Congratulations Your Majesty

Today Queen Elizabeth II becomes the longest reigning British monarch, overtaking Queen Victoria.

Congratulations!

The Queen and Martin McGuinness

The Queen is to meet and shake hands with Martin McGuinness today, what on earth could they chat about? Here are some suggestions for questions the Queen could start with rather than the usual "So what do you do?"

1. "So what did you used to do?"

2. "Why do some people call you Martin 'machinegun' McGuinness?"

3. "Do the names Earl Mountbatten, Baroness Brabourne, Nicholas Knatchbull and Paul Maxwell mean anything to you?"

4. "Did you know of the plot to kill Earl Mountbatten before the murders took place?"

5. "Did you approve of or do nothing to prevent the plot to kill Earl Mountbatten from happening?"

6. "Did you know of or approve the murderous attack on the British Army at Warrenpoint on the same day?"

7. "Tell me Mr McGuinness how many people had the IRA murdered before Bloody Sunday?"

8. "Why were you carrying a Thompson submachine gun in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday?"

9. "What do you have to say to the Saville Inquiry conclusion that you had been 'engaged in paramilitary activity' on that day?"

10.  "What do you have to say in reply to this extract from The Saville Inquiry paragraph R2A-4 of the Reply Closing Submission, 'the submission given by Martin McGuinness is 'simply incorrect' and 'flawed'?"

11. Following the Saviile Inquiry into the evnts of 'Bloody Sunday' do you think there should be an investigation into the Brighton bombing, a plot to kill as many members of the British Government as possible?"

12. "Did you have foreknowledge of or approve the Brighton bombing?"

13. "Did you discuss the Claudy bombings with Father Chesney?"

14. "Why did you claim in 2002 that you had never met Father Chesney, when in 2010 you then admitted that you had? Why should we believe this version of your story when you appear to have lied previously about the same matter?"

15. "Have all of the IRA's weapons been decommissioned? All of them?"

16. "When you were second in command of the IRA in Derry how many murders did you arrange or approve?"

17. "When you were second in command of the IRA in Derry how many people did you personally kill?"

18. "When exactly did you leave the IRA?'

19. "Was anyone killed in the circumstances you describe in this interview?"


20. "Will you now apologise to the relatives of all the people the IRA killed, I am one of those relatives Mr McGuinness?"


There you go, that should be enough topics of conversation to make sure that there are no awkward silences...

What is going on in British schools?

Yesterday's Telegraph informed us about the Queen's visit to Dersingham Infant and Nursery School on the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne. It would have been just another article had it not been for this passage about the entertainment laid on by this a class of three and four year old children:

'... she had a tour of the classrooms and watched a 15-minute play about the changes that the country has seen during her 60-year reign.

She beamed throughout the performance as all 130 pupils performed the Time Warp, complete with dance moves, from the Rocky Horror Show.'

I love the Rocky Horror Show and enjoy doing the Time Warp myself but wonder if a song that enjoins people that "it's the pelvic thrust that really drives me insaaaaane" is really appropriate for children as young as three.

A piece of pertinent information that the BBC see fit to ignore

The BBC report that:

'Martin McGuinness would meet Queen as president

Martin McGuinness has said he will be prepared to meet all heads of state "without exception", if he is elected President of Ireland. 

Sinn Fein announced on Friday that it would be supporting Northern Ireland's Deputy First Minister for the role

Returning from a trip to the US on Saturday, Mr McGuinness said he hoped his candidacy would not be divisive.

When the Queen made her first visit to Ireland in May, Sinn Fein did not take part in any of the main ceremonies.

Speaking to the BBC on Saturday morning, Mr McGuinness said he had given careful consideration to his decision to stand.

He was asked how he would handle another Royal visit to Ireland, given his party's position on the Queen's historic trip.

He said: "If the people of Ireland decide that I should be their president, my responsibilities and duties would be to meet heads of state from all over the world and to do that without exception and that would be my position."'

 How magnanimous of Martin McGuinness to deign to meet the Queen in the future.

