Extremes of inequality, perpetuated and encouraged by a fossilised political system

I have seen the extreme effects of extreme poverty and I didn’t have to be a ‘poverty tourist’ to do so. One instance was in Dingwall, the town where I grew up, during the late sixties/early seventies. A woman, who to me was old but I was a child, had legs which bowed right out the way and she bowled along when she walked. It was shocking, I was shocked. My mother told me she was from Glasgow where there was a lot of poverty and poor conditions and she’d had rickets as a child, which was caused by a vitamin deficiency which affects the bones when they’re growing and vulnerable so they were damaged for life. She told me that was why we children got free milk at school as it contained the needed vitamins to ensure that never happened again. Terribly, it has been for a while

The sixties and seventies were also the time when Britain had hit its time of most equality as the ongoing results of the radical 1945 government, as well as plenty of talent, inspiration and creativity. The upper echelons were complaining to the rest of planet Earth that in Britain the poor were getting richer and the rich were getting poorer and they were threatening to leave. The appropriate response at this juncture would have been “Goodbye”, but someone called Margaret Thatcher got up and made a speech addressing these people, saying “Please stay”. They gave her her reward.

The advances of democratic and social progression were brutally halted and reversed. The establishment entrenched their position. Avarice became the philosophy over altruism, selfishness and greed encouraged. Progressives were co-opted and absorbed, some still there to be seen.

So here we are now. At least in the 60s/70s there was a consciousness, an empathy and sympathy whereas now when people are born into appalling situations, the right wing media which has the tabloids in its grasp has even intelligent people believing there will be something “genetic” wrong with that child. Some things are genetic – like haemophilia, porphyrias, low IQ, but neither the unfortunate results of extreme poverty nor extreme wealth are, despite Andrew Windsor claiming “it is training and genetics” which mean he can do his “job”. We might ask why he does it so abysmally badly then. Now there is a culture of blame rather than sympathy. This leads to some truly disgusting attitudes, to people attacking those who live in the same place as them, whose lives they would not swap with in a million years, with comments that they “should be sent to Belsen”, “should be locked up and made to fight each other to the death” – these are online comments made on the Highland News website about named families in Inverness, on a news item which didn’t even involve anyone from most of them.

Some businesses which presumably have always accepted they must deal with market forces but which apparently don’t feel up to dealing with democratic forces, ‘lords’ and ‘baronesses’ now ingrained in privilege and others who like what they have and feel complacent or cynical are threatening to leave Scotland as it sees a chance to escape the entrenched establishment death grip of the Westminster political system.

Others in the rest of Britain are increasingly seeing the potential of Scottish independence to crack this now seemingly impenetrable edifice, to undermine and destabilise undemocratic power, thereby facilitating desperately needed change there too. The claims and utterances of those desperate to retain their positions are becoming more extreme and nonsensical along with their desperation. They can feel the way the wind is blowing. The mediaeval power swilling around at Westminster is intoxicating and has been corrupting heads and hearts for centuries. The unelected can still stalk its corridors and wield it decades after the public have voted them out or they’ve ceased to bother standing for election. Meanwhile on 5^th April in a speech to London Conservatives, David Cameron has ranked defeating Labour in 2015 above maintaining the Union – preparing the ground for defeat in Scotland.

Scotland becoming politically autonomous will not cataclysmically endanger the world with forces of darkness. Could anyone retaining their reason believe this? We now await how the No campaign will couch their warning that the sky will fall in, as surely that must be next. What is there truly to fear? Trident is “too dangerous” to be situated in England, but there it is on the Clyde. But independence? That is about truly democratic governance by the people for the first time, at last. Have confidence and trust that the heart of the people is optimistic, reasonable, fair, talented, creative and kind. Blind faith in the non existent benevolence of overlords who are anything but is regression to a time our forebears were always leaving behind. We’ve been held back for a long time - it’s time to forge ahead.

Queen awards Thatcher a state funeral

There are now several petitions calling for 'no state funeral' or 'no public money to be spent' on the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, current estimates of the cost of which have hit £10million on the front pages, with another estimated £10million security cost on top. How has this figure mushroomed so much? Well one major reason is that our 'neutral', 'above politics' head of state has broken protocol and chosen of her own volition to attend the event, despite senior and very well respected politicians rightly calling the arrangements for this funeral an insult to the people whose lives and communities Margaret Thatcher destroyed.

