And, yet again, why a head of state at all?

Bolded - false equivalence.

Italicised - the Windsors (or whatever they change their name to at a point Windsor becomes inconvenient) and their relatives have a recent history which very much says otherwise.

Someone has to live in a Palace and got to banquets to shake hands with foreigners on our behalf.

Every other sovereign state has one, it's convention.

I’d say we have two at the moment, one is the monarch the other the PM.

For all practical purposes we could reduce that to just the PM.

Make your mind up about the type of authoritarian government coming into power that you think the monarch could resist.

That still isn't an answer, y'know, with reasons'n'that.

I can do that. Giz a job!

“ Extra £3.5bn promised by government to remove unsafe cladding from high-rise buildings over 18 metres "at no cost to residents"”

This is one I’m in two minds about. The residents of these unsafe high-rise buildings are not at fault - they have been swindled and from the evidence from the inquiry so far it looks like the construction industry has quite deliberately sought ways to use cheaper cladding regardless of safety.

I would say the government should step in with the cash to allow the repairs to be be made as quickly as possible but at the same time it needs to put in place legislation that will slap stiff levies onto the industry to quickly get back the cash.

We simply can’t keep letting companies make so-called profits yet the public purse has to pick up the expense of those profits.

Well said.

Let's have President Gove or President Swivel-Eyed Loony instead of the devil we know.


Yes, I fully believe the Establishment (which is two-thirds NOT elected, such as the Armed Forces) do have a contingency plan ready should some upstart from the House of Commons decide they want to get rid of the monarchy.

NOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooo!!!!!

Having a monarchy in effect upholds the parliamentarian system. Sure Johnson and Cummings tried to dismantle it with some success - and much opposition from the High Court/Supreme Court judges (also unelected establishment - see how many judges are Barons and Earls) - but another three years and the country can democratically vote them out!


Look what came after the Romanovs: at first a benign Bolshevik Workers Revolutionary Party which within seven years evolved into Stalin's iron fist horror show - oppressive central committee communism lasting all the way up until 1996.

It is shocking to realise that three years later after Grenfell, hundreds of thousands of people are still living in technically dangerous buildings. People who lived in two particular tower blocks in Swiss Cottage LB Camden, had much tv coverage of having to move out immediately in the aftermath to temporary accommodation (such as the ramshackle Premier Inn in Euston Road and similar budget dives). Now they are back again in the same dodgy buildings with Camden claiming the hazard was the fire doors which has now been fixed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalcots_Estate

Swiss Cottage is quite a well-heeled area, similar to Kensington, where Grenfell happened. Once again we see the rich living side by side the poor in knowingly dangerous conditions because they have nowhere else to go.

It's the Tory way.

How else are they going to get public money to their friends?

You mean a military coup?

You are assuming the squaddies would go along with Colonel Blimp telling them to overthrow the government.

It's absurd to even contemplate a coup.

I'd like to know how many companies that knowingly profited by producing 'fire resistant' cladding that wasn't or cutting corners on the installations will profit again doing remedial work.

There have been concerns about cladding since the 1980's.

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I AGREE

And?

Er, what?

Bollocks. That's the sort of stupidity that lead to the Brexit mess.Alternatives first.

Or an elected head of state. But either way this should be established first.

Right.....

Make no mistake. A massive portion of UK land is owned by the aristocracy. Read the resumés of High Court judges, chocca with barons and dukes. Do you really believe nouveau riche 'Boris' who got a bursary to go to Eton has a chance of usurping the entire establishment - of which the Queen is the mere head - or has absolutely any hope of abolishing the monarchy and installing himself as supreme dicator? No chance.

List of Supreme Court Judges - these are the real toffs - past and present:

List
The Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, first President (retired 30 September 2012)
The Lord Hope of Craighead, first Deputy President (retired 26 June 2013)
The Lord Saville of Newdigate (retired 30 September 2010)
The Lord Rodger of Earlsferry (died in office 26 June 2011)
The Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe (retired 17 March 2013)
The Baroness Hale of Richmond (retired 10 January 2020)
The Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (retired 9 April 2012)
The Lord Mance (retired 6 June 2018)
The Lord Collins of Mapesbury (retired 7 May 2011)
The Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore (retired 30 September 2020)
The Lord Clarke of Stone-cum-Ebony (retired 4 September 2017)

You can see the current list of twelve here.

The supplementary panel currently consists of:[26]

If you mistakenly thought 'Boris' was posh, think again! Do you think these guys are going to give up their toff privileges by abolishing the monarchy? Yes, Murdoch wants them out as they get in the way a bit, see pre-Brexit headlines calling them traitors of the realm.

