The Trump Interview

 

Why does Britain still have an enduring appeal?

 

Charlie Hebdo on Meghan

 

Ye khel kya hai…. by Javed Akhtar

Mere mukhaalif ne chaal chal di hai
Aur ab
Meri chaal ke intezaar mein hai
Magar main kab se
Safed khaanon
Siyaah khaanon mein rakkhe
Kaale safed mohron ko dekhta hoon
Main sochta hoon
Ye mohre kya hain

Agar main samjhoon
Ki ye jo mohre hain
Sirf lakdi ke hain khilone
To jeetna kya hai haarna kya
Na ye zaroori
Na vo aham hai
Agar khushi hai na jeetne ki
Na haarne ka bhi koi gham hai
To khel kya hai
Main sochta hoon
Jo khelna hai
To apne dil mein yaqeen kar lon
Ye mohre sach-much ke baadshah-o-vazeer
Sach-much ke hain piyaade
Aur in kea age hai
Dushmanon ki vo fauj
Rakhti hai jo mujh ko tabaah karne ke
Saare mansoobe
Sab iraade
Magar main aisa jo maan bhi loon
To sochta hoon
Yeh khel kab hai
Ye jang hai jis ko jeetna hai
Ye jang hai jis mein sab hai jaayaz
Koi ye kehta hai jaise mujh se
Ye jang bhi hai
Ye khel bhi hai
Ye jang hai par khiladiyon ki
Ye khel hai jang ki tarah ka
Main sochta hoon
Jo khel hai
Is mein ir tarah ka usool kyon hai
Ki koi mohra rah eke jaaye
Magar jo hai baadshah
Us par kabhi koi aanch bhi na aaye
Vazeer hi ko hai bas ijaazat
Ke jis taraf bhi vo chaahe jaaye

Main sochta hoon
Jo khel hai
Is mein is tarah ka usool kyon hai
Piyaada jab apne ghar se nikle
Palat ke vaapas na aane paaye
Main sochta hoon
Agar yahoo hai usool
To phir usool kya hai
Agar yahi hai ye khel
To phir ye khel kya hai
Main in savaalon se aane kab se ulajh raha hoon
Mere mukhalif ne chaal chal di hai
Aur ab meri chaal ke intezaar mein hai

The English translation is below:
What Game is It?

My opponent has made a move
And now
Awaits mine.
But for ages
I stare at the black and white pieces
That lie on white and black squares
And I think
What are these pieces?

Were I to assume
That these pieces
Are no more than wooden toys
Then what is a victory or a loss?
If in winnings there are no joys
Nor sorrows in losing
What is the game?
I think
If I must play
Then I must believe
That these pieces are indeed king and minister
Indeed these are foot soldiers
And arrayed before them
Is that enemy army
Which harbours all plans evil
All schemes sinister
To destroy me
But were I to believe this
Then is this a game any longer?
This is a war that must be won
A war in which all is fair
It is as if somebody explains:
This is a war
And a game as well
It is a war, but between players
A game between warriors
I think
If it is a game
Then why does it have a rule
That whether a foot solder stays or goes
The one who is king
Must always be protected?
That only the minster has the freedom
To move any which way?

I think
Why does this game
Have a rule
That once a foot solder leaves home
He can never return?
I think
If this is the rule
Then what is a rule?
If this is the game
Then what is the name of the game?
I have been wrestling for ages with these questions
But my opponent has made a move
And awaits mine.

There is a magic money tree. But only for the Queen and the DUP

Owen Jones in The Guardian


There is no magic money tree, say the Tories: unless it’s to bribe extremists to keep them in power, or to renovate the palaces of multimillionaire monarchs. Today nurses take to the streets to demand an end to a pay freeze that has slashed the living standards of these life-saving, care-giving national heroes. One such nurse confronted Theresa May – whose lack of emotional intelligence is only matched by her lack of authority – on national television before the election. There was no magic money tree, was May’s robotic response. If the nurse had been met with a middle finger, it would scarcely have been less insulting.

Let’s be absolutely clear. The Tories’ programme of cuts – austerity, whatever you want to call it – is a con, a lie, an ideologically driven act of sadism that has caused immeasurable and unnecessary hurt and pain. The Tories are keen to portray Labour as shambolic and wasteful spendthrifts. In this they are aided and abetted by the party’s post-crash failure to defend its own spending record. Then the Tories lost their majority, and lo! They did conjure up the magic money tree to shower gifts on their homophobic, anti-choice, climate change-denying, sectarian friends.

While nurses are driven to food banks in one of the richest societies that has ever existed, the Tories have almost doubled the Queen’s income. We live in a country that cannot provide affordable, comfortable and safe homes for millions of its own citizens, but the Tories can suddenly find tens of millions more each year to help renovate Buckingham Palace. There is a magic money tree for palaces, but not people.