Many other elected representatives of the people are choosing not to attend the recall of Parliament today for the Cameron orchestrated deification of a woman regarded with unsurpassed loathing by many in Britain.

With commentators calling much of the media eulogising “inflammatory” Elizabeth Windsor's personal decision to attend a funeral which the Metropolitan police are concerned may spark serious civil unrest is not only foolhardy and reckless but an overtly politically partisan act flying in the face of the deeply held feelings and pain inflicted on the nation by Margaret Thatcher.

It is dubbed a 'ceremonial' funeral but the voluntary attendance of Elizabeth Windsor indeed underlines and anoints it a state funeral in all but name.

So know this, and be in no doubt, the person who insults you, who flies in the face of every person who signed every petition and voted in every poll against this, and who is causing yet more cost to the public purse, to which money she feels so astonishingly entitled anyway, is your overtly political, unelected hereditary monarch, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, your tyrant oppressor head of state.

The Wrong Feet - The Failure of Elizabeth

One of the things you'll hear about the current unelected head of state is the claim that she “has never put a foot wrong” in 60 years. Unfortunately this claim happens to be complete and utter drivel. Here we are going to itemise just some of Elizabeth Windsor's recent wrongly taken steps: -

1. Buckingham Palace attempted to apply to the State Poverty Fund (money set aside for schools, hospitals and low income families) to pay its fuel bills. 

This demonstrates a quite astonishing sense of entitlement to any, and all, public money. The story, which was confirmed at the time by a 'rather embarrassed' palace official (anonymous as usual), was discovered through Freedom of Information legislation from which the palace has now been made exempt – so that if this happened again we would not be able to discover it, nor what the answer was.  shocking

2. The Despot's Lunch. 

She invited and warmly welcomed other monarchs from around the world, including Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn of Thailand. That monarchy has been mired in an ongoing controversy over the country’s strict lèse-majesté laws, which carry long jail sentences for slights against royal members. They have been used in increasing number, often to stifle political dissent. Earlier that month a 61-year-old man died in prison just months after he was handed down a 20-year jail term for sending text messages about Thailand’s queen. 

Elizabeth Windsor also invited to this lunch Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa of Bahrain. The head of Bahrain’s Khalifa dynasty has been criticised for his country’s violent crackdown of predominantly Shia Muslim opposition protests. Human-rights groups have heavily criticised the pace of change and continued violence. Only that week a second autopsy by an independent pathologist on a young man, who an official report declared had drowned in the sea, was published stating that he had undergone torture including electrocution and was unconscious when he drowned.

And she invited King Mswati III of Swaziland. Sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch is estimated to be worth £100m by Forbes while many of his 1.2 million subjects, however, live in poverty. We're sure she can relate. disgusting

3. Andrew, the dodgy deals and the contempt for public and government opinion.

As a wedding present for Andrew and Sarah, Elizabeth had a mansion built on green belt land purchased through a secret company in which she was involved. The couple eventually left the mansion after their split and it was sold, for £3million over the market price of £12million (why?) to the son-in-law of the Kazakhstan president, who as well as being well known to Andrew through his connections as Trade Ambassador also has a child with Andrew's great friend Goga Ashkenazi. The mansion was then allowed to fall into dereliction (why?). documentary  newspaper

As Trade Ambassador, Andrew's “boorish behaviour” and ill-advised cultivation of friendship with dictators and even a convicted sex abuser eventually led to a growing clamour for him to step down or be sacked from that post. This included from members of parliament, government and many in the public and press. Elizabeth responded to this by deciding at that moment to award Andrew with the highest honour in her personal gift. mummy's hero Not surprisingly this prompted comments such as 'Get it through your heads, they don't care about you or your opinions. No hereditary dictatorship ever has.' 'you should be appalled that he was given the Order of the Garter several years back. That is supposedly the highest of all British honours but the Queen has cheapened it by decorating her youngest children with it as well as Prince William. At this point, most of the orders of chivalry are just membership badges to clubs that adorn the royal children just to make them appear important' 'proves once again that the Queen has nothing but contempt for the citizens of this country and has a single minded attitude in keeping, maintaining and promoting 'the Firm''