The BBC do admit that 'Martin McGuinness, ... has admitted being second in command of the IRA in Derry in the 1970s' but don't link that to the fact that the IRA murdered the Queen's cousin Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, in 1979. Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness's SinnFein/IRA colleague, said of Lord Mountbatten's murder:

'The IRA gave clear reasons for the execution. I think it is unfortunate that anyone has to be killed, but the furore created by Mountbatten's death showed up the hypocritical attitude of the media establishment. As a member of the House of Lords, Mountbatten was an emotional figure in both British and Irish politics. What the IRA did to him is what Mountbatten had been doing all his life to other people; and with his war record I don't think he could have objected to dying in what was clearly a war situation. He knew the danger involved in coming to this country. In my opinion, the IRA achieved its objective: people started paying attention to what was happening in Ireland.'

What has Martin McGuinness ever said about this cold-blooded murder? Did he have any part in it, the ordering or approving of it? Have the BBC ever asked these questions? Do the BBC even care?

Regardless of the answers to those questions, would the Queen want to meet one of the men who at the very least was high up in the organisation that killed her cousin, the man who was her eldest son's favourite uncle?


UPDATE:
I see that Biased-BBC have a related piece about the BBC's lack of interest in Martin McGuinness's IRA background:

'why not ask when did McGuinness leave the IRA, exactly? When he was occupying the position as Capo di tutti capo, just how many innocent lives did he arrange to have terminated.Perhaps even more pointedly, how many peope did he murder HIMSELF? What exactly did he "command"?'

"Oh my god, has the Duke of Edinburgh died"

"Oh my god, has the Duke of Edinburgh died" was the cry that came from Mrs NotaSheep as she got ready for work whilst listening to the Radio 4 Today programme, something that I have not done for over a month now with a resultant improvement in my blood pressure.

"No" I replied, it's his 90th birthday today (actually it's tomorrow, the 10th, but I was dozing at the time); unless he has died overnight of course"

"Thank God" Mrs NotaSheep called back, "I suppose I must really like him too, as I felt really worried and upset".


Yes I must out myself as somewhat of a fan of the Duke of Edinburgh. I find his comments, what the BBC would call 'gaffes' quite endearing.  I think he often tries to make people feel at ease by cracking wisecracks that in another age, the age in which he was born and brought up, would have been considered slightly off-colour but disarming. Of course now in our increasingly humourless, politically correct, society these comments are considered at best rude and more often racist, sexist or some other 'ist.

Whilst thinking about this post I considered how the BBC portray 'Royals' and really the only ones that were/are accorded any respect are the Queen, Diana Princess of Wales, Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge (formerly Catherine Middleton). Apart from the Queen who even the BBC have to concede is beyond reproach and the new Duchess of Cambridge who is too new to the royal family and who was in any case not herself 'royal' before marriage, the other acceptable royals are either Diana, Princess of Wales or the fruit of her loins. Each and every other royal is disparaged by the BBC whether it be by picky news coverage, snide comments on the comment programmes or 'hilarious' put downs and insults on topical news programmes and 'alternative' comedy shows. Prince Charles is portrayed mad, talking to plants and a hypocrite on green matters. Prince Andrew is portrayed as being not far from a fraudster with dodgy friends. Prince Edward used to be portrayed as a probable homosexual and idiot at business, now he's often just ridiculed for being pointless. Princess Anne is portrayed as sour-faced, frumpy and not as pretty as pretty as 'Princess Diana'. The list goes on and on via Prince Harry, Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice etc. etc. etc.

The BBC also love to report how much the royal family 'cost' us, ignoring some salient facts. Here's what I have written on this matter in the past:

'This sort of attitude is actively assisted by the reporting of such as The Guardian, The Independent and the BBC who keep reporting on the 'costs of the Royal Family. I did demolish this one-sided argument last November, here's how:

'The BBC and various anti-monarchist groups are misrepresenting the cost of the UK monarchy again and this has annoyed me. This piece repeats the familiar misrepresentation that:

'The total cost of keeping the monarchy was £38.2m during the 2009-10 financial year, a drop of 7.9% (£3.3m) on the previous year.'

