Constitutional Monarchy - Time for a Change?

Following the death of Her Queen Elizabeth and the accession to the throne of her son Charles there have been calls, in some quarters, that an hereditary monarchy, albeit a Constitutional Monarchy, is an anachronism in the 21st century and should be replaced  by an elected president. Some  calls, such as that from the Irish hobgoblins known as Jedward are frankly risible. Then there are the demented ravings from some North American harpies. Some are more reasoned and deserve some careful thought; but what I have not seen is a comprehensive proposal suggesting what alternative form of government is proposed. It is as if we simply replace the hereditary monarchy with an elected president and keep everything else the same. Yet if events of the last few days have shown us anything they have shown how the monarchy is woven into the fabric of our parliamentary democracy. You cannot simply change one part of it without having to change how the rest of it works.

There are some key questions that need answering. Do we go for something like the American system where the president is all powerful or a symbolic head of state as in Ireland?

If a symbolic head of state then how are they chosen? (Personally I would exclude any person who has held elected pubic office). If we go with an elected all powerful president is the election for her/him held at the same time as parliamentary elections? What happens if we get a Labour President and a Conservative House of Commons (or vice-versa)? If we have an elected Head of State logic would dictate that the House of Lords should be an elected body not based on hereditary peerages and the munificence of the prime minister. When would these elections be held? Should the whole of the House of Lords be elected in one fell swoop or say one third every two years? What power would they hold over the HofC?

If my memory is correct despite most Australians favouring repulicanism the last Australian referendum on who should be head of state instead of the Queen/King fell because they could not agree on an alternative. 

There will probably only be one chance to change things in my lifetime (aged 75 next birthday) so whatever is proposed needs to be well detailed and well thought out. I shall not be holding my breath

The times they are a changin'

 Since I last posted we have had the resignation of Prime Minister Johnson. The unedifying spectacle of a seven week campaign for the Conservative Party to elect a new leader. The queen appointing Liz Truss as Prime Minister followed swiftly by the demise of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Charles, Prince of Wales appointed King Charles III. 

As a country we now await the funeral of the late Queen and, no doubt in about a year or so, the coronation of the King. Meanwhile we in the midst of a major energy crisis, a cost of living crisis, an environmental crisis and the "non-war" in Ukraine rumbles on.

I am not sure how many shopping days until Christmas, but I suspect that it will be bleak for many.

Rugby is Doomed

I love the game, spent many happy hours playing it, some not so happy hours in A&E, and even more very happy hours in the bar talking about it!!! The older I get the better I was, although truth be told I wasn't that good. But I loved playing it, as did thousands of others, and we all have a bond of friendship whenever we meet irrespective of our actual standard of play.

So why do I say that the game is doomed? This article, to me sums up all that is wrong with the game. It talks about attracting spectators, trying to attract increaed funding. I would rather they focussed on attracting more players. Of filling the void by schools not playing the game. I would like others to have the same fun that I had. But the administrators of the sport seem to have abandoned the grass roots game.

Personally I think that the sport is losing out by this relentless focus on the top level. Sport is to be played not to be used as a money making machine.

I guess that I am just an old has-been stuck in a time-warp hankering after the "good old days". Still I cannot help but feel that young people are missing out on something that was good - I am simply glad that I was a part of it.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/12/rugby-cannot-overlook-contact-issues-and-stoppages-undermining-game

Is Racism still alive and kicking in the UK?

Taking my life into my hands - Would Sir Mo Farah have been treated the same if he had been Joe Ordinary from Somalia?

What happened to him was awful, horrendous, we do not have words to describe what he went through.

The sad reality is that thousands endured the same horror as he did, but I sady suspect that they wee treated differently once the facts were known!

Reflection from a year or so go that is still relevant

Apart from being engulfed by the CV-19 pandemic we are now caught in the maelstrom of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and all the protests initially caused by the murder of (black) George Floyd by a (white) policeman Derek Chauvin. The protest movement appears to have taken on a life of its own and in a few instances has been subverted by people more interested in rioting and looting than by those trying to right a great wrong.

Nevertheless the vast majority of the protesters are focussed on righting the wrongs of the past and those that are still happening today in many (all?) countries across the globe.