4. Making political comment.

Some monarchists will try to emphasise how “above politics” the monarchy is. The monarchy itself is at the poisoned heart of the Westminster political system which hands the Prime Minister monarchic powers through the royal prerogative and the Crown in parliament, but through this ancient dodgy deal the monarch is supposed, at least in public, to keep their heads down (for fairly obvious reasons) and their mouths shut. We can all see how this course of action has completely and utterly escaped Charles as any kind of modus operandi but monarchists claim that Elizabeth has adhered to it religiously. We have now seen that is no longer the case. Her weekly meetings with Prime Ministers and correspondence with government are secret so we have no idea what comments and lobbying on issues she indulges in at those, but recently the palace has taken the extraordinary step of making comment on issues where they obviously feel secure of popular support for their position - Abu Hamza and the financial crash comments prompting a statement from the FSA. Absolutely cynical choices. Paving the way for an 'activist king' as Charles has stated he wants to be? Without electoral mandate, that's a tyrant. 
If you want to stick your beaks into political matters get yourselves elected to something and if you haven't got the guts to do that, wind your necks in and accept citizenship which is the best gift you'll ever be offered. 

5. Breaking protocol to attend Margaret Thatcher's funeral, thereby anointing it as a state funeral in all but name and ramping up its security costs.
Margaret Thatcher planned her own funeral in collusion with previous Prime Ministers.  Inviting the monarch clearly was designed to ramp up its status as much as possible.  The monarch had previously only attended the funeral of one erstwhile Prime Minister - that of Winston Churchill, which was an actual state funeral and he had been the Prime Minister throughout a world war.  Margaret Thatcher, however, like her policies, philosophy and the destruction and damage they all caused was/is still viscerally loathed by large sections of the populace as someone who divided Britain both along geographic and class lines.  The equality which was beginning to formulate in the 60s and 70s when Britain was at its most equal ever and the Tories were running about planet Earth whining and complaining that the rich were getting poorer and the poor richer so they were threatening to leave with their money ("goodbye" is the right response at this point), was rent asunder as she sold off national asset and resource, attacked working people and industry and nurtured a culture of greed, selfishness and dog eat dog survival of the fittest mentality.  The current Prime Minister is attempting to reinforce all this once more.  Too late will those daily poisoned by right wing tabloid toxic waste poured into feeble, malleable minds, realise that you can't join the dogs who eat the dogs, unless you are a multi-millionaire or went to Eton, you're just another one of the eaten.  So now Scotland is leaving.  The tectonic SNP landslide which Holyrood's voting system was designed to make impossible happened only six days after the culmination of months and months of 24/7 hyperbole and inane propaganda which we were told was "The wedding to bring the whole nation together!".  Hmm, doesn't look like that worked.  Could anyone, anywhere possibly think this was 'the funeral to bring the whole nation together'?  How stupid are these people?  Pretty stupid it seems.  Cameron threw even the agreed plans out the window when he recalled Parliament to host an obscene 12 hour deification of the Prime Minister from Hell.  Recalling Parliament is supposed to be for national emergency only.  He may have been suffering some kind of emergency but nobody else was.  The palace (a building speaks again) sent out notifications that it had had concerns about attending but Elizabeth was going because Thatcher was the first female Prime Minister - rubbish!  She represents the most divisive, destructive, extreme political ideology and Cameron's ramping up of the funeral was all about the same thing.  Elizabeth attending was in absolute collusion and could not have been a more partisan act.  Mega, super, ultra, total FAIL, Elizabeth!  And do not imagine that getting the increasingly obviously state controlled BBC to ram Kate and William's baby down our throats from now til doomsday is going to distract us from getting rid of the prehistoric, oppressive Westminster system which is totally unfit for purpose as a 21st century democracy, which feudal circus the stupid monarchy is integral to.  You have been sussed.  If you're not flattered and delighted to be offered citizenship, take up your millions, AND GO!!!         