This looks at just one side of the equation: the costs of the Civil List which is soon to be replaced by the awfully named "sovereign support grant". The other side that is as usual ignored is that in 1760 it was decided that the entire cost of the Civil List should be paid by Parliament in return for the monarch surrendering his hereditary revenues from the Crown Estate to Parliament for the duration of George III's reign. This agreement with some alterations is still in place today.

So how much is the The Crown Estate worth to the UK taxpayer? The last figures I saw was around £190 million a year.

So why does the BBC insist on repeating the cost of the Royal Family <£40 million a year but ignores the income forgone by them in return for the civil list of around £190 million?'

In my view most of the royal family do a good job in difficult circumstances, I have the utmost admiration for the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh - I fond their work rate and politeness rather remarkable especially bearing in mind their age and  the scrutiny they come under. Prince Charles's views on modern architecture and organic farming chime with mine, although I find his views on Islam somewhat worrying for the future Head of the Church of England and King.  Princess Anne I admire for her hard-work, 'stuff you I don't care what you think of my clothes' attitude and seeming determination to keep a hairstyle for longer than anyone I know. Prince Andrew I am not too sure about but most of the things he is criticised for I can see displayed worse by a number of former senior Labour politicians, who get much less criticism form the BBC. Prince Edward suffers from having no role; the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh produced the requisite heir and a spare and also even a daughter as well, so his role was never to be a major one.

I could go on and on but even I am tiring now. In essence, the royal family is a good thing, doesn't cost the public purse as much as the income that they have forgone and is so much better than the alternative - King Simon Cowell and/or Queen Cheryl Cole? King David Beckham and Queen Victoria Beckham? Worse of all King Tony Blair and Queen Cherie or Queen Peter.  Just because a system is not perfect it doesn't automatically mean that any alternative system will be better.


So Happy Birthday for tomorrow The Duke of Edinburgh, there's at least one household in London who wish you well.

Congratulations your majesty

Congratulations your majesty; todat Queen Elizabeth II overtakes George III to become the second longest-reigning monarch in British history.

Still quite a while to go before she catches Queen Victoria though, 4 years and 117 days I think.

So why was Tony Blair not invited to the Royal Wedding?

Three interesting possibilities:
1) From this 2007 Mail article :

'For a modern monarch to rebuke a serving Prime Minister is extremely rare.

The Queen has done it only once in her reign - and the object of her disfavour was Tony Blair. The telling-off came in the early days of the Blair premiership.

The occasion was the State Opening of Parliament which followed a few days after the 1997 election.

In a massive challenge to the authority of the British monarchy, Tony and Cherie Blair sought to capture the event for themselves.

They made the unprecedented decision to walk from Downing Street to Parliament while the Queen arrived in her royal coach.

This decision mattered deeply because the drama of the state opening is all about the Queen: her departure by stagecoach from Buckingham Palace, her arrival in Parliament through the Sovereign's Entrance under the Royal Tower, the putting on of the crown and robes of state before the final entrance to the House of Lords' chamber.

...

An air of understated but definite menace at all times lay behind New Labour's dealing with the monarchy.

In 1997 the New Labour manifesto gave an assurance that "we have no plans to replace the monarchy".

This undertaking - as the more intelligent courtiers grasped - would not have been made had an attack on the British monarchy not been on the agenda.

Plans to get rid of the Royal Yacht were at the heart of the election campaign, sending out what pollsters called a "dog whistle" message - not heard by everyone - that the party was opposed to the Royal Family.

In private briefings with allies in the Press, New Labour in government was openly hostile, with senior figures inside Downing Street freely attacking the Royal Family.

In private the Blairs and their official entourage showed a startling lack of respect.

For the first time since the Queen acceded to the throne in 1952, relations between senior members of the Royal Family and the Prime Minister became actively unpleasant.

This reflected a new attitude from the Prime Minister and those around him. His aides were capable of great impatience with royal procedures, often going beyond rudeness.

The worst offenders were Tony Blair's wife, Cherie, and his adviser Alastair Campbell. She would refuse to curtsy when she met the Queen, and was capable of blanking out senior members of the Royal Family when she encountered them.

She made no pretence at all that she enjoyed royal occasions, and often, through physical and other signals, made it clear that she would rather be elsewhere.

