ‘Air Miles Andy’ could have set an example by going on an affordable airline instead of a private jet. 

Forbes magazine estimated the Queen's net worth at around £325 million) in 2011, while an analysis by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index put it at about £275 million) in 2015. In 2012 the Sunday Times estimated the Queen's wealth as being £310 million and that year the Queen received a Guinness World Record as Wealthiest Queen. The Sunday Times Rich List 2015 estimated her wealth at £340 million. She was number one on the list when it began in 1989, with a reported wealth of £5.2 billion, which included state assets that were not hers personally, (approximately £13.2 billion in today's value). (Wikipedia)

The Queen hobnobbing with the Bahrain King whose Security Forces Tortured Doctors and Nurses who Tended the Wounded who had been Fired on by the King's

If this was any other family they would have child psychologists and social workers crawling all over them, to say nothing of the long arm of the law.

It is common knowledge that Andrew Windsor raped and molested girls half his age and more who were being trafficked by a convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and his madam Ghislaine Maxwell. After all no one gives more than £10m to someone they’ve never met, as happened with Virginia Giuffre.

After all Andrew had a cast iron alibi since at the time he was supposed to be with Virginia. He was entertaining his daughters at a pizza parlour as well as suffering from an inability to sweat!

Percy Shelley - radical poet

The Real Purpose of the Monarchy was Spelt Out Over 200 Years by the radical poet, Percy Shelley when he wrote that the Monarchy was the ‘string that ties the robbers’ bundle.’

The Monarchy above all have a political function, not in a party political sense but as the symbol of an ugly, undemocratic British state in which a tiny handful of people own the vast majority of wealth whilst millions of people are living in or near the poverty line.

Three in a marriage was a crowd!

The top 1% in society own 25% of total wealth and despite exhortations for us to be ‘patriotic’ they have no hesitation in stashing it in offshore islands beyond the reach of the tax authorities.

It is no accident that the Conservative Party, which is dedicated to a programme of transferring wealth from the poor to the rich, is the most overtly pro-Monarchist party. Boris Johnson is happy to take £20 per week from universal credit claimants whilst at the same time he is falling over himself to spend £250 million on a new Royal Yacht.

Those who demonise ‘benefit scroungers’ are more than happy to hand over hundreds of millions of pounds to an already vastly rich family.

As Seamus Milne wrote the purpose of the Monarchy, above all, is a political one. In times of constitutional crisis they have potentially enormous power because the organs of the state, the army and police owe their duty to them not the people.

This is called the Royal Prerogative and it was demonstrated when Johnson prorogued i.e. cancelled the ability of parliament to sit. The Queen was happy to go along with Boris but the Supreme Court decided otherwise.

Sir John Kerr - author of an Australian coup d'etat

In 1975 this was demonstrated when the Labour Prime Minister of Australia was removed by the Queen’s representative, Governor-General Sir John Kerr. As John Pilger has shown, this was done in co-ordination with MI6 and the CIA. The CIA were apoplectic that an American base in Pine Springs might be closed down. Australia has historically been the US’s closest ally in the Pacific, as we can see today with the Aukus Pact aimed at China.

Overthrow of Gough Whitlam

The BBC claimed that the Queen didn’t know of Gough Whitlam’s removal. She didn’t have to know.  She appointed the Governor-General who used the reserve powers of the crown to overthrow an elected government. What the Crown did in Australia they can do here.

When people drool over and fantasise about the Royals and what they get up to, with the encouragement of the tabloids, they are being shown the ‘human’ side of an ugly family and an undemocratic institution.

It's not just Andrew who has a fascination for paedophiles - Charles befriended Peter Ball, Bishop of Lewes, who was later gaoled for offences against children - offering him a house on his estate

The Monarchy is not about the tantrums of Price Harry or the peccadilloes of Andrew or the tree hugging of Charles.  Nor is it about how Princess Diana was treated 20 years ago when she and Charles separated.

It is about the British state being represented in human form as a family that British people can identify with, for good or bad. The Royal Family stand above all for the idea that however rich or poor you are you can identify with them as a symbol of national unity.

But Britain today is not what it was 70 years ago. More than one in four (27%) British people now support abolishing the monarchy. As Republic note, support for retaining the monarchy stands at just 60%, well below the 70-75% previously reported.

A YouGov poll carried out for anti-monarchy group Republic found that 41% of 18-24 year olds want the monarchy abolished whilst only 31% want to keep them. Across all age ranges that figure stands at 27%.

