So Blogging does make a Difference! Duchy of Cornwall.

After over ten years, I was really beginning to believe that blogging really does not make the slightest bit of difference, either to the obscene EU or the apparently now only sheople of Great Britain. That fact has probably been clear from my despir, reflected in postings on this blog, at Parliament's sustained and obvious attack on small independent, non profit-making blogs, of which Ironies Too, is but one of many thousands!

Then last evening on the BBC South West regional news programme Spotlight, aired at 6:30 PM, came one small sign all is not in vain. It was there reported that Labour Peer Lord Berkely is to move a private members bill to make the Duchy of Cornwall more accountable! A report on this action from Scilly Today,  is here.

Could this move possibly be as a result of this posting to IB Times of 12th March, linked here. It appears that as this occurred at the height of the scare and uncertainty about bloggers on the UK facing unlimited punitive damages under the Royal Charter, I did not as usual repeat that post on this blog as normal, so here it is now:

Queen's Return to Health is Ideal Time to Consider Mechanics of Handover to Heir to Throne [BLOG]

Anomalies surrounding the royal succession need to be ironed out now

By Martin Cole: Subscribe to Martin's RSS feed

March 12, 2013 5:17 PM GMT

Long-serving: Queen Elizabeth II

The Queen has returned to her normal duties.

I have no idea how many of my fellow countrymen and women felt  the same sense of small discomposure on first hearing the news of her admission to hospital. In my case such came as a surprise.
The front page of my Sunday newspaper, still a tradition for many on the nation's most leisurely morning of the week, featured a picture of Prince Charles, clad in lime green ski clothes at the Swiss resort of Klosters, with a caption reporting that he and the Duchess of Cornwall would be departing on a visit to Japan
Thus are our senior royals so insidiously intertwined into the very fabric and substance of our country's life.
Yet the Queen cannot endure forever, a moment of transition will inevitably arrive and great questions are brought to mind that appear to have not been yet addressed when the full possible implications of her recent hospital visit are carefully considered.

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Should we allow present arrangements to continue and remain in effect up to the moment succession occurs, or might we not be better to already correct existing anomalies in a calm, equitable and unemotional manner, while we still have the benefit of the Queen's experience and expertise to smooth what is certain in these straitened economic times to be a somewhat bruising and painful experience?
High up on any list of anomalous arrangements completely unacceptable in a 21st-century constitutional monarchy and supposed democracy are the financial privileges granted to the heir to the throne. These revolve around the provisions for the Prince of Wales and the financial arrangements for the Duchy of Cornwall 
I would doubt there will be many in Britain today who could be found to argue that the present privileges and special financial arrangements enjoyed by Prince Charles should be transferred lock, stock and barrel to Prince William upon the death of the Queen - yet such seems to be the present effect of the existing provisions, even after passage of the legislation regarding succession now before parliament.
Other graver issues than the financing of the royal family are now at issue, however, due to the clear existential crisis faced by the EU to which we have incredibly attempted to abnegate a portion of our sovereignty by ministerial abuse of the puzzling powers of the royal prerogative. Background to some of these problems may be obtained by typing "Royal+Prerogative" in the search box of my blog Ironies Too  or for those with time and a strong desire to be perhaps sickened by the real mess in which our constitution now stands read the evidence from Hansard of the present foreign secretary provided to parliament together with the great constitutionalist Tony Benn.
A pdf file on the deliberations of the House of Commons public administration select committee on the subject from 2002-2003 is linked here.
The death of a monarch, particularly one as long serving and dedicated as Queen Elizabeth II, is bound to prove a traumatic event in the life of any nation, never mind one locked into a non-democratic schizophrenic power bloc of supposed trading nations fearful for their own economic survival.
Britain would perhaps be best to use this precious period of domestic constitutional calm provided by the restored good health of our constitutional monarch to prepare better structures and procedures for the handover to her heir.

Greater Germany is Born

New Year's Day of 2013, in so far as the English speaking press of the world was concerned, was dominated by the negotiations over the so-called Fiscal Cliff in the USA and the 40th anniversary of Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland joining, what was then called the Common Market, with several mainland European states, now, with UK consent, morphed into the European Union.

History, however, seems likely to mark that day as the one on which the Fiscal Compact or Fiscal Stability Treaty (as it is now to be known) came into force - building on the yet to be completely finalized ESM Treaty and the still to be agreed arrangements for the approved Financial Transaction Tax. Together, these three agreements, in principle giving effect to what in reality can only be described as, "Greater Germany", a new type of sovereign state, up to now lacking any trace of democracy or citizen consent, or so far, an identifiable individual despot or tyrant at its head. When the latter emerges, we will recognise it, among its historic predecessors, without any difficulty at all, as nothing but the full blooded tyranny some, presumably, have always intended it would be!

While as yet we are thus denied a discernible hate figure upon whom we can focus our comments of contempt, as befits such a collectivist conspiracy, there is no lack of high-profile placemen and placewomen to bear the blame. Prime among these figures are EU Commission President Barroso, EU Council President Van Rompuy, EU High Representative Ashton and Economic Affairs Commissioner Rehn, each contributing their own small part to the resulting dark mess that stains and has become putrid upon the palette we can now see represents the EU.

Barroso is the least cautious in his language on the intent behind the plans for this new pan-European tyranny and it was a mere two days into this new year before he returned to his native Portugal to deliver the following clear threat to assembled Ambassadors, a report of which can be read here:

"Power is currently shifting not only between states but also over and above those states.

"The internationalisation of the financial sector, for example, shows that only supranational regulation through the European Union can restore real decision-making power to European citizens. The key is to exchange formal sovereignty for real influence."

Can nobody in national authority see the emptiness in the words regarding power passing above our heads somehow getting closer to the citizens, far beneath these elite figures who luxuriate in perks and excess while people in the outer reaches of the EU starve and the capital cities of the peripheral states are lit by the fires of burning cars and protesters' flares?

What of the Treaty of Windsor of 1386 (democrats everywhere should now demand to know), presumed to be still in force, marking the oldest alliance in the world between England and Portugal. To the shame of British Foreign Secretary William Hague and Prime Minister David Cameron, they have aligned the United Kingdom on the side of Portugal's oppressors. How long before "Greater Germany" succeeds in crushing Great Britain with weak-willed and unseeing leaders such as these?

The above post was first published by International Business Times on 4th January 2013, linked here.