The monarchy makes no sense even on its own logic. It is impossible that the putative William V is the most entitled direct descendant of William the Conqueror (who bumped off the one and only actually English King of all England, Harrold Godwinson). Just to mention a single example of scores, it appears that Edward IV’s father, Richard of York, was at no time in the same country as his mother during the possible conception period. And yes, the current lineage’s claim to succession would fall on that point.
Even if you accept that for the Tudors to kill off the Yorkists was a reasonable grounds of entitlement, or for the Stuarts to be excluded on grounds of religion is not a problem, the many infidelities over the centuries make the mystic idea of a bloodline absolute bollocks.
I came professionally into contact with widespread DNA testing through passport and visa applications. Throughout all cultures around the world, with remarkable consistency this kind of testing shows that around 15% of children do not belong to their apparent father, often genuinely to their surprise. While in visas and passports that figure may be a bit distorted by attempted fraud, that is balanced by the fact that mothers who are particularly worried they will get such a result have an obvious incentive not to get into that kind of test. My time as university rector enabled me to have some social conversations with senior medical professionals who indicated to me that medical tests performed for non parental identity reasons, have always frequently given results that show the apparent father is not the father surprisingly often. Such information is obviously not disclosed, rightly. DNA testing has only clarified this picture.
In truth, nobody can be certain without a test who their father is. Sorry, but it is true. You can be confident, but not certain.
William’s mother was a notorious slapper. William does look quite a lot like his official grandfather Phil the Greek, so he may be OK a couple of generations. But the royal line? Bullshit.
In Ghana they have matrilineal systems, which shows a much more sophisticated cultural understanding than the British.
Joke alert!
“around 15% of children do not belong to their apparent father, often genuinely to their surprise”
Whose, the father or the child 🙂
What I really want to know is the statistics for children who get the wrong mother!
completely off topic Craig but this news so incensed me I felt I had to pass it on.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
“The British Police are the best in the world” posted by lenin
Take a deep breath, and don’t let it out until you’ve finished this sentence: the Metropolitan Police are charging Alfie Meadows with ‘violent disorder’. Now you can collect your jaw from the floor.
Alfie Meadows is the student who was beaten so badly by police that he had to undergo serious brain surgery. He was also, reportedly, denied an ambulance by police for a considerable period of time. When he finally boarded an ambulance, police attempted to prevent the ambulance from delivering him to Charing Cross hospital on the grounds that the hospital was reserved for the treatment of injured rozzers, not their victims. This happened on the afternoon of 9th December, Day X 3, the day of the parliamentary vote on tuition fees when tens of thousands protested in Westminster and across the country. It was on that evening, you may recall, that police engaged in a particularly nasty, punitive ‘kettle’ of protesters on Westminster Bridge. Alfie Meadows was beaten across the skull by a policeman with a baton, but is being charged for an offence that carries a maximum sentence of five years.
/….http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/04/british-police-are-best-in-world.html
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2011/04/british-police-are-best-in-world.html
‘We are not amused’ and neither will we be allowed to laugh at them. You would not think we were in the year of 2011.
The Royal Family: always (ALWAYS) enemies of democracy
Posted by Hidari on April 27, 2011, 4:38 pm
‘The Royal Family has banned a comedy show about Prince William’s wedding.
Plans for a three-and-a-half hour live comic commentary on Friday’s event have had to be scrapped by Australia’s ABC network after Clarence House made its unprecedented intervention.
Prince Charles’s office reminded the public-service broadcaster that any use of the live footage in a ‘comedy, satirical or similar entertainment programme’ would be in breach of rules governing use of the BBC feed….
The Chaser’s Julian Morrow said: ‘For a monarchy to be issuing decrees about how the media should cover them seems quite out of keeping with modern democratic times …. but I suppose that’s exactly what the monarchy is.’’
http://www.chortle.co.uk/news/2011/04/27/13189/palace_bans_royal_wedding_comedy#ixzz1KjpqdkDF
“In truth, nobody can be certain without a test who their father is. Sorry, but it is true. You can be confident, but not certain.”
Speak for yourself mate!
Anyway, as long as William and Harry both spring from the same loins and the Beefeaters keep clipping those ravens’ wings then we’re all happy.
Craig: I don’t think anyone has ever suggested that all kings and queens of England were descended from anyone in particular – except other kings and queens (which they have been). You don’t seem to grasp the role of a monarch in a constitutional democracy (which is what we have had for 200-300 years at least). The Queen has very little power, and actually costs the taxpayer practically nothing – far less than the Olympic Games or the bombing of Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya/Serbia. I seem to remember a figure of 60p per taxpayer per year. (How much beer would that buy nowadays?) In return we get one of the oldest and most stable forms of government in the world. You may think you could remove the monarchy, like pulling a tooth, and not change any other part of the British consititution. Don’t you believe it.
