This is just what royalty does. We choose to have a monarchy, but in practice without the powers that it used to have, so we choose to have a Royal Family the members of which behaved like this, rather than murdering each other as their ancestors did. The proper nastiness is now for those who were trying to secure the office of Prime Minister, in which almost the whole of the Royal Prerogative has come to be vested for all practical purposes.
In the cause of economic equality and international peace, which is the only way of defending family and community life from the “woke capitalism” that is the only kind of either, we ought not to be seeking to abolish the Royal Prerogative, but to exercise it. The whole of it, no matter to which committee or self-perpetuating oligarchy any part of it might have been surrendered. All of it must be taken back, and in most cases that would be perfectly simple to do.
Previous Governments have handed over jaw-dropping amounts of power to the Deep State, having of course been installed for the purpose. These people clearly never wanted to run the country. Again, that was why they were put in by the people who did. For example, while each generation presumably produces an obvious Astronomer Royal, why hand over the power to appoint Regius Professors, or certain Oxbridge Heads of House, or the Poet Laureate? Never mind the judiciary? Or 26 members of Parliament? And how entitled is the Liberal Establishment in the Church of England, to assume the right to appoint those 26 legislators over the rest of us?
But those powers have never been legislated away. Almost nothing in Britain ever is quite abolished or repealed. It falls into prolonged desuetude, but it is still there. Jeremy Corbyn would have made full use of the Royal Prerogative; there are no republicans in possession of the powers of a Medieval monarch. Disgracing Eton and Oxford, Boris Johnson also showed tendencies in that direction. So the Deep State had to get rid of the pair of them. It has done so, even before either of them could turn his attention to reversing the statutory surrender of control over monetary policy.
Meanwhile, if you feel that you ought to “perform an historic or ceremonial role at the King’s Coronation”, then there is a handy little form for you to download. “All claims must be submitted in writing to the Coronation Claims Office by 5.30pm on Friday 3 February 2023.”
There have been deeds worthy of any medieval king to get or keep the keys to 10 Downing Street and it's only going to get worse.
ReplyDeleteYes, there have always been rumours about the "heart attacks" and "car crashes" of MPs and other figures from this or that faction of the governing party, and that was before the Premiership changed hands quite as often as it did now.
DeleteThe Line of Succession to the Throne may have been fixed since 1701, but when it comes to the meaty matter of taking and then keeping control of the Prerogatives of the Crown, nothing changes.
With talk of Johnson coming back, would you be surprised if he suffered a weird gardening accident or something?
ReplyDeleteThey have enough on him for that not to be necessary, but of course such things do happen. If Starmer had not succeeded in taking Corbyn out with his second referendum, then there would have been a "lone wolf" assassination. The fight to acquire and retain control of the Royal Prerogative is as uncompromising as it has always been.
DeleteJohnson can never come back-because the Liberal Elite can’t forgive him for finally being right about lifting the lockdown, something even communist China has now done. Johnson was removed over something to do with standing near a birthday cake. As Peter Hitchens said, in any sane country, the only scandal would be that we ever had such utterly ludicrous and inhumane rules in the first place.
ReplyDeleteOf course it was not really about that. And there is a 50-50 chance that he will be Prime Minister again this year. It is between him and the only politician almost as associated with the lockdowns as he is.
DeleteThey leaked the birthday cake story only after he defied the liberal elite, lifted the lockdown and turned out to be absolutely right. Had we listened to Starmer, the Lib Dems and his Tory critics we’d have been in lockdown as long as China, and possibly longer. Hilariously, they hate him not for the extraordinary damage he did to our economy and society for two years of needless spending and restrictions but because he finally saw the light and ended it.
ReplyDeleteIt was not about that at all. But anti-lockdown monomaniacs make anti-Brexit monomaniacs sound like sparkling conversationalists. There is going to be another lockdown this year, of course. There is a 50-50 chance that it will be under him.
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