Post Script 1

POSTSCRIPT

Little Royal Nazis?   What rubbish!

            When, a few weeks ago, I wrote my farewell bog, it was my firm intention never to blog again.  I was old, my ideas were stale and I wasn’t expressing them half as effectively as once I did.  In short I was a now senile and decrepit early twentieth century man who had somehow made it to the twenty-first century but who didn’t fit in with the spirit of today’s ‘brave new world’

Oscar Wilde once remarked that he could resist anything except temptation and one or two recent events have tempted me to write at least one postscript to my blog series.  Although many of my views have been described as ‘way out left’ and I am now a member of the Green Party I am not, and never have been, a republican. I think that there is a lot to be said for having a Head of State who is outside party politics, is trained from childhood to be a constitutional monarch and who, even before the coronation, is likely to be more knowledgeable about our government and constitution  than any of the here-today-and-gone-tomorrow Prime Ministers who will form a government during his or her reign.

Scandinavian Royal style.  The Queen of Denmark  arrives in London for the Olympic Games.  Photo by my elder son Pete.

I can’t think of any way of achieving this surely desirable end other than by a hereditary constitutional monarchy.  I would prefer our monarchy to be more in the Scandinavian style but perhaps something on those lines will evolve.

I was both angry and contemptuous when I learned that the Sun had used on its front page photographs taken in 1933 of the children of the Royal Family, and their mother, giving the outstretched arm Nazi salute.   I was around in 1933 (an enquiring lad of twelve), which I am quite sure can not be said of either the editor or the owner of the Sun. We had all seen Hitler and the Nazi salute in the newspapers or on the brief cinema newsreels (there was, of course, no tv in those days) and most of us thought that Hitler looked like Charlie Chaplin and that all the heel clicking and saluting was just plain daft.  We practised the Nazi salute and one or two of us even tried goose-stepping!  It was just a laugh. We were taking the mickey. 

 It could be that that is just what those young royals were doing back in 1933.   It was unfortunate that someone had a good camera available at the time.  It was a family photo that the Sun has obtained (by bribery or the proceeds of a theft?  We’ll probably never know) and used to try to undermine trust in the Royal Family.  In 1933 no-one (certainly no-one in our government) foresaw the potential for evil in Adolf Hitler.  Nor, I think did anyone in the press.  Those who did not regard Hitler as a joke, saw in him a politician who was different and would pull Germany together, defeat the communists (they were seen as a much bigger threat than the Fascists and Nazis) and with whom Britain could negotiate with confidence.

I think that it is significant that the owner and ultimate controller of the Sun and other newspapers, radio and tv enterprises, all of which help to mould public opinion, is a former Australian, now USA, citizen who owes and shows no loyalty to the United Kingdom, its constitution and its traditions.  He is the   head of a ‘news’ organisation that is best known for its phone hacking, its obtrusive pursuit and harassment of its victims (who can be any of us), and its bribery of public officials – all of which activities are said to be in exercise of ‘the freedom of the press’; a strange ‘freedom’ that involves control by a foreign multi-millionaire.

I find it strange that Rupert Murdoch is permitted to reside in the UK and even stranger that so many top politicians fraternise with him and seek his favours.  One who, very honourably, declined to do so was Prime Minister John Major – who subsequently suffered at the hands of the Murdoch press.  Among the latest to seek his company and his favour has been Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP.  They have in common a determination to prevent the UK from ever becoming part of a European Federation.  I wonder if both, or either, would be equally determined to keep the UK independent of Federation with the USA – with the ‘A’ tactfully altered to be the initial of ‘Atlantic’ rather than ‘America’?

More of Rupert’s malign influence?

            Among the emails urging me not to give up writing my blog was one from a regular blog reader expressing his concern about the government’s apparent determination to change, or even destroy, the BBC as we know it.   Urging them on in this enterprise are, of course, the BBC’s commercial rivals, prominent among them Mr Rupert Murdoch of Sky tv as well as a number of newspapers.  Below are extracts from my correspondent’s email;

            Literally every day more reports are leaked to undermine the BBC. A Parliamentary Committee has been appointed with a specific brief to investigate and make recommendations about the future role of the BBC. More than half the people nominated to this Committee have previously made public statements about how the BBC needs to be scaled back, or the licence fee should be abolished. And on top of that, they are clearly briefing papers like the Times with more details of their “thinking”, suggesting that the BBC is “too popular” and that they shouldn’t be doing successful programmes with high audiences, and they should not be running such an extensive web site, and they shouldn’t be attempting to cover all of the News in it, and some of the money for the Licence fee (if it continues at all) should be given to other providers, not just the BBC. They have called the Licence Fee “a regressive Tax” – (so unlike their other taxes).  Oh, and ministers saying the BBC Commission is “not fit for purpose” (always a prelude to scrapping something) because of “the Saville scandal and the pay-offs to senior staff who were made redundant”. Clearly it  would be better for them to discredit and then abolish the Commission first, because last time they threatened to axe part of the licence fee, the entire Commission threatened to resign in protest – probably never been forgiven for that piece of insurgency.

Some people are  baffled by all this – thinking that everyone liked the BBC and would be pleased that Strictly and Masterchef were runaway successes and that all the news and cooking recipes were published for free on the web site.  I have been trying to explain to them the Right Wing thinking on all of this. First of all, the BBC is making programmes which conflict with the financial interests of Tory Party donors. Secondly they are giving the News and cooking recipes away for free, when others are trying to make money out of them. Thirdly, the Licence Fee is a sort of compulsory subscription, and poor families who have to find £140 a year for the Licence fee may not then be able or willing to buy a subscription to Sky on top of that. And lastly, from the viewpoint of the average Tory back bencher, an “unbiased BBC” which investigates climate change, tries to find the root causes of the migration, tries to explain what cuts in Welfare actually mean, suggests that not many people would actually benefit from reduced Inheritance tax comes over as rampant socialism to them.

 The Friends of Widows and Orphans?

Among the promises that helped the Conservatives to win the May General Election were measures aimed at helping widows and orphans – well, if not actually always widows and orphans those who were left after a house-owner’s death.  There were two measures promised; No inheritance tax (death duties) would be payable on the death of the owner of a property valued at less than a million pounds.   There are more of those than you might imagine – and anyone affected who wasn’t already a Conservative supportet could reasonably be expected to vote to secure a Conservative victory and the honouring of that promise.

The other promise affected a great many more people, including myself.  Folk nearing the end of their lives and needing local authority care, had to pay for that care unless they had very little savings and did not own a property that could be sold to raise the necessary cash.  This meant that many modest family homes had to be sold to pay for the care needed by the owner during his or her final years. Home owners were unable to pass on their most valuable asset to their sons and grandchildren.  The government was to put a cap (I think it was £75,000) on the amount that someone in care could be required to pay.  The family home might still have to be sold but the home-owner’s heirs might, at least, receive a worth-while legacy.

Well, the Conservatives did win the election though (I’m glad to say) without my vote.  Guess what?   They’re implementing at once that freedom from inheritance tax on homes valued at less than a million pounds.   And the cap on those in receipt of care?   Oh yes, they’re going to apply it – but not for another couple of years.

Well, I’m 94 and have stayed out of care so far.   It looks as though, if my heirs are to inherit my modest bungalow, I must try to stay out of the clutches of the official carers for at least another couple of years – or ‘pop my clogs’ without too much further delay!.