Then we haven't even started on the Armed Forces. Whose side will they take? Not 'Boris'' nor Keir, I'm afraid.

Democracy only goes so far in the UK.

Rubbish. They are given peerages for their service to the legal profession. For example Baroness Hale:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda...le_of_Richmond

Not a toff

They get the titles later.
it's a reward for public service.

They weren't titles they inherited.

If Parliament voted to get rid of the monarchy there's nothing that any Lord or Baroness could do about it.

The armed forces will follow the orders they are given by the government.

You don't think the army will storm parliament to protect the queen do you?

I suspect the armed forces will (among many other things) ask themselves who pays their wages and pensions ;)

David Edmond Neuberger, Baron Neuberger of Abbotsbury for one.*

It's all hypothetical. However, it is an illusion to believe you can just sweep away the Monarchy tomorrow. You have omitted to realise there would be strong influential resistance to it. People believe the UK is a democracy but it is only a limited one.

*OK, so not a good example.

Can you find any that are not life peers?

I fail to see your point in the citation of Baron Neuberger, or indeed in your previous list. They are life-peers, ennobled for public service with no inheritance of the title and no land grant.
Few of them even sit in the House of Lords.

I fail to see how or why they would lead a coup against a parliament that voted to scrap the monarchy.

We are now into CT land.

Any chance we can talk about general UK politics?

Such as the latest from our Minster of Bullying: Black Lives Matter protests were ‘dreadful’, Priti Patel says

Given her body of work I’m not giving her the benefit of the doubt that she was only talking about violent protests.

When a lord whispers "Don't you think Boris looks tired?", it's just a matter of time.

Yes because that wasn't the most ridiculous thing ever.

FTFY

To be fair, she's a brown person in the Conservative party; hence to be seen as "one of us" she has to me more militantly bigoted than the run-of-the-mill Tory.

Unfortunately not even close.

The UK Economy
 

Economics

This is a little bit to do with Covid19 vaccine rollout recovery but more to do with post-Brexit and Bank of England recent actions. I was wondering why the pound was much stronger, with my latest salary in the bank (from the UK) looking much healthier than recent months, converted to Euros. In other words, from buying few Euros at one point (EUR1/GBP0.94) it is now buying rather more (€1/£0.87).

Now, we know Brexit hasn't exactly made the UK strong, and nor has the lockdown economy from Covid19 been any help at all, other than for MNC's like Amazon, who divert their funds overseas. The Telegraph explains it: lower interest rates meaning Bank of England gilt yields are 'bouncing back'.

For those who don't know, interest rates are closely connected to exchange rates as global money markets around the world chase each other. For example, a trader might buy up dollars when they are 'cheap'. This causes the interest rate in dollar economies to rise encouraging selling so now perhaps the Japanese Yen goes up or down as a knock on effect, with the concomitant interest rate balancing it out close behind. In effect, interest rates chasing currency spot rates creates a buy and sell cycle in the money markets. Whilst over a year ago my pension funds - like everybody else's took a knock - and now over the last nine months they have gained a healthy 5%, good, considering Brexit and Covid19. (However, my independent financial adviser informed me that most of my funds are managed in the Euromarkets anyway which was why it was doing better than I expected at the time of my query when the economy was dire).

The Telegraph is behind a paywall, but there is a Twitter thread here:

/continues https://twitter.com/telebusiness/sta...489132549?s=20


Because I opted for a relatively low-risk portfolio, when many other's funds 'crashed' during the recession about 18 months ago, I was somewhat shielded, as I had a fair chunk in government stocks and gilts. The people who lost out most were those who were equities-dominant (higher risk/bigger returns IF...things go well).

So in the long term it is usually good to invest in some government stock and gilts as your money is likely to be safe but have at least a third in equities and just a minimal amount in cash and cash equivalents (which is almost like stashing your cash under the mattress) as they rarely gain in value but can be a safety net if all else crashes.

Remember, her parents were effectively expelled from Uganda by dictator Idi Amin, in the 70's. The Asians who were forced to leave because of his belief wealth should belong to native Africans were not dissimilar to other refuges unfairly persecuted (for example, Sephardic Jews from Spain) and many left everything behind. So I am guessing Priti Patel and other Asians, do not see themselves as 'Black' but as their own ethnicity so why would anyone expect her to be sympathetic to 'take a knee'?

No surprises there.

If you want your MP's attention you should donate then a few thousand pounds, don't worry they'll throw you a PPE contract or two in return.

The government has announced plans for a "free speech champion" to ensure universities in England do not stifle freedom of speech and expression.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-55995979