Ben Wallace & the Slaughter of Black Bears

Labour voters are evenly split, with 44% wanting to keep the monarchy compared with 43% favouring abolition. Graham Smith of Republic was quoted as saying that:

"When looked at alongside other polls in recent years, it appears support for the monarchy is on a slow puncture."

"Just ten years ago monarchists were consistently boasting that three quarters of the population supported the royals, now support stands at just 60%."

Of course a republic in itself is no panacea.  The United States and France are hardly more democratic or egalitarian than Britain despite being republics. A democratic state also has to be a socialist state where wealth and wealth production is in the hands of the people and where the economic levers of power are not in the hands of a tiny minority. But there is no doubt that the removal of this rich, privileged and selfish family will be a step in the right direction.

Nor is there any need for an elected head of state, a kind of elected dictator. The problem we have is an unaccountable Prime Minister and Parliament as Boris Johnson is demonstrating with a raft of Bills to increase Police powers and clamp down on demonstrations and trade unions’ right to strike.

A Grilling? If Prince Andrew was a piece of meat then Emily Maitlis’s interview would give us food poisoning

It’s not a carefully controlled, softball interview with the BBC but an interview under arrest which is required

It says something about our ‘justice system’ that Julian Assange is under lock and key in Belmarsh prison for services to journalism and revealing the truth about US war crimes whilst Andrew Windsor is giving an interview in the plush surroundings of Buckingham Palace.

This was an exercise in damage limitation though it is clear that such is Andrew Windsor’s shiftiness that he has raised more questions than answers.

He said he ‘let the side down’ meaning the Royal Family. Andrew Windsor didn’t mention letting down the hundreds of young girls that his friend Jeffrey Epstein was trafficking.

Apparently ‘randy’ Andy didn’t notice anything was amiss during his many visits to Epstein’s Florida mansion and during his stay at Epstein’s New York pad. He didn’t deny staying on Epstein’s island either.  If you believe his version of what happened you would believe anything.

In December 2010 Andrew went to stay at Epstein’s New York home in order to tell him he couldn’t see him again!  Not only that but he went for a leisurely walk in Central Park with him. It is bullshit. If in fact the only purpose of the visit was to cut off relations then a royal aide would have phoned Epstein. Clearly Andrew felt indebted to the monster.

Andrew with the boss of a Kazakh oil company

Not only that but he stayed for 4 days because it was ‘convenient’. This is from someone who has a range of hotels to stay in, for whom money is no barrier and who can stay at the British Ambassador’s residence. The obvious conclusion is that he stayed for reasons related to the child sex allegations for which Epstein was convicted and facing further proceedings. Allegations of sleeping with what were girls trafficked as sex slaves is rape.

Andrew casts doubt on the famous photograph with a 17 year old Virginia Roberts, suggesting that it is photo-shopped, that his fingers didn’t fit but he doesn’t categorically state that it is a forgery. Why? Because the negative might yet turn up. He is careful not to say anything which might prove a lie in the future.

Nothing Virginia Roberts has said, about having slept with him 3 times or knowing him has proven to be false. Andrew admits to a friendship with Ghislaine Maxwell who procured the girls for Epstein.  That in itself is damning enough.

By his own admission he gave a party during his 2010 stay at Epstein’s house for his host. He also invited Epstein to a ‘shooting party’ as opposed to a birthday party at Sandringham. Clearly it was a close relationship.

The wonder is that the bunch of parasites otherwise known as the Royal Family is able to do all of this courtesy of the tax payer. If ever there were a group of people who should stand on their own two feet it is the Royals.

Andrew is a particularly despicable specimen having previously acted as a conduit for arms deals with regimes that have atrocious human rights records such as Kazakhstan. He has hosted the King of Bahrain who had doctors who tended to the wounds of demonstrators tortured.

Sleeping with under-age girls who are sex slaves is on a par with this. It says something about Andrew Windsor that he kept up his friendship with a convicted sex trafficker because of a ‘sense of honour’ whose behaviour was merely ‘unbecoming’.

Even to this day he doesn’t regret his friendship ‘because of the people I met.’ Presumably he is referring to his arms dealer friends.  It would have been more honest if he said that he didn’t regret it because of the girls that he raped.

Piers Morgan describes Maitlis’s interview as ‘forensic’. I have another word, sycophantic. Maitlis failed to press Andrew Windsor at different times during the interview for example not on whether he could remember the photograph and being with Roberts but whether he denied it outright. She didn’t ask him whether it was a forgery.