One of the symbols of the protests has been focussed on removing statues and place/street names honouring people who were slave traders. It has been pointed out that some of the slavers did many philanthropic acts; this is countered by so did Jimmy Savile but we don't erect statues to him. It should of course be pointed out that what Jimmy Savile was illegal whereas slavery was, at that time legal (still abhorrent and an affront to any decent human being). Slavery might now be illegal but if anyone believes that it is abolished they have not being paying attention to events around the globe.

So this leads onto the question of should we judge the past by the standards of today? There are thousands if not millions of people who were punished for committing acts that were illegal at the time but which are legal today. Homosexual acts spring to mind; over the centuries may people were imprisoned for carrying out these. Some have been posthumously pardoned, Alan Turing springs to mind. He did break the law and was cruelly punished. Should he have been and should all the others that were similarly barbarically treated be pardoned? They knew that what they were doing was illegal at that time and were caught and punished. In some cases the cruel incarceration gave rise to great art, De Profundis and the Ballad of Reading Gaol are two works by Oscar Wilde that spring to mind.

Many people were transported to Australia for committing acts that today would warrant no more than a slap on the wrist at the local magistrates court. Turing and some 50,000 others including Wilde have been pardoned, but this doesn't ease the pain and degradation that they suffered at the time.

Cecil Rhodes is now coming under attack and there are increasing cries for his statue to be removed from where is is sited in Oxford. Oriel College decided not to remove the statue in High Street in 2016 and said the figure "was a reminder of the complexity of history and of the legacies of colonialism".What will happen today is anyones guess, although if I were a betting man I would bet that it will be removed.

So how should we judge the past and how we should we teach it? How many today are taught about the Tolpuddle Martyrs? Their great bravery helped lay down the foundations of the trade union movement and the great reforms in working practices that are still prevalent today, although under constant threat. The present is built on the past for good or ill. We most certainly should not forget it or else we will be destined to repeat it.

Why we played (Rugby that is)

 When the battle scars have faded

And the truth becomes a lie

And the weekend smell of liniment

Could almost make you cry.

When the last rucks well behind you

And the man that ran now walks

It doesn’t matter who you are

The mirror sometimes talks

Have a good hard look old son!

The melons not that great

The snoz that takes a sharp turn sideways

Used to be dead straight

You’re an advert for arthritis

You’re a thoroughbred gone lame

Then you ask yourself the question

Why the hell you played the game?

Was there logic in the head knocks?

In the corks and in the cuts?

Did common sense get pushed aside?

By manliness and guts?

Do you sometimes sit and wonder

Why your time would often pass

In a tangled mess of bodies

With your head up someone’s......?

With a thumb hooked up your nostril

Scratching gently on your brain

And an overgrown Neanderthal

Rejoicing in your pain!

Mate – you must recall the jersey

That was shredded into rags

Then the soothing sting of Dettol

On a back engraved with tags!

It’s almost worth admitting

Though with some degree of shame

That your wife was right in asking

Why the hell you played the game?

Why you’d always rock home legless

Like a cow on roller skates

After drinking at the clubhouse

With your low down drunken mates

Then you’d wake up – check your wallet

Not a solitary coin

Drink Berocca by the bucket

Throw an ice pack on your groin

Copping Sunday morning sermons

About boozers being losers

While you limped like Quasimodo

With a half a thousand bruises!

Yes – an urge to hug the porcelain

And curse Sambuca’s name

Would always pose the question

Why the hell you played the game!

And yet with every wound re-opened

As you grimly reminisce it

Comes the most compelling feeling yet

God, you bloody miss it!

From the first time that you laced a boot

And tightened every stud

That virus known as rugby

Has been living in your blood

When you dreamt it when you played it

All the rest took second fiddle

Now you’re standing on the sideline

But your hearts still in the middle

And no matter where you travel

You can take it as expected

There will always be a breed of people

Hopelessly infected

If there’s a teammate, then you’ll find him

Like a gravitating force

With a common understanding

And a beer or three, of course

And as you stand there telling lies

Like it was yesterday old friend

You’ll know that if you had the chance

You’d do it all again

You see – that’s the thing with rugby

It will always be the same

And that, I guarantee

Is why the hell you played the game!

By Rupert McCall

Credit: Sutton & Epsom Bs

The Prime Minister must go

     The number of times that we have changed PM during wars:

                                                            

and these were wars in which we were fighting rather than supporting.