Mary: How would you like a comedy show (with the standard filthy jokes) on TV about your wedding (or your child’s)?
Crikey and I thought dinosaurs were extinct.
“How would you like a comedy show (with the standard filthy jokes) on TV about your wedding (or your child’s)?”
I’m up for it, if they’ll give me the same pay and conditions as Willy and his squeeze.
It is largely bollox but a big thumbs up for telling Brown & Blair to sod off. I guess we don’t really know how much authority Brenda has, either. I’d be rather unsurprised to find her machinations have affected substantially more than mere politicians let on or perhaps even know. It’s all very well calling it a constitutional monarchy but as opposed to what? Absolute monarchy? Constitutional still seems pretty darned imperial from my little field. What checks and balances exist to keep her in check?
A great weapon against politicians (and widely used by civil servants) is transience, fleeting investigation. One only realizes what exists when it has to be used and even senior civil servants only hold their gigs for what, 10 years(ish) maximum. Obviously, you can’t bring down hierarchy but considering Brenda’s had the gig for nigh on 50 years one would suspect that most senior government (judiciary, legislature & exec) haven’t got a clue that the game’s been rigged before they even turn up.
Which leaves us with trust, blind faith and a huge amount of disenfranchisement. I’m not suggesting that a Presidential system would necessarily be better, just be different groups screwing us but….it ain’t cricket, that’s for damn sure.
60 – uuurrgghh
Well said Dick.
Tom, I feel obliged to pick you up on a couple of things. I assume you meant to write ‘constitutional monarchy’. An ‘unwritten’ constitution is implied. If you believe a thing like an unwritten constitution you will believe anything. Talk of the “cost” of the monarchy is a red herring, it is irrelevant. What is relevant is that we pay the overt and the hidden costs of having a monarchy regardless whether we like it or not. How about this idea (along the lines of the religion tax in Switzerland): every tax payer is asked to tick a box on their tax form if they are a royalist and if so, they pay an additional contribution. Then we could talk meaningfully about the cost-benefit analysis.
Thanks for your clarity Dick and Evgueni, you are both on the button. A royal who needs to use the courts and their financial clout to emasculate its subjects from having laugh, is a macabre joke in itselof, especially when their riches have been accumulated by bloodthirst, conquering and smooth talking shite to extract as much out of taxpayers as possible.
The monarch is head of the Anglican church. Thus, without the Royal Family, there would no longer be any certainty that God is an Englishman.
The monarch actually believes that our troops are a service for good in Afghanistan and that Christianity is superior to Islam. The monarch could no more change their mind than their ancestry.
“Tom, I feel obliged to pick you up on a couple of things. I assume you meant to write ‘constitutional monarchy’. An ‘unwritten’ constitution is implied. If you believe a thing like an unwritten constitution you will believe anything.”
What’s wrong with an unwritten constitution? It doesn’t mean there is NO constitution and you haven’t made a case for saying that a written constitution is necessary or even better. Could you name me one country with a written constitution that you’d like?
(And before Craig Murray pipes up with “Ghana!” I’ll just point out that I have already looked at it and it has a quite wide-ranging definition of treason for which the mandatory punishment is death!)
Anno: “The monarch actually believes that our troops are a service for good in Afghanistan and that Christianity is superior to Islam. The monarch could no more change their mind than their ancestry.”
Oh yeah? Just wait till Charlie gets on the throne and becomes “the defender of faiths”!
“How would you like a comedy show (with the standard filthy jokes) on TV about your wedding (or your child’s)?”
I’m up for it, if they’ll give me the same pay and conditions as Willy and his squeeze.
Me too but I don’t need the pay and conditions just a good laugh.
Angrysoba,
Something better than an unwritten constitution? Why that’s easy, a written one. That is to say, a constitution that is unambiguous and that can form the basis of meaningful public discourse. Here is a great example:
http://www.admin.ch/ch/e/rs/101/index.html
I think Title 4 Chapter 2 Articles 138, 139 deserve particular attention. The people are the ultimate authors of the Constitution. By contrast, what is even the meaning of an unwritten constitution!
A previous comment of mine here on 23.4.2011
This unpleasant ex Screws of the World ex-editor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Hall_(journalist)
was reviewing the ‘papers’ on BBC this morning. He succeeded in getting a puff in for P William who has apparently said that marriage or no marriage, he wants to do his duty for his country and ‘go into battle in Afghanistan’. If true, how vile an ambition.