This private lack of respect towards the Royal Family came to be reciprocated. Once Cherie Blair told Princess Anne to "call me Cherie". "Mrs Blair will do," replied the Princess Royal.

...

Shortly after he was appointed Foreign Secretary in 2002, Jack Straw gave an interview to the Guardian in which he referred twice to Tony Blair as "head of state".

At one stage the Downing Street website described how the Queen enjoyed audiences with Tony Blair, and not the other way around.

The Treasury moved fast to remove the royal coat of arms from its logo and drop the initials HM from its official title. The change was said to "reflect a modern image under Gordon Brown's stewardship".

During a visit to Kosovo Tony Blair referred to "my" armed forces, oblivious to the important constitutional fact that British troops owe their allegiance to the monarch as head of state.

Meanwhile the Government set out to write the monarchy out of British public life, an audacious task involving the unravelling of 1,000 years of history.

The most important example of this was the very serious attempt by the Labour government to create a new national identity.

This involved disregarding the institutions of the state that had historically been at the heart of Britain, and replacing them by others, such as a new national day.

In a series of public statements Labour ministers argued that Britain should be defined by abstract values such as fairness. They never mentioned the monarchy.

A series of speeches by Gordon Brown about "Britishness" - an ugly and artificial word - systematically excluded the British monarchy, even though the Queen is head of state and the monarchy encapsulated Britain's long history better than any other institution, including Parliament.

...

Attempts to intrude on the territory of the monarch were to become a repeated feature of the Blair period in office.

The death of Diana, Princess of Wales in August 1997 gave a massive opportunity for the Prime Minister.

The words he uttered on the morning after the tragedy, in which he expressed his devastation at the death of Princess Diana, were brilliantly chosen and widely praised for expressing the mood of the nation.

Members of the Royal Family had been trained from birth to suppress their emotions, exercise restraint and show dignity.

The political philosopher David Marquand noted that when Diana died "the royals behaved as they had been taught to do: as symbols of the state, quintessential inhabitants of the public domain, with all its emotional austerity and self-control".

Previous generations of politicians, had shown comparable restraint (and the Tory leader William Hague was criticised for an inadequate expression of grief when he made his statement about the Princess's death).

Tony Blair, in his response, was at his most formidable as a politician. By showing open grief, and by using the phrase "people's princess", he was opening up new ground and massively extending the territory of the Political Class.

Five years later, following the death of the Queen Mother, the Prime Minister sought to intrude once again into the public domain occupied by the British Royal Family.

Within 24 hours of the Queen Mother's death on March 30, 2002, Tony Blair was seeking to enlarge his public role in the funeral.

Downing Street officials persistently rang Lt-General Sir Michael Willcocks, known as "Black Rod", putting pressure on him for the Prime Minister to play a more prominent part than had originally been planned, including the astonishing proposal that Tony Blair should break with precedent and walk from Downing Street to Westminister Hall in order to meet the Queen Mother's coffin. This pressure was rejected.

Sir Michael also faced intimidation in the wake of the funeral. He refused to endorse the false Downing Street claim that Tony Blair had not tried to muscle in.

After he withstood constant pressure, Tony Blair's press secretary Alastair Campbell vowed that "we'll get him one day".

The problem for Tony Blair and New Labour is simple to explain. The ten-day remembrance period for the Queen Mother left him without a central role.

At state events such as the Queen Mother's funeral, the Prime Minister of the day ranked lower than politically far less significant figures such as the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker of the House of Commons.

This was not, of course, a threat to the Government: the funeral of the Queen Mother had nothing at all to do with politics as it had conventionally been practised.

But it was a challenge specifically to New Labour, because the commemoration period for the Queen Mother claimed back a part of British public life, normally outside politics, that New Labour has asserted as its own.

This meant that the queues for the lying-in-state were almost as disconcerting for New Labour as the grief for Princess Diana had been for the Royal Family five years previously.

The great celebration of the Queen Mother's life was an affront to the Political Class because it was a reminder of the existence of a Britain whose loyalties and allegiances went far deeper than party, but had everything to do with the love of Queen, country, village, school, town and family.

These allegiances were wholly compatible with voting Labour, Liberal Democrat, Tory or any number of other political parties.