The money soon to be showered on Northern Ireland will undoubtedly help the Six Counties

The cost of the Tories’ calamitous failure will be significantly more than £1bn, of course. As Nick Macpherson – a former Treasury official, puts it – this is just a “downpayment. DUP will back for more ... again and again.” And neither can they be trusted with taxpayers’ dosh, having wasted nearly half a billion on a failed energy scheme.

But do you know what? The money soon to be showered on Northern Ireland will undoubtedly help the six counties. It will improve public services, education, the health services and infrastructure. It will undoubtedly lift living standards and fuel economic growth. That is what public investment – so mercilessly slashed by the Tories – achieves.

And if it’s good enough for Northern Ireland, it’s good enough for the rest of us. We can ask the most well off, for whom the crash was only ever something they read about in newspapers, to pay a bit more money; the same with booming big business. The billions are there: for housing, education, infrastructure, police – and, yes, to pay our nurses a decent wage.

The Tories are nothing more than a racket for their wealthy backers, a crude political instrument to defend the interests of Britain’s shameless vested interests. They will happily locate a magic money tree if it’s their own political survival that’s at risk. But what is good for the partisan interests of the Conservative party is not good for the nation.

The Tories’ Ulster spending spree should embolden all of us who always believed austerity was an ideologically driven con. On Saturday, thousands will march with the People’s Assembly to demand the end of the failed Tory experiment. The Tories have legitimised their arguments. Austerity is over for Northern Ireland, it’s over for the Queen, and now it must end for everybody else too.

Jeremy Corbyn won't stop until everyone in Britain is offended

Mark Steel in The Independent


As he’s been leader for five days now, the press are calming down a bit. By tomorrow headlines will only say things like, “Cor-Bin Laden will force pets to be Muslim”, followed by an interview with 89-year-old Vera, who says: “It’s not fair because my hamster’s scared of burqas. That’s the last time I’ll vote Labour.”

The Telegraph will be even more measured, reporting: “Corbyn plans to introduce women-only gravity. Men will be left to float through space, making it harder to arrive on time for work, costing Britain £40bn.”

This could go alongside the genuine report in The Times on Monday, that Jeremy Corbyn’s neighbours “often see him riding a Chairman Mao-style bicycle”. A less thorough reporter might only mention that he rides a bicycle. Luckily this one knew the country where lots of bicycles are ridden is China, which was once ruled by Chairman Mao, which means Corbyn is planning to force us all to work in rice fields and eat dogs.

One problem with this excitement is that it’s hard to increase the hysteria when they’ve gone so wild in the first week, but they’ll rise to the challenge. By November, we’ll be told he’s forced Mary Berry to eat an Arctic roll full of blackbird sick as revenge for selling her book about scones via corporate tax-avoiders Amazon.

Then Panorama will reveal Corbyn appeared at a conference with Satan, who he described as an “old pal”; the evidence is a dream their informant had after falling asleep in a cowshed after drinking a bottle and a half of Sambuca.

You could tell how chaotic his leadership would be from the start, when he gave some important jobs in his party to people he agrees with. This provoked outrage. If he was being inclusive, instead of appointing John McDonnell as shadow chancellor, he’d have given the job to Jeremy Clarkson.

The other complaint about his Shadow Cabinet was the low number of women appointed, only 16 out of 31 rather than the half he promised.

The Sun complained of an “equality blunder”, and you can understand their frustration as they’ve always been uncompromising with their feminist demands, devoting every day’s Page 3 to poems by Mexican women’s rights campaigners, no matter how strong the protests to stop.

He didn’t even give a job to Yvette Cooper, on the grounds that she’d said she wouldn’t take it. But if he really cared about women’s equality, he’d have said “you’ll do whatever job I bloody well give you, love”, and the problem would be solved.

But none of us can have guessed the unspeakable horror to come next, when he didn’t sing the national anthem at a Battle of Britain memorial, ruining the efforts of everyone who fought in the Second World War. Commentators told us: “Those pilots did more than anyone to stop Hitler, and now Jeremy Corbyn has literally opened the cockpit of every Spitfire and smeared dog mess on the seats.”

It’s no wonder people called phone-in shows to make comments such as “I’ve taught myself to snore the national anthem, so I don’t insult the pilots during my sleep.”

It’s understandable for people to see it as an insult when someone didn’t sing “God Save the Queen” at the memorial, because the Queen played a major part in the battle, as a wing commander who shot down five enemy aircraft over Folkestone.

Even so, it’s hard to see how the national anthem is the song that most directly commemorates the RAF, so one suggestion to avoid a similar incident in future is to sing a different song at each memorial. Next year it could be “The Omen” by The Prodigy. Anyone not joining in by screaming “The writing’s on the wall” in St Paul’s cathedral will be arrested for treason.