I concur with these comments on medialens answering a ‘royalist’.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1303948389.html
Does indeed happen to the best of ’em. Someone who, thanks to a DNA test, we’re told, suddenly discovered that for some years he’d mistakenly been paying child maintenance as a consequence of just the kind of misconstrual to which you refer is, of course, the television presenter & superinjuncter Andrew Marr.
All blue genes fade in the wash. (I add in this instance, as you suggest, a little matrilineal fabric softener):
The maiden name of the bride’s mother is Carole Goldsmith. Like poles attract. The well-informed feminist approach is to regard tomorrow’s happy event as . . . the marriage of Catherine Middleton-Goldsmith to William Windsor-Goldsmith.
The written evidence, m’lud:
http://bit.ly/khdVGK
& the photographic:
http://bit.ly/j1oaxa
Nice try Evgueni, and all good in its intentions. Would you say that the Swiss, if pressed and/or usurped by a plethora of multinationals who graze (not a typo) their shores for rich tax pickings and corporate/banking secrecy, could reach for their guns to defend their constitutional privilegdes?
Further do you think that such an example could find a bearing here in blighty, were the establishment is in charge of politics and the law making process,not to speak of the police and armed forces?
Yup…that thug Harry looks just like his dad though !!!
How dare the BBC send me an e-mail addressed to ‘Dear Mary…..’ from bbcshop.com flogging their ghastly wares. Suppose the plan is to recoup some of the costs of employing 1,000 staff on the Bank Holiday/great day. How did they get my e-mail address other than from a complaint letter such as the one I sent about Death in the Med by the execrable Jane Corbin on the Israeli slaughter on the Mavi Marmara?
http://www.bbcshop.com/icat/royalwedding?cm_mmc=Adestra-_-email-_-Easter%20deals%202011-_-
I think Blair would have been invited to the wedding but at £400,000 (minimum amount per hour)to pay him to attend the royals might have thought it a bit over the top ?.
B£iar – lack of invitation ‘not an issue’ – not half it isn’t.
I bet Cherie is spitting the feathers off her fascinator.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13221426
The going rate for Brown is £40,000 per hour (negotiable).
Evgueni. you wrote “If you believe a thing like an unwritten constitution you will believe anything”.
The Americans have a written constitution, but it’s clear that less and less attention is paid to it. When a president (Dubya) says that the constitution is “just a piece of paper” it’s plain that he doesn’t feel particularly bound by it. Obama is too smooth to say anything of that kind, but his attitude seems to be remarkably similar. And the Supreme Court keeps on reinterpreting the constitution, just to “bring it into the 21st century” as they say. And what is the point of having a written constitution that allows Congress to impeach the president if he breaks the law, when in fact Congress just smiles and says “thanks but we’ll pass”?
A constitution (or any other set of laws) is no better than the people who implement it (or don’t). I think that the decline of British morality has closely paralleled the rise of rules and regulations. When you insist on having detailed rules for everything, the implication is that anything not covered by them is fair game. Laugh as much as you like (and I imagine most of those commenting here will bust a gut) but there was a time when many people in British politics at least paid lip service to the ideas of decency and fairness. Now they are gone, replaced by a crew of “professionals” whose attitude to decency and fairness is very much the same as that of professional footballers.
Fringe update: a friend has just sent me this dissenting voice:
http://bit.ly/lU3wNz
Ingo, yes I have no doubt the Swiss would defend their constitution vigorously against external pressure. They stood their ground admirably during WW2. However, it is a truism that democracy defends directly only the rights of those who are part of it. We may feel aggrieved that the rentiers from the rest of the world like to stash their cash in Swiss banks (a very wise move by the way – check out the CHF-GBP exchange rate trend over the last few years and decades). But we cannot expect the Swiss democracy to defend our rights for us. Saying that, they are already much nicer guys than the UK and Germany – they do not kill innocents.
Your question about how we could hope to arrive at democracy in the UK – I do not know the answer to that. The thing to remember is that the establishment is not a united front at all times. Small advances in the direction of more democracy are possible. Sometimes this happens via the expected route – people voting for change that in effect becomes irreversible. A yes vote in the AV referendum could be an example of this. But a democratic process is not a necessary and sufficient condition for democracy. Information is the other half of the whole and the establishment’s grip on that is loosening. Possibilities may open that are not predictable by the establishment, e.g. WL. The fact is that not only there is a trend toward more representative democracy around the world, there is a trend also toward more uses of referenda around the world. The UK is part of this trend. Have you read the Power to the People report from the Rowntree Foundation in 2006? http://www.powerinquiry.org/