6. Elizabeth's main, obvious and historically condemning absolute failure is and always has been the failure to enter into sensible negotiation to extricate monarchy from government of the people. Uber, total, utter #FAIL, Liz.  

You have not risen above your very unfortunate circumstances at birth.

 

born free?

Reply sent on behalf of Elizabeth Windsor re our letter in the previous post: -

'Buckingham Palace

7th December, 2012

Dear Miss Smith,
 The Queen has asked me to thank you and all the signatories for your letter of 26th September, and I must first of all apologise for the delay in replying.  Due to the very high volume of mail received in recent weeks, it has not been possible to reply until now.
Her Majesty has taken careful note of your comments regarding the Monarchy and the Untied (sic) Kingdom, and I am to thank you for taking the time and trouble to let The Queen know of your views.
Yours sincerely,
(signed)
Mrs Sonia Bonici
Senior Correspondence Officer

Miss Marjory Smith and Signatories'

Of course, we have no queen and Elizabeth is not a majesty to us.

We can only wonder what can have been going through the heads of the human beings at the centre of the maelstrom of the last week or so.  The febrile boiling hotpot of media hyperbole and over-reaction to a tiny foetus is a manifestation of insanity itself.  We are told the titles this being will inherit on birth, we are told the position and role it will take in our future government.  Really?  Madness.  The solemn sonorous tones of the media sycophant, who has assimilated the royal accent that the two in the line of succession tried to lose, told us of what we are led to believe is the appalling consequence of some of this media attention, all well before the child is anywhere near being born and in the space of a few days of the announcement of its existence.  Common Sense and Reason, wrote Thomas Paine.  Rights.
For the love of all of these and much more besides we say again, end the monarchy now.
We wish everyone the rights to vote for their own government, stand for election, say what they think in public and determine their own destiny.  It's never too late.       

Open letter to Elizabeth Windsor.

Elizabeth,

Considering your octogenarian status and the relatively short time you may have left to yourself we feel it would be remiss if we did not at this juncture make some last attempt to alert to you to the fact that you have been and are being misinformed, ill-advised and psychologically, emotionally and intellectually poisoned by your contact with the institution of monarchy, as are all your family and the peoples of Britain.

In a country claiming to be a 21^st century democracy this institution is a hypocritical anomaly, a fossil which props up an outdated feudal political system and simultaneously rots it from within. Monarchy is fundamentally and irrevocably wrong. The inheritance of position in government, of status, privilege, influence, access to public money and the opaque accounting of same, the immunity from laws, the personal powers of veto for the monarch and the heir on government legislation which affects their private interests, the forced oaths of loyalty, regardless of political views, as a prerequisite of democratically elected representatives taking up their positions to work for the people, the cult of caste encouraging sycophancy and obsequiousness purely over societal position and birth - all these things are totally indefensible.

History will look back upon monarchy as an evil thing, make mistake no longer. It will be seen as the murderer, the enabler of massacre, the stifler of talent, the oppressor of spirit, the deadening dull boring mundanity of meaningless pointless waste of time and energy that it is, the empty nothing that it is, the dead thing.

You are supposed to have a human right to vote for who governs you, as are we. You should have the right to determine your own destiny and the right to speak your thoughts in public - these are pretty basic freedoms. There are people far older than you who have had to cope with far worse things than an end to the restrictions, pantomime and circus of monarchy. We give you advice entirely congruent with your utmost wellbeing when we urge you to initiate talks now for the extrication of your family from this ridiculous position as soon as possible and forever. It would be the best exit ever from the monarchic stage, bar none. And the last. 

Sincerely

This is a letter not a petition and the 163 names below have signed up as a representative snapshot of the estimated 18 million plus people in Britain who currently do not want a monarchy and who are not now being properly served nor represented by the media, politicians nor structures of society.  The letter has also been sent in in hard copy on 1st October 2012.  If you would like your name added to the website version only thereafter just email sign@stirringthecauldron.co.uk