Once again it was The Sun that seemed most furious about this lack of respect for dead servicemen. But if Corbyn gets his way it won’t even be possible to insult the armed forces, because, according to The Sun, he’ll “abolish the army”.

It didn’t make clear how he’d do that, especially when he appears at Prime Ministers’ Questions seeming mild and reasonable, reading out questions sent in from around the country. Most people seem to feel this was a healthy change, though it may be even better if he puts all the questions in a bucket and draws them out at random.

This would strengthen our democracy further. “Prime Minister, Tina from Exeter asks, who would win in a fight between Godzilla and a giant tarantula?” At first, Cameron would insist the mutant spider had no chance against a seasoned monster with wide experience of destruction, and his front bench would yell “hear hear hear” as usual. But eventually a calmer atmosphere would prevail, and Parliament would become a forum for reasonable debate. That’s when Corbyn will strike to abolish the army.

He’ll introduce a similar system, so instead of weapons, our soldiers will march to the front line of a battle, and call out to the enemy: “Alan from Doncaster has asked what are you going to do about all the fires in the city you’ve just demolished.” Then in 50 years’ time, when there’s a memorial for all our troops that are captured, he won’t even sing at it.

That’s how much of a danger he is.

From Fifa to Tony Blair — I’ve tried to understand the rich, but I just can't

Yasmin Alibhai Brown in the Independent

Tony Blair is a very busy man – so many calling on him, so little time. He had, apparently, agreed to speak at a conference on world hunger in Stockholm. Last year his very good friend Bill Clinton spoke at this same gathering, organised by Eat, a non-profit organisation set up by Swedish philanthropists. But a slight hitch came up with the Blair booking: reports suggest our erstwhile PM allegedly wanted £330,000 for a 20-minute sermon. (Clinton got £327,000 for 30 minutes.) Eat thought the fee too high, although Blair’s office insists money wasn’t spoken of and he simply had a previous engagement.

For whatever reason, Blair will not now orate stirringly on how to save the millions who live on less than 82 pence per day. Tony’s office says the money was to go to the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women. But like cheap room deodorisers, that late fragrance of good intent cannot overpower the bad smell coming from this story.

The Fifa drama is also all about money. Football does not even have a bit part. All the top men drive fast in the fog of power and wealth, without a moral compass, and still pretend that they are maligned heroes. Prince William lectures them about probity and corruption without so much as a second thought for the royal finances and tax secrecy.

This week also had Iain Duncan Smith, a fervent Catholic and man of some wealth, considering draconian child benefit restrictions. To save £2.5bn per year he wants to cut the payment from £20.70 for the first child to £13.70 – and is also looking at restricting benefits to two children. To this quiet man, poverty must be as hard to understand as godlessness.

Meanwhile, well-heeled George Osborne is to meet the Queen to review grants given to the royals. The boilers are too old, the energy bills for all those palaces too high. Unlike other pensioners, our monarch will not have to resort to hot water bottles, of that we can be sure. Nor will she visit those in her kingdom who shiver day and night, have barely enough to eat and live in rat-infested rooms.

This was also the week when Thomas Cook was humbled after failing to respond with basic humanity to the parents of two young children who died of carbon monoxide poisoning in a Corfu hotel.

I find all this alien and deeply baffling. How do the rich think? How are they so solipsistic, so self-serving and self-promoting? Are they born that way or are they raised as members of a particularly hard tribe? We must try to understand people who have it all, now that we are to be governed by a clique of the very privileged.

And so, in that spirit, I made myself read a column penned by entrepreneur Luke Johnson, son of Paul Johnson, the former editor of the New Statesman who walked briskly rightwards to become an ardent Tory.

To be successful, you need a dream team, sayest Luke, a blue-eyed dynamo and chairman of Risk Capital Partners: “First and foremost is the spouse... to provide emotional and practical backing. Self-employment can be desolate. Most entrepreneurs are obsessives, and often selfish in the pursuit of their ambitions. They require a tolerant spouse to provide relief...” Also a devoted “Super PA”. I gave up reading halfway through, because the man was so unutterably self-satisfied. Getting into these mindsets is harder than I thought.

Now, most Ugandan Asians are natural-born moneymakers. The exiles who were resented and unwanted in 1972 have made good. Many are millionaires and right wing. Like the Tory minister Priti Patel, too many of my ex-compatriots believe in self-reliance, low taxes, hard punishment and a social Darwinism. Benefits, in their view, only encourage layabouts and wastrels.

I had relatives back in Uganda who lived in grand houses, paid no tax and expected deference. Among my classmates, a few became doctors, the rest went into business and, yes, made bucks. I think I was born with a mutant gene.

Two guys with big money offered to marry me. One still hoots when he sees my Nissan Micra and always follows up with some unsolicited advice: “You are clever and very stupid. Money would make you powerful.