She barely pursued the propriety of staying with a man guilty of using and exploiting dozens if not hundreds of girls.  She said of course nothing about his involvement with the arms trade and whether the amorality of dealing with the world’s dictators might rub off in his personal life.

In the circumstances she was deferential and restrained but that is how the BBC has long treated the Royals. Yet despite all of this, such was Andrew Windsor’s shiftiness and the implausibility of his explanations (‘I could kick myself’) whilst remembering small details of a Pizza Hut outing 18 years ago that will have done him and the Royals the very damage that he intended to avoid.

Tony Greenstein

Boris’s Coup is a Constitutional Outrage but it may yet rebound on Johnson and the Monarchy

As Tony Benn pointed out, the Royal Prerogative is the undemocratic heart of our Constitution 

When I first heard that Boris Johnson was going to rule without what he considers the unnecessary interference of parliament my first thoughts were that this is what happens when I go away for a short break!

We live in interesting times and no more so for the Royal Family and the Queen. Not since the death of Princess Diana, which was at first a relief to ‘the firm’, have the Royals been in the firing line. This has not been a good week for them  First there was the little local difficulty of her son Prince Andrew and his association with Jeff Epstein, a convicted paedophile and his almost certain sexual relations with girls being held in conditions of captivity and now the suspension of parliament

Her Majesty has consented to preventing Parliament meeting in order to discuss the major constitutional issue of the time. There can be no doubt that the Queen could have told Johnson to go away and secure the assent of Parliament to its own dissolution. She didn’t because clearly Johnson has no majority for such an undemocratic manoeuvre. He has been elected by the members of the Tory party only and lacks a majority in the House of Commons.

Thus we see that the Monarchy represents the undemocratic heart of our constitutional settlement and the Royal Prerogative is its instrument. It could however backfire badly on Boris for a very simple reason.  Brexit no longer commands a majority amongst the British people and that is why there is such resolute opposition among the Brexiteers to a second referendum or Parliament having a vote.  There is certainly no support for no deal.

We saw today that there is mass anger at what has happened and it is likely to grow not diminish. Boris Johnson’s plummy public school accent and that of the 18^th century caricature Rees-Mogg cannot hide the deviousness and dishonesty behind this dictatorial act.

It is right that people should besiege parliament and Downing Street and it would be right if they riot because riots are how the peoples’ will can be manifested.

Parliament, if it has the will, can easily pass legislation taking control over the legislative process, revoking Article 50, agreeing to a referendum or seeking an extension to Article 50.  Where there is a will there is a way.  That will mean the smaller parties falling in behind Labour including the treacherous Lib Dems, who found no difficulty sitting in the same cabinet as George Osborne and Cameron but object to Jeremy Corbyn.

Boris Johnson may have bitten off more than he can chew and the resignation of Ruth Davidson is an omen of the deep split in our ruling class.

Tony Greenstein

Benefit Scroungers - An Expose

Intergenerational Scrounging

Hunting Benefit Scroungers

Tally-Ho as the Toffs and Tory Press Wage a Campaign of Hate Against the Disabled & Unemployed

This blog has taken a break for a few weeks for a number of reasons, not least the need for me to do some writing unencumbered by the demands of a blog.

Here is an excellent cartoon showing our  hunting and horsey Prime Minister, fresh from his outings with Rebecca Brooks and riding a Metropolitan Police nag, indulging in a sport favoured among the ruling class – demonisation of the poor to protect their class.  It is taken from that excellent site Outrage 

It is unfortunate that politically the unemployed and working class in Britain to day are so politically backwards that many of them fall for this divide and rule nonsense.  Instead of the politics of class solidarity they fall for the campaigns of the Express and Mail in seeking a fresh scapegoat when the real reason  for poverty stares them in the face.

But if one wants to find a real parasite, then who better than Prince Charles, the Royal Family and those who caused the economic crisis?  Why he even employs someone to squeeze this tube of toothpaste - he is by all accounts known as the 'silver stick'!

His Royal Highness the Chief Parasite

Apart from receiving extra state support, despite his multi-million income from the Duchy of Cornwall, Prince Charles also receives massive funding from the State directly.  as well as having received millions of pounds in ‘set-aside’ grants from the Europe – i.e. you are paid not to grow anything.

Another recipient is the Duke of Westminster, the third richest person in Britain with a fortune estimated at £6.5 billion, who collected £486,534 for his farm.