Tonight I will attend a service of remembrance in Wokingham.
It will bring on again that sense of loss we feel . The only monarch we have ever known, a constant in our changing lives, is to be buried tomorrow. A funeral brings a finality, an ultimate reckoning that someone treasured will not return. Never again will we see her on our tv screens or at an event we attend. There will be no more wise words or amusing encounters with Paddington Bear.
In my mind will flood the poignant images and memories of the short service and opening vigil in Westminster Hall. As I stood there with other Privy Counsellors I was overwhelmed by the sadness, the solemnity, the silence awaiting the arrival of the Gun carriage. No-one spoke. I wanted to think about our late Queen and take in the austere beauty of the Hall awaiting its dead sovereign.Ā The grey stones of the walls and floorĀ needed the explosive colours of the flag draped over the coffin and the gold, yellow and reds of the uniforms of those to guard her to bring it to a stunningĀ magnificence. That mighty room was dominated by its new centrepiece, where all eyes were fixed.
The sun rushed through the yellows of the North window, commemorating her Diamond Jubilee. The tolling bell and the orders of the military occasionally broke the silence.Ā No-one entering that place could be in any doubt that we marked the passing of a great lady, who in death as in life was seen in regal magnificence. No-one stirred, spell bound by the scene and the silence.
September 18, 2022
The Queen was an outstanding representative of the country, and she welcomed all peoples of the world equally. She must have been bored silly at times, but always managed to give the appearance of a genuine smile, or genuine interest in whatever was presented to her. She kept out of politics (unless instructed to ‘advise’ the public, re: covid) and that made her popular with most of the public, as she didn’t alienate people who had different views and opinions by pushing her own personal views and opinion.
Her kind will never be seen again.
September 18, 2022
Indeed an outstanding representative of the country.
Alas it now seems certain that the Queen was very poorly advised by government and their ill chosen “experts” (who wrongly trusted the bogus claims of vaccine producers) to give her advice “Donāt be selfish ā get a COVID shot”. The claims on vaccine effectiveness and safely were vastly exaggerated/dishonest/even fraud perhaps and for the young they have done far more harm than good. Just as King Charles is alas quite wrong and very hypocritical with it on climate alarmism, GM crops. quack medicines, organic farming… Someone politician suggested he can now let Prince William take over from him in pushing these daft views. William would be well advised to stop doing this too and keep out of politics especially as he is wrong. He could easily be King in a just a few years Charles is nearly 74 already and men die earlier than women in general.
September 18, 2022
+many
And doesnāt membership of WEF cost Ā£ squillions?
Or maybe if you are very high up you get free membership?
September 18, 2022
It amazed me to learn that so many of our medicines are based on oil for the simple expedient of monetising said oil. Not because it was ever particularly curative.
Now they are pushing more ānaturalā cures ( oil prices?) after years of denigrating them ..making magic mushrooms illegal and then ā rediscoveringā them as a cure for psychosis ( or somesuch).
Choosing medicine solely on profit?
Daffyās Elixir!
September 18, 2022
They can’t patent magic mushrooms, so no one will fund the research to see if they are effective and safe.
September 18, 2022
@Dave well you can sometimes patent such things if you find an active ingredient or similar within them for certain conditions.
September 18, 2022
Trust in Medicine-pharma ethics has taken a significant fall.
As data becomes available serious issues are coming to light. Policy changes have now happened. The public are less trusting and more aware. Some would say only after legally forced data disclosures and excess deaths.
Salesmen push what they can sell.
It would seem safety issues tied up known safe drugs and naturals but allowed other newer treatments with less safety history. Rather perplexing.
Maybe they knew it was a bio-weapon to start off with, feared the worst, but were unable to reveal what they knew and when. Nature or evolution luck may have saved us the worst this time.
September 18, 2022
Dave
+1
I meant more that the powers that be make natural substances illegal and then try to exploit them.
They have in fact managed to get a patent for psilocybin ā¦the hallucinogenic substance found in magic mushrooms although I believe there was a legal battle( ongoing over psychedelic intellectual property).
September 18, 2022
We were told when he married Camila she would not be queen. How sad he behaves like a grubby politician and uses time to think we forget.
Their behaviour towards Princess Dianna was totally wrong. She was 19 years and vulnerable, Charles was much older and knew what he was doing- ..whatever love meansā¦.
He should stand aside like his great uncle if Camilla means that much to him.
September 18, 2022
We were told that the Conservatives would take control immigration, they would not increases taxes, would maintain the triple lock, that wind and solar would lower energy prices, that CO2 was causing a climate emergency, that Cameron would stay on even if the referendum went for leave and would deliver the section(?) notice the next day, that leave means leave by May, that interest rates would go up further if were left the ERM by Major, that IHT thresholds would go up to Ā£1m each by Osborne, of the weapons of mass destruction that can be deployed in minutes by Bliarā¦ anyone notice a trend here? So what of Truss I wonder?