“All these politicians come to us. They don’t read your words – who cares about what you say? We make the world go round. You, your type, and lazy bastards on benefits make it slow down. You should be worshipping us.” So glad I didn’t marry the bald, fat scumbag.

These capitalists really do see themselves as redeemers, even those who pay their staff the lowest wages and do little to make the world a better place. Men such as Bill Gates do use their money to alleviate poverty, but they are rare.

The rest, even when they give cash, want something in return – an honour, a name on some grand wall, a PR victory. Sure, if they help the arts or the unemployed, give them the accolades and respect they crave. But what of the CEOs and shareholders who feel no social obligations, yet want more gratitude or see themselves as victims of deep ingratitude?

Tom Perkins, a US venture capitalist, complained that the recent war on the rich was like “the Holocaust”. (He later apologised.) Sam Zell, the American chief executive of an equity company – and a zealous defender of the top one per cent of global earners – says “subsidising people and disincentivising [the poor]” through benefits is the problem. Those who don’t succeed don’t want to try.

I read books on the minds and methods of the rich. They think selfishness is a virtue and that poverty (not money) is the root of all evil, that it is the end not the means which matter and that welfare for failure leads to more failure. They belong only to each other. The wider good does not exist. I see that now.

The future – political and economic – belongs to these masters of the universe. There is no alternative, no fight back. Even Labour now sucks up to them. Bleak times.

'We would evict Queen from Buckingham Palace and allocate her council house,' say Greens

LAMIAT SABIN in The Independent

Saturday 24 January 2015

Queen Elizabeth II would be evicted from Buckingham Palace and moved into a council house in plans to abolish the monarchy and build more social housing, as suggested by the Greens leader.

The party would move the royal family out of the 775-room mega-mansion, complete with tennis court, lake and heli-pad amid 40 acres of land nestled in the leafy St James’ Park area of Westminster.

However there are no plans that Her Majesty and Prince Philip would be turfed out in the cold, like the estimated 2,500 people sleeping rough in England alone, as Green leader Natalie Bennett said she would not be short of potential places to live.

She said in an interview with The Times: “I can’t see that the Queen is ever going to be really poor, but I’m sure we can find a council house for her — we’re going to build lots more.”

This would mean, under the Greens’ suggestions, that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince George and the unborn baby would also be served an eviction notice from Kensington Palace and would have to shell out for private rent, buy their own house or join the chronically over-subscribed social housing register. 

Ms Bennett said that the party is planning to expand on the country’s dwindling social housing stock as “GDP is a lousy tool for progress” compared to people having a “better quality life”.

The housing crisis and lack of universally-affordable properties has been attributed to the Tory policy of allowing council and housing association tenants to buy their homes at heavily discounted prices. It has also been blamed on foreign investors buying up land for luxury developments while mortgages and private rents go through the roof.

Ms Bennett also criticised “parasitical” global companies who do not pay their fair share of tax by basing their businesses in tax-havens such as the Cayman Islands, even though they rely on public assets such as roads and the NHS to make a tidy profit.

The Greens, with branches in different regions of the UK, plan to “restructure society with the rich paying their way and multinationals paying taxes” with the top band of tax increasing to more than the current 50p rate.

Their rising popularity, as shown by rapidly increasing numbers of memberships, has catapulted Ms Bennett to being invited to take part in two televised political debates ahead of the general election on 7 May.

Prime Minister David Cameron had insisted that he would not take part unless Ms Bennett was included if Ukip’s Nigel Farage was invited, despite the Greens having announced a total of 43,829 memberships across the UK compared to the latter’s 41,966 members as of last week.

Ms Bennett said: “People are really hungry for something different. There is an element of us being fresh and new, but we are also talking about ideas, optimism and changing things.”

The Greens also plan to raise the minimum hourly wage to £10, with a guaranteed £71 a week universal basic income for all adults, with half of the £280 billion cost of the policy to come from tax, she indicated, with the rest made up of money already paid out in benefits like jobseekers’ allowance.

A tax of 1 or 2 per cent on people worth more than £3 million would also be implemented and the party suggested that the state could have powers to seize assets from the wealthy.

She said: “People say to me that the rich will dodge [the tax], but in some of the countries that already have it there is a simple rule that says if you haven’t declared something on your wealth tax, you don't own it.”

The royal family need a new boiler and the right want us to pay for it

Nothing symbolises stagnation, immovable social barriers and hierarchy quite like the royal family. No wonder George Osborne is leaping to their defence

• 
• • Suzanne Moore
  • The Guardian, Wednesday 29 January 2014 20.01 GMT

The royal family gathered on the balcony at Buckingham Palace. The public accounts committee has questioned how well the royal finances are administered. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

When you are on a limited income, a boiler packing up, a leaky roof, dodgy guttering or a basement full of asbestos can tip you over the edge. If you are mortgaged-up, you cannot let your property fall into disrepair. If you live in social housing or are renting privately, you may find you receive little help; landlords and councils will keep you waiting and do the bare minimum. Rising food and fuel bills mean that, despite our much-trumpeted growth, too many are left with the "heat or eat" dilemma.