Marjory Smith

Eben Myrddin Muse

Bob Wiggin

Paul Bates

Renee Davis

Richard Vernon

Mel Hepworth

Angela Miller

Mark McGinlay

Dominic Bell

Sarah Balfour

Paul Johnson

John Jones

Leyton Dodds

Bill Hart

John Kelly

Tristan Alexander

Stiv Gillan

Jamie Docherty

Scott McMahon

Mick Higgins

John Sweeney

Brian Hale

Steve Wilson

Davy King

Stuart Malcolm

Anne Kathleen Nielsen

Maureen Wallace

Simon Nelson

Lynn Higgins

Frederick Nye

Caz Smith

Ben Fowler

Gavin James Campbell

Rafa Luna

Ian Mcvey

Rebecca McKinlay

John Robinson

Kevin Bell

Michael John Taylor

Kevin Paul Allerton

Ollie Coxhead

Lawrence Molton

David Harvey

Joe Coten

Jennifer R. Jeynes

Doug Beard

Elaine Morris

Tricia Bates

Kenny Mitchell

Andy Stewart

Murdo Maclean

Martin Shapely

Jason Sandy James

Mark Hollinrake

Gary 'gigs' Weir

Paul Kinnear

Janetta Willis

Sharlee Stringer

June Maxwell

Mark Stephen Jones

Karl Bough

Peter Clarke

Mike Cunningham

Niall MacLennan

Harri Ap Owain Glyn

Elsa Kerr

Stephen-Cewydd Holcroft

Marjorie Godfrey

Alice Johnson

Aidan Campbell

John Fiddes

Gail Fielding

Alan Rorrison

Doug Troup

Edel Carroll

Mike Allen

Colin Birch

Johnny Darkly

Campbell Stewart

Raibert McPhadraig

Gary Briggs

Paul Kealy

George Macbeath

Lance Dyer

Shaun Iggleden

Graham Barnes

Billy Ross

David William Humphrys

Norman Sinclair

Dave Fletcher

David Malcolm

Michael Jones

Andy Barnes

Nick Collins

Joe Shooman

Loretta Caughlin

John Tollan

Mitch Hayworth

Tony Nicholls

Conchur Ó Muadaigh

Rob Cameron

Michael Swann

Dobromir Angelova

Paul Chapman

David Milsom

Nigel Singh

Phil Thompson

Fred MacMillan

James Whittaker

Paul Robinson

Dale Latimer

Linda Tilsen

Gary Bamber

Walt Ferguson

Dec Smith

Kenny Kerr

Sean Kane

Mo Ungi

Eòsaph MacGillebhràth

Dave Emsley

Lee Hyde 

Mandie Lee

Tim Chiswell

Dave Cann

Tom Dunn

Michael Hughes

Julie Flynn-Ciniglio

Seán O'hAmhsaigh

Kyle Gray

Paul Daverson

Billy Fotheringham

Benny McGuire

Ben Baxter

Paul Owens

Jillian Nicol

Roddy Williams

Ian Coulson

Brian Carpenter

Gavin Paterson

Gerard Cassidy

John Morland

Paul Gribbin

Grahame Morrison

Mel-Annie Brudenell

Philip Ridge

Teddy Brul

Lars Nunnegaard

Monique Buckner 

Martin Knox

Donald Roderick MacKinnon

Mary Amanda O'Connell

Lee Tea

Dan Read

Frazer Mckenzie

Ju Ju Norton

Ryan Cockman

Joseph Nelson Salazar

Todd Collins

Billy Muir

Robert Britton

Eleanor McCarthy

Stewart Culbard

 

Guest Blog

Currently, in order to take part in parliamentary proceedings, all democratically elected representatives of the people at Holyrood and Westminster must swear an oath to be faithful and bear true allegiance to Elizabeth Windsor and her heirs and successors. Alex Samond predicates this with the statement that his party's primary loyalty is to the people of Scotland, and others have stated that they take the oath under duress, but it is sickening that this compulsory oath to monarchy is in place. Monarchy is the opposite of democracy and should have nothing to do with representation of the people. This forced oath is an oppression and an insult. Several MSPs and MPs are members of Republic, the campaign for a democratic alternative to the monarchy, yet to do their job for the people who elect them they have to swear an oath they don't mean a word of. The first thing parliament does is make them lie.

The evil excuse for the massacre of Glenoce was a six day delay in the swearing of an oath to monarchy, which monarch subsequently signed the massacre order for two companies of the Argyll regiment to genocide the Macdonald clan. If you look in the phonebook you can conclude they didn't quite follow orders, though it was terrible enough.

