大象传媒

NN wrote:
"And as the Syrian ambassador's invite to the Royal Wedding is withdrawn, we'll be looking at how the guest list - which also excludes former prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - might have been drawn up."

Gordon and Tony not invited..good!
Cherie Blair will be disappointed. An opportunity denied for all those trinkets you can usual get a wedding eh..Cherie could've spent all week selling stuff on ebay.

Gordon ain't invited because he's a hate filled anti-monarchist...and he wrecked the economy, with his redistribution of wealth nonsense - sold the gold like a newbie clueless market player - plus he 'rubbed our noses' into his crazy view in how Britian should look like.

WE ARE ALL TOO CLOSE TO LOVING BIG BROTHER

Brossen posted this link yesterday



To those not living within the lie, it indicates that America is as deviously governed as Britain. It confirms this is the Age of Perversity and that the question "Fool or Knave" has resolved, unequivocally, into KNAVE, KNAVE, KNAVE!

Our puppet masters are toying with us in our impotence, much as a cat offers FREEDOM (word used advisedly) to a doomed mouse.

If the majority of Britons stay within the lie, we will all sleepwalk into a future of manipulation and ignominy (worse than e have now).

Just a little fundamental thought, applied to the Obama birth certificate charade, and a rude awakening will follow.

Good morning!

There'd be no controversy about the royal wedding, and considerably less public expense, if it had been planned as a private family affair: at Sandringham say.

There is general goodwill towards the Queen, even amongst republicans like myself. But the way this wedding is being staged is designed to reinforce the position of our ruling and upper classes in general. At a time of enforced austerity for many of us, this may prove less than wise.

THE MONARCHY - LIKE MOUNT EVEREST - IS SIMPLY 'THERE'

It is a passive linchpin to much UNdemocracy. When listening to the grate and gad extolling its qualities, the parallels with a priest explaining Jesus' place in the 'scheme of things', are all too apparent.

When we recognise how little we have advanced in terms of individual competence, and that feudalism continues under a proxy monarch called Prime Minister, our plight is writ large. There will be social breakdown long before we see social justice - monarchy notwithstanding.

"might have been drawn up" - I thought the 大象传媒 especially Newsnight was supposed to report facts & not invent news. Or has that changed?
The wedding is NOT a state occasion. Is that not good enough? I seriously ask that you drop this item.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

One for you Barrie; seems to be from a few years :-

Well I was going to upload and link to one of my photos but after the last one linked to on here it seems I'm locked out of flickr - Wow some democracy .

Well there you go but could only get on flickr from the link to one of photos on here and then sign in .



Being as people dont like me mentioning the G word Ive spoken visually.

Re this story in todays news...

Aircraft carriers cost rises by at least 拢1bn
/news/uk-13218582


Why is it I feel an imminent Roderick V. Louis post is about to surface?

THE PICTURE IS FORMING (#7)

Thanks flicks3. More pieces that don't fit. Holmes should have said: "When you have all the pieces of the jigsaw, but no two fit together, you must INTUIT the picture.

Looks like a Turner Prize winner.

given the food price trend why are we paying millionaire land owners 4 billion a year to merely hoard land?

the excessive romanticism of the heritage industry is wasteful and damaging to the nation.

5.
There are fewer than 25% republicans according to polls. I'm sure your patience will be repayed before too long but just for now British monarchy, and the culture that it represents, is still popular outside of NN. :)

David Starkey is just saying that he thinks that after Diana's death, if Tony Blair had been less conservative, the monarchy might have collapsed. But now he thinks that it will survive, because it is about weddings rather than about 'conferences and committees'. Ay ay to that!

"But the way this wedding is being staged is designed to reinforce the position of our ruling and upper classes in general."

- but the only thing that will ever replace it is corruption, with or without the glamour.

What are wealthy celebrities and businesses other than the ruling and upper class? And they 'keep it in the family' every bit as much as the monarchy. But, they do not see themselves as accountable to the the population. And they do not aim to preserve decency and family values.

STEREOTYPING IS SO PREJUDICIAL (#12)

A decade or two back, children's story books were purged of nasty stereotypes such as mummy (nominal female) cooking, as daddy (putative male) comes in the door from work to be greeted by stereotypical boy (in trousers) and girl (in dress).
Nurses were no longer girls in blue or white, and the local bobby became a bobbette.

I sense some impropriety in the presentation of royalty. Should it be kept from the children?

does Starkey want a job at the Palace?