So can you imagine what it is like to be the poor old Queen? The boiler in Buckingham Palace is 60 years old. And you will get no Camilla cracks from me: I've moved on.

What, though, is the Queen to do? Obviously the answer is not pay for it herself out of her own enormous fortune because … well, she is the Queen. We – her largely indifferent subjects – should be ecstatically happy to pay for her repairs. Instead, though, "we" – in the shape of the public accounts committee headed by Margaret Hodge – are nosing round asking awkward questions about the royal finances, which is really rather vulgar. It is "bizarre", Jacob Rees-Mogg has told us, that this committee should query the pittance of royal expenditure when we should be looking at cutting other public spending.

It's not that bizarre, as every public body has had to trim itself down, or at least not flash the cash around quite so obviously, in the middle of a recession. The royals, though, have maintained staffing levels and those staff have carried on spending, cutting only 5% over the last six years. Last year, the monarch received a sovereign grant of £31m and the family can raise money when they choose to. They only open up Buckingham Place for tourists two months of the year, even though they were advised years ago to keep it open longer. Nonetheless, via entry fees and renting it out to JP Morgan, they made £11.6m last year.

Still, everyone loves our dutiful Queen and republicanism remains at a low ebb. But I wonder, as she hands over more duties to Prince Charles, and Kate and sprog will have to be wheeled out more, whether this spectacle will continue to persuade us on the "value for money" front. Which is surely why that expert in fairness and accountability George Osborne has intervened. Why should the royals have to dip into their million-pound emergency fund to repair their own palaces? Gideon feels the committee "is being unfair to the way the royal household has managed its finances".

The inimitable Nadine Dorries has also been on the case. She feels embarrassed "listening to Margaret Hodge reel off the list of repairs that need doing to royal buildings". Nadine embarrassed? This is serious. She then surpassed herself by saying: "What the royal family does for us is beyond explanation."

Indeed. Why is the Treasury stepping in here, except to defend, as ever, the super rich? While the number of the undeserving poor grow – scroungers, shirkers, people who steal food that has been thrown away out of skips – it is no coincidence that the number of deserving rich expands.

This is Conservative ideology at full throttle. We cannot increase tax on those with big incomes because they are the motors of growth and may leave. We are simply to accept that such concentrated wealth is a global trend. To say otherwise is some kind of anti-business communism. The anger towards bankers as the undeserving rich has dissipated as we are fed constant tales of vital entrepreneurs. Those at the top should not have to open their books, as they themselves are an actual asset. The vastly wealthy are now called "wealth creators".

The monarchy is part of this charade and we are to be grateful as we pay £1m to do up the house of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Or rehouse Princess Beatrice. We provide the help to buy. We pay for their DIY, but they need more.

At the very least, one would have thought that the palace and its Tory courtiers would want to appear more frugal. Instead, the royal energy bill is that of the average British household. Multiplied 2,280 times. This kind of spending, and the apologists for it, fail to acknowledge a world of foodbanks and steep decline in social mobility. For if anything symbolises stagnation, immovable social barriers and hierarchy, it is the royal family. They embody the exact opposite of hard work, aspiration and innovation and all the guff that we are told will make things fairer.

Of course the chancellor defends those born with enormous financial assets. This government, after all, bought the American model that extreme and visible inequality is a price worth paying for the dream of social mobility.

The reality is different. We actually subsidise those born to rule at a time of gross inequality and zilch mobility. These people have no shame. They believe themselves to be the deserving rich. So put your hands in your pockets to mend the ancient boilers of billionaires. And feel thankful. Yes, this really is "beyond explanation".

Brainwashed by the cult of the super-rich

Followers, in thrall to Harrods and Downton Abbey, repeat the mantra that the greed of a few means prosperity for all

• 
• • Priyamvada Gopal
  • The Guardian, Wednesday 25 December 2013 17.00 GMT

'We are invited to deceive ourselves into believing we are playing for the same stakes while worshipping the same ideals, a process labelled ­'aspiration'.' Photograph: Alamy

Last week, Tory MP Esther McVey, Iain Duncan Smith's deputy, insisted it was "right" that half a million Britons be dependent on food banks in "tough times". Around the same time, the motor racing heiress Tamara Ecclestone totted up a champagne bill of £30,000 in one evening. A rich teenager in Texas has just got away with probation for drunkenly running over and killing four people because his lawyers argued successfully that he suffered from "affluenza", which rendered him unable to handle a car responsibly. What we've been realising for some time now is that, for all the team sport rhetoric, only two sides are really at play in Britain and beyond: Team Super-Rich and Team Everyone Else.