I share James Keir Hardie's opinions on the subject of monarchy and the puerile nature of it. It reinforces and is at the apogee of a decrepit feudal political and class system. It is populated by nameless officials who speak as if they are buildings 'the palace says', 'Clarence House denies'. It is secretive and has recently been made more exempt from Freedom of Information laws so that if it again asked for money from the State Poverty Fund which is set aside for schools, hospitals and low income families, as it did when Labour were in power, we would not now be able to discover this, nor what the answer would now be to this incredible example of the monarchy's sense of entitlement to any and all public money. I suppose that's what absorbing £200 million plus every year of public money does to you. Westminster has overseen a deal which allows the piracy of national asset revenue direct to the institution of monarchy and refused Holyrood control of Scotland's part. If monarchy was free it would still be a poison. Its message is that everyone except this one family are common lownesses. Nothing infuriates me more than switching on the news and having the spectacle of a member of this one family as the remnants of Hanoverian monarchy trailed out in some imbecilic non news story. The BBC particularly went completely insane over the jubilee and prior to that the society wedding of William Wales and Kate Middleton - they had five times more staff working on it than other channels and have refused to disclose how much, of our, money they spent on coverage. There were still items such as on the cake being shown on breakfast TV nine months after it happened. And him in that redcoat uniform...

Can anyone remember what happened just a few days after “The wedding to bring the whole nation together”? ? I'll tell you. Scotland voted in a landslide for a party whose stated aim is to pull this whole bloody awful set up apart. Not long after that was the moment when a little spark of hope lit in my heart and I had a sea change on independence. The real possibility suddenly hoving into view of Scotland escaping the fossilised behemoth of Westminster and it's only a hop, step and a 'carravooltchin' to a much fairer, healthier society and so many things which seemed difficult are suddenly within our grasp. A yes we can moment where people dare to dream things they never thought they'd see, where anything is possible.

Soon after the swearing in at Holyrood Alex Salmond was on my TV assuring us that Elizabeth Windsor would remain head of state in an independent Scotland. Mary McCabe who wrote, proposed and got accepted at the '97 SNP Conference the motion that there should be a referendum on the monarchy within the first term of an independent Scottish Parliament now states that retaining the monarchy meantime is about putting as few hurdles as possible in the way of the future negotiations about independence and says 'there are people in the British establishment prepared to go to the wire over the issue of the monarchy'. I say exactly who are these people in the British establishment? What do you mean by 'go to the wire'? The people should be told the truth. If you're frightened of them, tell us. I did wonder if I saw fear in Alex Salmond's eyes.

Keir Hardie said people's heads were turned by Westminster “the best men's club in Europe” and often “forgot why they were there and who put them there”. That is as true now as it was when he made the observation. It really hasn't changed much at all. Over a hundred years after an Act was passed decreeing the House of Lords would be determined by popular mandate, this has yet again failed to materialise. The precedents, habits and traditions of the way Westminster conducts itself are maintained as if it were a political museum. I really wish it was. The power at Westminster comes from the Crown in Parliament and the royal prerogative powers placed with the Prime Minister and Privy Council. These are not democratic powers, they're autocratic and monarchic and they are not relative to the electoral mandate gained or as in the current situation, not gained, at the ballot box. The power available to whomsoever manoeuvres into Number 10 is unaccountable and corrupting. Currently we have King Dave and he alone can decide to do a U-turn, or not, to have a yacht, or not, to alone bring in a policy when no-one else in the cabinet agrees with it, as he did recently with minimum alcohol pricing for England and Wales. The royal prerogative powers are wielded to suit, for instance were extended to expel the Chagos islanders in 1962. This was deemed unlawful by the High Court in 2000 so the Labour government used royal prerogative power to issue an Order in Council to achieve the same effect and won their appeal in the Lords after this was also found unlawful. The royal prerogative powers enable writing of law, going to war etc without reference to parliament. It is supposed to be constrained by constitutional convention but as we have no written constitution the conventions have been described as “whatever the government wants them to be”. It's a right royal stitch up of the people, who are not being properly represented and are not in any kind of proper control of government. 'The power to make great changes' may be deeply desired by people with altruistic motives, but also by those with completely avaricious ones. It's far too arbitrary. The people still have all the power of a hereditary establishment against them – Cameron, Osborne and Johnson are all from families who were in the same kind of position hundreds of years ago. That is neither natural nor healthy.