September 18, 2022
Charley was manipulated by the ‘establishment’. They should have let him marry Camilla in the first place instead of pushing poor Diana on him.
September 18, 2022
I know you are strongly against covid vaccines, and I understand your viewpoint, but I disagree. Any vaccine given to millions of people in a very short space of time will appear to have lots of derogatory side effects, which would not be so publicly noticeable if it were not for the short time frame. EVERY vaccine and drug has warnings about side effects, and warnings prevent being sued due to unknown side effects. You make you own personal choice whether to risk it, and stand by your decision. I agree that some vaccinations were given indiscriminately, ie. children, but some children with other ailments have benefitted greatly from the added protection, as only a few isolated cases were permanently damaged or died. Should ALL children have been refused vaccination? Overall, the vaccines vastly reduced the hospitalisations and deaths, but covid will still be used to excuse poor NHS performance for many years to come.
September 18, 2022
I am all for sensible, net benefit, effective and safe vaccines and strongly against dangerous and ineffective ones. I have had three Covid vaccines myself. In the case of the young and Covid they were never at any serious risk so there was no way the vaccines could be net beneficial to them. They even coerced vaccines into people who had already had Covid. It seem very clear that the effectiveness and safety claims for the vaccines were very wrong and totally dishonest. It seems to be there has been criminal negligence and fraud on a huge scale. The regulators hugely failed the public or were corrupted as is usual by the hugely wealth industry. Not only that but so was social media and Ofcom went along with this.
The statistics show they made huge mistakes and certainly for the young at least have done large net harm. Yet still they persist in injecting them.
September 18, 2022
How can one tell regarding hospitalisations and death?
Who predicted all the dire figures?
Ohā¦the same people who closed our country down and caused immeasurable suffering.
September 18, 2022
“Overall, the vaccines vastly reduced the hospitalisations and deaths,”
Who told you that Shirley, the BBC? You don’t know what the outcome of no vaccinations would have been.
September 19, 2022
“You donāt know what the outcome of no vaccinations would have been.”
Indeed but I think the statistics from the UK and other countries rather suggests that had the government done none of vaccines, had no lock down and no masks the outcome overall would have been rather better on balance. Both medically and overwhelmingly in economic terms.
September 18, 2022
Sorry Shirley M, but I have yet to meet anyone who was properly informed of the side effects.
So far more deaths and serious side effects have been reported on the Yellow Card Reports than ALL previous vaccines since the start of the YC reports.
September 18, 2022
There probably has never been a medicine or a vaccine which doesnāt have unintended side effects for some people. Until we have bespoke, personalised medicines / vaccines this will continue to be the case. The plain fact remains however that the vaccines (at least the western ones which work) have succeeded in reducing covid mortality from about 1% to about 0.1%. They also meant those who got it (Inc me) were much less ill than they would otherwise have been.
Quite why there are people on the right with otherwise sensible views pushing anti-vaxx nonsense is rather bizarre to me!
To Sir Johnās post, we have indeed lost a great Queen.
September 18, 2022
With medicines one can stop taking it.
Once injected there aināt much one can do!
September 18, 2022
Indeed drugs and vaccines nearly all have adverse side effects & that is why it is vital to balance the positives with the negatives for a course of action – they clearly got this very wrong with Covid vaccines and the lockdowns – especially for the young. Driven surely by putting profit about safety. The regulators have made appalling errors or they were bought, influenced or corrupted in other ways. Where is the criminal investigation?
September 18, 2022
Please not bespoke vaccines…that (or at least, a cure for every ill) seems to be the next stage for the mRNA Industry, and they are rushing to make a lot of money from it.
I fear that many very safe, effective and cheap generic drugs will taken off prescription lists and replaced by rapidly engineered mRNA alternatives, whose side effects will only become apparent too late. If Covid is anything to go by, people might also increasingly be coerced into having treatments whether they like it or not.
September 18, 2022
Richard 1
You have reminded me that to start with we were told that these jabs would stop us catching Covid and stop us passing it on. When this story was found wanting we were told it would stop us getting seriously ill and dying. This for the not serious Omicron. Charlatans.
September 18, 2022
The question of whether the mRNA injections are effective or not has nothing to do with being on the right or on the left, Richard1. Dr Mike Yeadon, formerly a scientific officer working for Pfizer, has very strong reservations about their advisability in general, BUT judged that for elderly people with a damaged immune system they would confer more benefit than risk. His politics are unknown to me and irrelevant to the facts of the matter.