The rich are not merely different: they've become a cult which drafts us as members. We are invited to deceive ourselves into believing we are playing for the same stakes while worshipping the same ideals, a process labelled "aspiration". Reaching its zenith at this time of year, our participation in cult rituals – buy, consume, accumulate beyond need – helps mute our criticism and diffuse anger at systemic exploitation. That's why we buy into the notion that a £20 Zara necklace worn by the Duchess of Cambridge on a designer gown costing thousands of pounds is evidence that she is like us. We hear that the monarch begrudges police officers who guard her family and her palaces a handful of cashew nuts and interpret it as eccentricity rather than an apt metaphor for the Dickensian meanness of spirit that underlies the selective concentration of wealth. The adulation of royalty is not a harmless anachronism; it is calculated totem worship that only entrenches the bizarre notion that some people are rich simply because they are more deserving but somehow they are still just like us.

Cults rely on spectacles of opulence intended to stoke an obsessive veneration for riches. The Rich Kids of Instagram who showed us what the "unapologetically uber-rich" can do because they have "more money than you" will find further fame in a novel and a reality show. Beyond the sumptuous lifestyle spreads in glossies or the gift-strewn shop windows at Harrods and Selfridges, and Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop website, shows like Downton Abbey keep us in thrall to the idea of moolah, mansions and autocratic power. They help us forget that wealthy British landowners, including the Queen, get millions of pounds in farming subsidies while the rest of us take back to the modest homes, which we probably don't own, lower salaries and slashed pensions. Transfixed by courtroom dramas involving people who can spend a small family's living income on flower arrangements, we don't ask why inherited wealth is rewarded by more revenue but tough manual labour or care work by low wages.

Cue the predictable charge of "class envy" or what Boris Johnson dismisses as "bashing or moaning or preaching or bitching". Issued by its high priests, this brand of condemnation is integral to the cult of the rich. We must repeat the mantra that the greed of a few means prosperity for all. Those who stick to writ and offer humble thanks to the acquisitive are contradictorily assured by mansion-dwellers that money does not buy happiness and that electric blankets can replace central heating. Enter "austerity chic" wherein celebrity footballers are hailed for the odd Poundland foray, millionaire property pundits teach us how to "make do" with handmade home projects and celebrity chefs demonstrate how to "save" on ingredients – after we've purchased their money-spinning books, of course.

Cultish thinking means that the stupendously rich who throw small slivers of their fortunes at charity, or merely grace lavish fundraisers – like Prince William's Winter Whites gala for the homeless at his taxpayer-funded Kensington Palace home – with their presence, become instant saints. The poor and the less well-off, subject to austerity and exploitation, their "excesses" constantly policed and criminalised, are turned into objects of patronage, grateful canvasses against which the generosity of wealth can be stirringly displayed. The cult of the rich propounds the idea that vast economic inequalities are both natural and just: the winner who takes most is, like any cult hero, just more intelligent and deserving, even when inherited affluence gives them a head start.

We are mildly baffled rather than galvanised into righteous indignation when told that the rich are being persecuted – bullied for taxes and lynched for bonuses. The demonising of the poor is the flip side of the cult of the rich or, as a friend puts it, together they comprise the yin and yang of maintaining a dismal status quo. It is time to change it through reality checks, not reality shows.

Ministers accused of exploiting royal veto to block embarrassing legislation

Bills on Iraq, Rhodesia and hereditary titles were blocked by Queen - on advice of ministers who had political objections

• Robert Booth
• The Guardian, Tuesday 15 January 2013 18.37 GMT

Tam Dalyell, the sponsor of a 1999 bill that aimed to give MPs a vote on military action against Saddam Hussein, said he is 'incandescent and angry' that it was blocked by the Queen under apparent influence from Tony Blair’s government. Photograph: Murdo Macleod

Government ministers have exploited the royal family's secretive power to veto new laws as a way to quell politically embarrassing backbench rebellions, it was claimed on Tuesday.

Tam Dalyell, the sponsor of a 1999 parliamentary bill that aimed to give MPs a vote on military action against Saddam Hussein, said he is "incandescent and angry" that it was blocked by the Queen under apparent influence from Tony Blair's government. It also emerged that Harold Wilson used the Queen's power to kill off politically embarrassing bills about Zimbabwe and peerages.

MPs and republicans have complained the little-known power to veto or consent to new legislation grants the Queen and Prince Charles unwarranted powers and is undemocratic. Detail about its application is only now emerging as a result of a freedom of information campaign by a legal scholar, and the Guardian revealed on Monday at least 39 different laws have been subject to the secretive royal consent arrangement.

Dalyall's military actions against Iraq bill would have given parliament sole authority to sanction strikes on Iraq, and he alleged Blair's government told Buckingham Palace the Queen should withhold her consent. The bill was introduced a month after the US and UK operation Desert Fox air strikes against Iraq.