A PALACE FOR EVERYTHING (#16)

I think Starkey will fit right in at the Palace.

the monarchy propaganda and the secret police clampdown has a lot of the same characteristics as north korea?

the state oath is to protect one family of role gamers and their insulting opinions of people's birth and status and not the people. An oath that makes the people the 'enemy'.

its also an oath that protects people who go to celebrate the release of sex offenders. Which other person in public life could survive that misjudgement?

13

if so why are the monarchists afraid of putting their popularity to a vote?

re: the non-issue of camoron's "dear" comment. Surely of more annoyance is his claim of being "the Doctor". How laughable. Unless its the kind of pre-NHS quack that leeched people who were dying of haemorrhaging..?


barry/Bro, does it MATTER where Obama was born? Sure, for Americans it might be an issue, but for the rest of us - so what?? Its not like any other president would have done anything better. Or any different.


10: and the costs go up and up. As per usual. I noted with something resembling amusement the way the msm always portrayed them as being "British Built", and preserving "British Jobs", when so much of the outfitting will be done by America, along with the aircraft. This is simply funding the USs military machine, out of the UKs starved pocket.

"it would cost more to scrap the contracts" - PERHAPS the UK Govt should employ better lawyers when drawing these contracts up?!? IE, ones that are NOT in the pocket of the KKKorporations... just a thought. Unlikely under our current regime, however.

20 The Chinese like the British monarchy, why shoot ourselves in the foot?

the Bristol Tesco Riot:



this is unfathomable. The only possible explanation for this, and the raids on squats around the country:

"HOVE FOR THE BEST

It was a triple whammy Wednesday (27th) as
Met Police violently raided 3 squats in Hove,
East Sussex at 7am. They made four arrests for
abstraction (nicking 鈥榣eccy), two for possession
of drugs and one for conspiracy to commit vio-
lent disorder. This disorder was alleged to have
happened at the March 26th TUC demo (see Sch-
NEWS 765) and the police had arrived with spot-
ter cards of those they wanted.
As the first six were handed over to Sussex po-
lice, the one man accused of violent disorder was
driven up to London. Once there he was booked
into custody and briefly interviewed, only to be
released without charge. The squats have now
all been illegally evicted; 鈥榚vidence鈥� including
several laptops has been seized and much of the
occupants stuff was either broken or sealed up in
their former homes.
SchNEWS spoke exclusively to the arrestee:
鈥淭here were four vans of Met police in full riot
gear at [our house], plainclothes officers pointed
me out and I was arrested.鈥� After being driven all
the way to the Big Smoke two 鈥渦seless鈥� junior
officers asked such inane questions as 鈥渨hat do
you do in your squat?鈥� Faced with the standard
鈥渘o comment鈥� line they then sent him on his (not
so) merry way, with no charges and no home.
With the royal wedding (didn鈥檛 they see the tea-
towels?) and May Day just around the corner, po-
lice apparently seemed to think that the anarchist
high command is currently based in sleepy Hove.
Given that the only arrest relating to the warrants
resulted in nothing more than an unwanted lift to
London it seems police intelligence is even lower
than previously imagined. Alternatively this was
a fishing expedition intended to seize as much
material as possible, while pissing off and mak-
ing homeless many known 鈥渢roublemakers鈥�.
As SchNEWS went to press on Thursday
(28th) morning more squats were being raided
in London- including the Grow Heathrow com-
munity project and the Rat Star and Offmarket
social centres.


Now, the only reason i can think of, and its a bit dark, is that a small section of the Force is attempting to incite non-mainstream groups to 'behave badly' during the royal wedding, presumably (possibly) to create justifications for new laws from our openly authoritarian Home Secretary Theresa May, to clampdown on legal protests around the country. Which they obviously expect due to their insane, and economically illegitimate, economic polices.

such incompetence on a grand scale is otherwise hard to understand. It is utterly disgraceful that such a thing can happen though, and that voices even within the Police haven't spoken up. ...Actually, they have, and there is grave disquiet at what happened in Bristol amongst the Police establishment. Hopefully they will investigate this matter with more clarity and openness than either the assassination of Charles Mendez, or the News International phone-tapping scandal! We can only hope.