In the game of Westminster power-grab it is 80 or so seats in what is termed 'Middle England' which hold the keys to the castle, these are the voters yenned for and courted with policies, image and rhetoric. The bare-faced cheek and mummery of Ed Miliband one day in Glasgow referencing Hardie to promote Scottish Labour and then a day or so later issuing a fawning congratulations to monarchy for being in an unelected position propping up this rotten system for 60 inglorious years.

During the passage of the Scotland Bill at Westminster, Labour MP Dennis Canavan tried to get the requirement for an oath at the Scottish Parliament replaced with an affirmation “I do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs, and, do hereby declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.” Westminster did not pass it. Rejected as a Holyrood candidate by New Labour despite 97% support from his local party, he stood as an Independent Labour candidate and was expelled from the party. He got the biggest majorities in the Scottish Parliament both times he stood. He now supports the Yes campaign. He is the kind of Scottish Labour party we want and need, now.

The SNP I know contains some honourable and good people but some of us could never join a party identifying as 'nationalist' as we feel, and Scotland is really, internationalist. I also do not trust the leadership of the SNP who seem happy to fudge issues and allow misconceptions to go unchallenged, primarily that they can decree now what will be so in an independent Scotland. The SNP will most likely crumble in independent Scotland, there will certainly be splitting off and if they called themselves the Scottish Independence Party and declared the truth, that they are not likely to be in the same popular position ever again as they are in this period of advancing towards independence, but they are happy and willing to fall on their swords for the greater goal, they would be unanswerable. This may be difficult for those who have stalked the corridors of Westminster's unaccountable power and centuries of very old money, but if they want a place of real note in history they should bite the bullet, and certainly forget about trying to inveigle any royal prerogative powers into independent Scotland.

The current rump Scottish Labour Party leadership bemoan that the SNP leadership have Scotland on pause while they play games, but the situation with the Westminster political system, which is hung together on a dodgy deal done with monarchy centuries ago, is that it effectively has democracy on pause and has done for quite some time, for people all over these islands. We can do better than that and our move may be the catalyst for change in other countries too.

If we let the people speak they will, but we have to give them the choice to choose. Currently on the monarchy the SNP and Labour offer no difference – the Jubilee debate saw republican after republican in the SNP getting up in the chamber at Holyrood to make fawning comments on monarchy. The party of Keir Hardie were the same. Why do they do that? What are they afraid of or who are they trying to play games with – is it the institution of monarchy, or the people of Scotland?

We should lay our cards on the table. Set a clear agenda which sets out the removal of this anachronism. Offer the Windsors citizenship in an independent Scotland and the human rights to vote, stand for election and determine their own destiny. If they don't like that, Hell mend them and cheerio to them.

If we make a party which offers the people what they actually really do want, they will go for it. Stop trying to hoodwink and second-guess the public. Tell them the truth and let them choose, that's what this is all about after all.

dissent and debate

The YES to Independence campaign is about to launch in Scotland this Friday, followed shortly thereafter by the 'Jubilee' holiday - the establishment trying to reinforce the institution of monarchy aided by a sycophantic media hyperbole.  So vile it is like trying to spoonfeed us, and especially children, something sickening and poisonous while rotting corpses litter the house.  It's out of control.  Astonishingly, this weekend there has been an attempt by parts of the YES campaign to silence any discussion whatsoever on the subject of the monarchy, saying this will damage the campaign.  The reality is that trying to silence people is what is damaging and absolutely unacceptable.  As if the intolerance and imposition of monarchy upon us was not bad enough already.  It is completely and utterly wrong to try to stifle debate on this or any other issue. 