"The issue as far as I am concerned is that Buckingham Palace was used by Downing Street," said Dalyell. "I don't blame the palace … this was entirely the handiwork of Downing Street. It was about snuffing out a measure they feared would have a lot of support. It was a sneaky way of avoiding an issue that should have come before the House of Commons."

Dalyell said he had been contacted by one of the Queen's aides following the blocking of his backbench bill and he understands the government instructed the Queen to refuse consent in order to kill off a proposal that was gaining Labour support among MPs opposed to military action in Iraq.
That appears to be supported by a Buckingham Palace statement on the application of the veto, which said: "The sovereign has not refused to consent to any bill affecting crown interests unless advised to do so by ministers."

A Cabinet Office spokesman said it would not "discuss any discussions between us and the royal palaces". Alastair Campbell, the prime minister's communications adviser at the time the bill was quashed, said he could not recall the case.

Dalyell said he was concerned that the power could be used to prevent parliament from intervening in future war plans through private members' bills.

"This could happen again," he said. "The palace has to be very careful not to do the government's dirty work. They blocked my bill because the government thought they were threatened in the House of Commons. This is relevant today. I was angry then and I still am."

At least two other bills have been blocked by the Queen, it emerged , both on the advice of ministers who had political objections. The first came in 1964 in the case of the titles (abolition) bill, which was embarrassing to Harold Wilson's newly elected Labour government, which had a slender majority and did not want any legislative debate about the desirability of titles such as lordships and damehoods.

The other was the Rhodesia independence bill of 1969 which sought autonomy for the African colony which Wilson's government was opposed to while it was in a state of rebellion. The examples were identified by Professor Rodney Brazier, a legal academic and informal constitutional adviser to the Queen's private secretary, in an academic paper published in the Cambridge Law Journal in 2007.

Chloe Smith, the Cabinet Office minister, said the Queen and Prince Charles had not vetoed any bills in the past decade, but it remains unknown which, if any bills, have been altered during the consent process. MPs and peers have been calling for greater transparency over the application of the royal powers of consent, but Smith this week told parliament the government would not publish a full account of which bills have been subject to royal consent because it would be too expensive.

The edifice of marriage is always worth repairing

Wedded bliss doesn't exist - but a deeper passion does happen.

The Queen and Prince Philip were married on November 20, 1947 Photo: PA

By Rowan Pelling

There are innumerable reasons to admire our monarch, but 65 years of conjugal accord comes close to topping the list. Note that I do not use the trite expression “wedded bliss”. I have yet to meet any long-hitched couple who’ve been skipping around in a permanent state of ecstasy for multiple decades. Most lengthy relationships are only one part romance to two parts endurance test. Many people claim they’re never bored in their marriage, when what they really mean is they are yoked to someone who takes eccentricity and intransigence to new heights of bloody-mindedness.

Even when you do have the great good fortune to be married to someone interesting, they can’t be riveting over the cornflakes every day for 50 years. My own husband is a walking compendium of intriguing facts, but I still want to sink an axe into his skull every time he mentions local planning regs. It’s no wonder that when the late Anne Bancroft was asked the secret of her 41-year marriage to Mel Brooks, she growled, “Just working hard.” I bet the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh would concur with that: not only have they had to head up “the Firm” for 65 gruelling years, they have also had to support three of their children through equally testing matrimonial disappointments.

I couldn’t help but imagine the Duke sending a salute across the ether to retired Navy officer Nick Crews, whose excoriating email to his divorced children bemoaned their “copulation-driven” splits. I don’t imagine Crews is any more prudish than most naval men of his ilk – more likely he believes it’s weedy to abandon a decent spouse for the sake of erotic diversion. In the not-so-distant past, couples worked their way through such indiscretions in the same way they would tackle financial or medical problems: there may have been damage to the render and chimney pots, but nothing that troubled the whole stately edifice. But we Generation X types are too recreation-minded to bother with tedious repairs; it’s no wonder we find the long-entwined so mesmerising, yet baffling.

I have had some fun imagining what Crews would say about the female banker who reportedly divorced her husband because of his “boring attitude” to sex. I imagine it would be something along the lines of, “Brace up woman! My generation didn’t get to where we are today without enduring a spot of sexual tedium.” As any marital veteran will tell you, you can cherish a passion for your spouse that’s far deeper than mere sexual flames. However, you may have to stick in your marriage for a fair few decades to appreciate that wisdom.