They are not, however, compatible with totalitarian politics, which lays claim to space that lies well outside party politics as it has always been practised in Britain.

There is little doubt that New Labour in power yearned to make a full-frontal and lethal attack on the British monarchy. There is little doubt that only the sustained popularity of the Queen prevented it from doing so.

Extracted from THE TRIUMPH OF THE POLITICAL CLASS by Peter Oborne'

2. Alex Masterley thinks there might be another explanation:

'Rules for wedding invites, particularly Royal ones

...

Which leads us to the issue of the preferment of Arab dictator princelings to Scottish ex-prime ministers. Now let's face it, if it came down to a personality test, it would probably be a dead heat, but that isn't what counts. Forget protocol (there is none), and consider the feelings of the young couple.

Which would they rather have at their wedding? The one who isn't just going to give them a full dinner service, but also a pair of his and hers matching Lamborghinis and a year's supply of petrol. With some wedding guests, excessive lavishness is de rigueuer.

... but not Phoney Bliar and Prudence McDoom.'

3. Or was it Prince William's decision:

'A prominent historian has claimed that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair was not invited to Friday’s royal wedding because Prince William dislikes the politician and not of political things.

“I think the plain truth is that for all sorts of reasons, (Prince) William developed a powerful dislike of Mr Blair,” David Starkey told Sky News during a debate on the monarchy.

“Particularly the way in which he intervened at his mother’s funeral service. These are not political at all, they are personal choices,” he said.'

Whatever the reason I must say that it was pleasant not to have see the unbearably smug Tony Blair and his ever grasping wife, Cherie, sitting in the Quire/Choir. I presume that the Metropolitan Police were also relieved at not having to accommodate his personal protection team as well as not having to keep an eye on Cherie in case she decided to acquire some souvenirs to sell on eBay...

Sunday catchup

Too many items, too little time:

Gordon Brown's government screws up something else, this time the Queen's invitation to the 65th D-Day celebrations.

The BBC offer an apology for a Question Time panellist upsetting Muslims. Will they be offering any apologies for Tom Paulin's comments on Newsnight Review any time soon.

Hezbollah head for power in Lebanon; Israel may have a serious problem coming.

Michael Savage

"has employed top UK law firm Olswang to sue Ms Smith for libel after she put him on the Home Office’s 16 ‘least wanted’ list."

Apparently he is suing for £100,000. More good news for Gordon Brown, I wonder how the BBC will spin this story.

He went to see the Queen!

One part of the Mervyn King fiscal stimulus warning story that needs amplification is that it came at the same time that the Queen did something she had never done before; she held an audience with the Governor of the Bank of England, at Buckingham Palace. For half an hour she and Mervyn King were in a room alone as they discussed the state of the economy. No one else was there: no advisers, no officials, no one to take notes of what was said. And no one — not unless Mr King lets indiscretion get the better of him when he comes to write his memoirs — will ever know what they said to each other.

Maybe, let me dream for a minute, the Queen wanted a serious impartial assessment of the economy. Now she knows just how bad the situation is, maybe she is considering using one of her few remaining executive powers and forcing Gordon Brown to call a general election.



Yes I do get the joke of a King visiting a Queen, but prefer the implicit humour whenever Peter Mandelson meets the Queen.

What, the Queen said what!?

According to the Foreign Office's IK in Iran website:

"Queen Elizabeth's message to the Iranian people (09/02/2009)

It gives me great pleasure to send the people of the Islamic Republic of Iran my warmest greetings on the celebration of your National Day, together with my best wishes for good fortune and happiness in the coming year.

Elizabeth R"

That's nice!!!

Do you think the Queen knows?

I blogged on Friday about the Saudi flags on the Mall ahead of the State visit by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia this week. The wording on the flags may be of interest to the Queen as she is "Supreme Governor of the Church of England". The Arabic phrase translates as "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger", it is "The Shahadah", the Islamic creed - the Muslim declaration of belief in the oneness of God and acceptance of Muhammad as his final prophet.

To convert to Islam all that is required is a single honest recitation of the Shahadah in Arabic, so maybe the Queen should not ask King Abdullah what the wording says.