#22: i would only expect the Monarchy to become troubled - just like the House of Lords - if they refuse to do our Elected-Dictatorship's bidding. Certainly, we can look forward to more gerrymandering of the Lords in the near future, as they criticise the Govts policies (as they are SUPPOSED to), and more new Lords created by the Tories to both distort the discussions, and also ram through policies that the majority of the country are opposed to - just blatantly bad policies. This Govt hates opposition, dislikes discussion, and violently opposes alternatives. They are NOT democrats, they are autocrats forcing through incredibly bad policies that impoverish and harm the vast majority of the UK, whilst enriching and helping those who already have too much. I suspect, if the Queen refused to sign any of their Bills - no matter how incredibly unpopular the policy is, or how popular such a move by the Monarch would be, then the Tories would become Republicans with barely a blink.

oh, and on the non-invitation to Brown and Blair - what sits hard on my guts is that Thatcher and Major ARE invited. Those two are little different to the NuLabour parasites, they both kow-towed to American Corporate interests, and are as integral to the mess the UK finds itself in as the B & B cronies. Major, with his links to the Carlyle Group is especially toxic, yet he gets an invite?? Sickening. but then again, he will be hob-nobbing with the various despots and murderous dictators he funded and armed. Perhaps they do all belong together!

--but then, why WERE B & B not invited? They clearly belong there too...?! Meh. Who cares???

DISTRACTION (#21)

The point being made was that the birth certificate looks like a bad fake. But they could have made a very good fake, HAD THEY SO WISHED. So the first question is - as ever - fools or knaves? And the second (assuming it's knaves) is: 'are we being distracted from something?'

I can't help speculating that the real reason both Blair and Brown were not invited to said wedding is that the full truth behind the Climate Change Scam is bound to come out fairly shortly. Of course of all the politicians both Blair and especially Brown and his link to Copenhagen have got extremely dirty underpants on alleged green policy. Of course eco-fascist leaning Prince Charles will have to abdicate thus leaving the field wide open for a new clean start with William as the next King ?

CULT OF THE INDIVIDUAL?

It isn't me! My hearing is not what it was, but Ms Wark's diction has almost reached the point where I need to turn on the subtitles (which she has been known to defeat). She may be brilliant at preparation and research, but her interrogation is no better then middling, and her diction is BLURRED, as if she is just back from the dentist.

Does she not know? Does no one at NewsyNighty care? It really is NOT EDGY in the media space, going forward.

PROXY DESPOTS AND PAST PMs (#26)

I gather these things are protocolled down to the last Rolo.

It might be simply that one is OBLIGED to speak to past Prime Ministers, and it would make Wills 'sick to his stomach' or 'physically sick' to have to pretend with either of them. Mind you, such candour in a future monarch does not bode well.

It is probably OK to ignore Johnnie Foreigner. Quite sufficient he was allowed to be there.

post 23:

i wonder if the recent spate of attacks upon squats across the Country, and other alternative groups, most times - as like in Bristol - employing massively and unnecessarily heavy tactics by parts of the Police, could not incite a strong back-lash tomorrow by some small groups. In recognition that the questionable activities of the Police in recent days may cause some outlet of frustration, i hope the Home Secretary Theresa May manages to avoid yet another outbreak of intemperate demands for a State of Emergency, or other sweeping Police State powers.

i further hope that the incompetence that led to the riot in Bristol, is investigated fully. Perhaps Parliament should select an independent Parliamentary investigation to investigate? When the consequences of such incompetence can put a major Royal Occasion in jeopardy, surely this is a matter that should be taken up at the highest level? As well as the injudicious raids across the whole Nation.


btw, to someone on the show's question: this is a big occasion across the World, because the UK Royal Family is also the Head of State of many Commonwealth countries:



so this is THEIR Royal Family too. This is a truly multicultural affair! Hope the weather's good. :)

24 Mork, your arguments are the same as mine! The House of Lords has degenerated since we took away the hereditary element. As long as people are 'elected', there will be temptation not to use independent, unbiased thought processes. The same would happen with a presidency.

There is no intellectual or economic justification for removing the royalty. As with fox-hunting the republican position is just a sort of sour grapes winge.

Why Gold Is The Currency Of The Free
Lecture

'5. At 14:41pm 28th Apr 2011, NonEnglish wrote:
"might have been drawn up" - I thought the 大象传媒 especially Newsnight was supposed to report facts & not invent news. Or has that changed?

It's evolving, to be sure. 'Sources say..' 'selected guests comment..' 'unspecified critics are angry'... etc.

Maybe soon it will be 'Mighthavebeenight?'

ENOUGH!

We can always find enough money for killing Johnnie Foreigner.

We can always find enough time for a Royal Occasion.

But it takes forever to get a referendum - and then it's the wrong one.

In passing: have you noticed we are led by spitefulness and spinelessness?