Don't worry Kate, there will never be a royal expenses row

Independent.co.uk
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown:

The entourage to Canada and the US will be 'humble' with only seven adults accompanying the couple. The national self-delusion is now untreatable

Monday, 20 June 2011

Pictures of Kate Middleton appear daily on the front pages. Last week, she showcased clothes costing £12,000. Didn't she look lovely? She smiled and waved too – such an exhausting job, who would want it? All the aspirational young women lining up to apply to St Andrews where Katie bagged her prince. The university is about to team up with the elite American William and Mary College in Virginia (note the monarchist moniker) to charge £18,000 a year for a joint BA degree. Perhaps the next Mrs Simpson will also come from there – rich North Americans love aristocratic connections and all things royal. And this summer they are in for the biggest treat.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (what do these titles mean? Is a duke higher than a prince? Who bloody cares?) are preparing to visit Canada and the US for their first official overseas tour starting 30 June. Expect a flood of images, nauseating sycophancy, endless smiles and airhead fashionista commentaries. The entourage will be "humble", say loyal watchers, with only seven adults accompanying the couple. So no lackey to put toothpaste on to a toothbrush, something Prince Charles must have. More modest still, no dresser or Lady in Waiting. And the people are lapping it all up, like hungry cats round a cream bowl. The downturn? Economic hard times? Cuts and public sector strikes? All the people need are the diverting accounts of the undeserving rich to get by. Only the really curmudgeonly or perfidious Commies would say otherwise. Those of us who can't stand the circus are made to feel treacherous outsiders – a cold place to be.

After the euphoria of the wedding, the phenomenal success of The King's Speech, the honeyed tributes to rude Prince Philip on his 90th birthday, I feel almost defeated. We republicans are losing the battle. There were moments when it seemed as if the nation was shaking, shuddering with righteous indignation at appalling royal behaviour. That fever went down, and we are back to the status quo.

In our flawed democracy, some are born to lord it over us, even if they are stupid, unattractive (in all senses), immoral, badly behaved, drunk, spoilt, adulterous, callous and irresponsible. Examples can be provided for all of these within the present lot of royals. Going back, the list would get more colourful still, with a long line of serious miscreants and corrupt blue-bloods. The point though is that even if they are perfect, they were handed status and wealth at birth and that is wrong. This Queen certainly deserves respect for her diplomacy and for embodying the transition from the British Empire to post-colonial nationhood. But she heads a morally indefensible institution and can't see the harm that does. This year, just after it was revealed that Prince Andrew, the wastrel "helicopter prince", was flying around doing deals with dodgy dictators, his mum stuck more medals on him and later on their irascible dad too, just a birthday present.

But, alas this country's not for turning. A cunningly managed restoration of popularity has ensured the future of the monarchy. Charles will be King; then William. Kate, the millionaires' daughter, will beget an heir and they will live happily ever after. And the people will happily pay for them. There is never going to be a royals expenses row. They are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act, though they cost us millions, including their tax-free allowances and gargantuan security costs. It still isn't enough. In 2010, the Queen tried to get money for palace repairs from a state fund set aside for energy-saving changes to homes and hospitals. "Relative poverty" took on a whole new meaning then, as does the "relative" frugality of the coming Canadian trip.

Defenders of the family say their palaces attract tourists. In India after independence, they got rid of their Maharajahs and Maharanis but retained the opulent residences. Tell me the country gets fewer tourists because they don't have real royals any more. And anyway, only a small part of our tourism industry (one fifth) comes from overseas visitors – the sector as a whole makes up about 9 per cent of GDP. Legoland in Windsor has more visitors by far than Windsor castle. Supporters also exaggerate the effectiveness of British royals. The Queen's remarkable visit to Ireland, her undoubted dignity and moving speech, are given as an example. Was the Irish President Mary McAleese any less dignified or impressive? If they believe that, the national self-delusion is now untreatable.

One Quebec legislator, Amir Khadir, denounced the visit of the "parasites" and the Canadian premier quickly intervened, affirming that his people hold the couple "in very great esteem". That esteem should come only when the couple show they understand what so many of their people are going through. Britain is barely recovering from economic depths it reached last year. More than 100,000 disabled children will no longer receive extra money to help them cope; many families are already living below the poverty line and more will join them as new rules are passed. Kate, meanwhile, wears a gown costing nearly £5,000 to raise money for charity. A fat donation without the costly extravaganza would have done more good and appeared less self-serving.

Why aren't people more angry? They were with expense-claiming MPs who do long hours and put themselves up for tortuous elections. Even in Swaziland, where the King and his many wives rule absolutely, the women of the nation came out in 2008 to demonstrate against the outrageous royal lifestyles. Think about that.

The furious brigade will send off missives about how I have no right to criticise "their" Queen. Let them remember she was my Queen when I was born under the imperial sun. Previously her ancestors declared themselves rulers in India and elsewhere, without popular consent. Here, though, most of the people consent to the most blatant symbol of inequality and celebrate it. Kate has given them more reason and the jubilee next year gives them another boost.

Republicanism may well come to Swaziland one day. But not here. Not ever. Game, set and match to the wasteful Windsors.