Scratch the surface and one of them declares as a monarchist.  So no-one is supposed to say anything for fear of upsetting the monarchists?  Why would that be?  The answer is because they have no arguments to debate with, which they even admit themselves, 'not one decent, logical, morally-sound argument for the retention of the Royal family in the 21st century'  wrote a monarchist on Sunday here before claiming 'we love' Liz Windsor, as if it was about her as a person and not about a secretive, monolithic institution absorbing millions in public money every year, with an outrageous sense of entitlement to any and all public money astonishing populated by anonymous officials who speak as buildings - 'the palace says' 'Clarence House denies', an institution reinforcing and perpetuating an antiquated feudal political system with monarchic powers swilling around to be accessed by whomsoever manoeuvres their way into Number 10, completely disproportionate to the democratic mandate their party did, or did not, gain and irrelevant to any deals struck with other parties.  Too much of the wrong kind of corrupting power, available at Westminster.

How can we 'love' this remote woman who most of us have never met, nor ever will meet, and whose image is so very carefully controlled, as is she?  We do not know her.  Your town will contain a sweet old lady who may appreciate a bunch of flowers if that's your motivation - give one of them some of your 'love'.  Monarchists who profess 'love' for Liz Windsor should perhaps consider being at the centre of this stultifying institution as 'their' queen is an abuse of her a sad life  She has no human right to vote, stand for election or determine her own destiny, she has not the right to speak anything but the elected government's words.  She is silenced in public as the institution also tries to silence dissent from the people. She and her son do have the right to veto government legislation of course and she has access to the Prime Minister's ear every week where no-one knows what she says then when she is not silenced.  Still it would appear that this 'royal' family would be happier and we'd all be healthier if they were a corgi-whisperer or a woffly weatherman.  Certainly there are monarchy fanatics like this who fill their homes, or business as in this case, with memorabilia and try to impose their fanaticism on others, but there are fanatics of many things and people, so what?   Should one of the Beatles or Bay City Rollers have been head of state?

We're told 'the problem' for republicans is everything we say 'makes perfect sense 'and yet here we are'.  Ah, as if by magic.   The monarchy springs up like a snowdrop through the frozen ground.  Absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the £36,000+ ,of public money of course, that offices at Clarence House and Buckingham Palace have access to every single day to use in the PR promotion of the institution of monarchy then?  Not the relentless sycophantic media.  Nothing whatsoever to do with the insidious permeation of institutions and organisations with 'royal' this, 'royal' that, patron of this, patron of that, the Crown in Parliament, the Sovereign at the core and apogee of a class structure never dismantled, the same families in power century after century.  The descendant of the schemer behind the Glencoe massacre and the union, John Dalrymple Master of Stair, in the House of Lords now.  In 1911 the House of Lords and parliament passed an Act stating it would become determined by popular vote rather than heredity, and then, what happened?  Did they all prick their fingers on a needle and fall asleep for a hundred years?  They may as well have.  The excruciating spectacle last year of the Speaker of the House of Commons whispering in the chamber about how "very rare, very sparing and very respectful" any mention of the royal family should be, when MPs were trying to discuss the unfortunate behaviour and associations of Andrew Windsor.  Perhaps a fairy dies every time the royal family is mentioned in Westminster.  But apparently none of this is what is reinforcing the monarchy, which is actually a Christmas miracle in the face of its own indefensibility.  Aye right.


Monarchists are trying to tell us that a majority of people are so enamoured of Elizabeth Windsor and so thrilled in anticipation at the prospect of Charles as their next head of state that they won't vote YES to independence if they think NO is the best way of keeping the monarchy?  The concept is ridiculous.  What about the many who will vote YES as the best and quickest way to get rid of it?  That's the reality.  And how do you argue for escape from the Westminster system without talking about what the Westminster system entails?  It makes no sense.  Tell the truth and shame the devil.  This should be about opening things up not shutting them down, about moving forward not standing still and terrified.     
    
People should not be silent, nor bow their heads, nor be forced to stand up for something they don't believe in or are actively opposed to and they should not be forced to swear an oath of allegiance they do not mean one word of.  Any blind faith some people might have in monarchy is their problem, not ours, and they're welcome to it.  People can carry on their worshipping and fanaticism about this family after they have been removed from hereditary position in government, access to public money and occupation of public buildings and land.  Don't be surprised if they might not want you to though.