Nuff sed.

LISTEN WITH ALICE (#32)

Oh Junkk! That's 'MighthavebeenyNighty'! You mustn't shock the sensibilities of the befuddled cohort, in the suckle-space, going forward, with harsh linguistic juxtaposition.

AV Referendum 5th of May 2011- None of the Above Thank You
As somebody who would very much like to see a representative system for the election of MPs to the House of Commons, my heart sank when I first heard that we would have a referendum on AV as it meant that whatever the result of the referendum we would still have a 鈥淗ouse of Commons made up of Representatives鈥� rather than a 鈥淩epresentative House of Commons鈥�.
Combined was the disappointment that there would be no debate and certainly no 鈥淐itizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform鈥� as were held in British Columbia and Ontario where a representative group of ordinary citizens decided on the alternative proposal to the existing system, normal people deciding on the alternative to how they elect their politicians rather than the politicians deciding on the alternative to how they will be elected, unthinkable! It would seem in the UK at any rate.
Nor was AV chosen as a result of the last major House of Commons research paper on the subject, known as the 鈥淛enkins Report鈥� by the Independent Commission on Electoral Reform, chaired by the late Liberal Democrat peer Lord Jenkins which backed a mixed system described as the "Alternative Vote-Top Up" or AV Top-Up, a system which would give a 鈥淩epresentative House of Commons鈥� though in my opinion in a very roundabout way.
So why was AV chosen as the only alternative to the present system of First Past The Post? Well this 鈥淩eferendum on the voting system used to elect MPs to the House of Commons鈥� came about as a result of the bargaining carried out in anonymous back rooms, possibly no longer smoke filled due to Health and Safety, which resulted in the creation of the coalition which is now our government. My guess is the Conservative negotiating team realised they had to give some ground on Electoral Reform and bit the bullet and offered AV and the Liberal Democrats grasped it with both hands. Whether the Conservative team offered AV cynically gambling that the voters would not vote for a system more complicated than the present with few obvious benefits will probably never be known, whether the gamble pays off and the consequences for the coalition will only come to light after May 5th. However cynicism is not the sole preserve of the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats you may suspect and I certainly do, feel that in the traditional three party split where the Liberals are in the middle they hope to pick up the votes where they are second and either Labour or the Conservatives are third and thus gain more seats in the commons. Nor are Labour exempt from cynicism as they failed to implement any concrete electoral reforms to the way MPs are elected to the House of Commons whilst in power from 1997 to 2010 but now their leader wishes to be seen as the reformer though he is still so partisan that he refuses to be seen in the company of the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, I personally assume therefore this is more about driving a wedge into the coalition, opposing David Cameron and general point scoring than a real desire for electoral reform for Ed Miliband.
The Plant report commissioned by the Labour Party in the early nineties considered that AV had three significant disadvantages.
1.The successful candidate might win on a substantial number of third or fourth preferences.
2.The voter has to make a choice of preferences whilst unaware of the outcome, thus making a hypothetical decision about a choice that cannot be foreseen exactly.
3.The system may not select what is known as a 鈥淐ondocet鈥� winner, this is the candidate whom voters prefer to each other candidate, when compared to them one at a time.
Going back further to 1931 Mr Winston Churchill described the Alternative Voting proposal as taking account of 鈥渢he most worthless votes of the most worthless candidates鈥�. He went on to describe AV as containing an element of blind chance and accident which would lower respect for Parliament. Churchill's comment warrant even greater weight because at the time he was not unsympathetic to some sensible form of electoral reform (source the Jenkins Report).
So what will I do when I finally vote in the referendum on May 5th where on the one hand we have the incumbent First Past the Post System which we know at a national level to be unrepresentative and unfair as it returns governments with overwhelming majorities in the House of Commons even though they only have forty per cent of the vote or less, or AV which is not a representative system but more complicated with it's opaque results making it more open to election fraud or the suspicion of. Well I might just write 'None of the Above' across my ballot paper with my fingers firmly crossed that AV loses and First Past the Post wins by a very small margin, thereby representing a vote of no confidence for the incumbent system which should at least widen the debate on Reform of the Electoral System for the House of Commons though I think a 鈥淐itizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform鈥� is still unlikely.
Fortunately in my opinion David Cameron and Nick Clegg insist the coalition government will survive the AV referendum, because in my opinion a successful coalition is what will most materially improve the chances of a 鈥淩epresentative House of Commons鈥� becoming a reality.

Griffin Turton, 1st of May 2011, author of the Relay System.