It’s therefore very understandable that Her Majesty the Queen, at 96, would have taken a positive view of these injections, thinking perhaps of the many elderly people among her subjects who would thereby be able to live a little longer.
September 19, 2022
There is no evidence that it was the vaccines that reduced the death rate from what you state is 1% to 0.1% as you state. If that was the case there would be mass death in countries which had few if any vaccinations, and I am afraid that it is not borne out in the statistics. What the statistics do show is that there is a worrying excess death rate throughout a lot of developed countries, which by coincidence were the ones that were heavily injected.
Before you try and lazily label me as an āanti vaxxerā, I have had multiple vaccinations as an international traveller, but I am also an analyst who can see through the b****hit.
Zorro
September 18, 2022
LifeLogic
Agreed! Thereās already speculation heāll (The King) suggestā¦not campaign.
September 18, 2022
+1 made worse by the fact that he is totally wrong on climate chance, GM, quack medicine, farming… and also it makes him a total hypocrite. Ā£1 million a year travel bill for me but no weeks holiday in Spain for you mate and you can only heat one room of your two up two down too.
September 18, 2022
LL, you may have seen in the DT that anonymous Palace officials are already nuancing the King’s statement last week that he wouldn’t publicly involve himself in green issues. He might ‘highlight’ them rather than championing them, they say, and he could even possibly attend COP27, though not in the same ‘capacity’. So I’m afraid it may not matter who is monarch, as long as officials give them the same ‘advice’.
September 18, 2022
Indeed it is his misguided belief system informed by his a levels B & C I think in History and French! He will not be able to contain himself I suspect.
September 18, 2022
Lifelogic,
It is fifty something years since the King studied A levels. He was at Gordonstoun getting bullied. Life moves on.
A top quality Lifelogic post though. Degrees and universities all covered, now drilling down into A levels. What next primary schools and prep schools?
The school of hard knocks seems strangely absent from your posts. Educational certificates is all.
September 18, 2022
LL: Well, at least it wasn’t PPE. Actually, what’s wrong with history and French, for a monarch? I think ‘Honi soit qui mal y pense’ is the motto on their coat of arms. He has to know what it means…
September 18, 2022
@ Richard II nothing wrong with History and French but do not get these people to design bridges, aircraft, tax systems, do medical operations or design energy, transport systems or to understand complex chaotic systems like the climate as very few of them are up to it.
September 18, 2022
Peter people rarely change very much, if they cannot do science at GCSE they will probably not be good at logic or science later. See what happened when Thatcher appoints three O levels (Englishx2 & History) John Major as Chancellor. A job one might have thought a bit numeracy and logic night have been rather useful.
September 18, 2022
Interesting. I put down my marker a few days ago the KC will involve himself in eco matters and other things.
HM Queen Elizabeth was wholly admirable but although KC is putting himself about to build his image he is not the character his mother was. He showed a temper when signing some documents and I’m afraid his fidgetting habits annoy me, you know fingers and thumbs in pockets, tie touching and direction pointing all the time. Sorry folks! Clearly it wouldn’t be a job for me, tolerance is certaunly not my strong point.
September 18, 2022
Give it a rest. What certainty you claim? I am certain the vaccine saved millions from an awful early protracted death or weeks of miserable suffering with Covid, indeed so many still have ‘long Covid’ symptoms.
September 18, 2022
Remember āYuppie Fluā?
September 18, 2022
Look at the statistic they quite clearly do not support this view?
September 18, 2022
Very well said Mickey.
The ant-vaxxers even take over responses to a nice message about Queen Elizabeth…
September 18, 2022
I am not anti-vax by any means. I and my children have had all the generally suggested jabs over my lifetime. I am however against dangerous & ineffective vaccines that on balance do net harm as surely everyone sensible should be?
The Covid vaccines, looking at the abundant statistic from the UK and around the world, certainly seem to be net harmful, often dangerous and fairly ineffective too. I myself know directly two people who have suffered quite serious vaccine side effects.
September 18, 2022
Stephen A,
Agreed.
September 19, 2022
āAnt-vaxxerā (LOL) – go on call LL a āconspiracy theoristā too, you know you want tooā¦.
Zorro
September 18, 2022
Your certainty wouldn’t survive a careful look at the recent statistics, MT. Sometimes things that looked like a good idea at the time don’t turn out to be so good after all. Nothing unusual in that. We just have to learn from the experience.
September 19, 2022
Well we know dozens of people who had jabs, and a few who had a day or 2 feeling under the weather as a result. Lots of unjabbed had 10 days or even weeks of feeling like shit. By and large hopitals were full of those who didn’t. Quite a number left in a box.
September 18, 2022
Your ‘certainty’ about an untested hypothetical projection could instead be ‘extreme credulit’y.
September 18, 2022
Our wonderful Queen will be sorely missed.
I agree with your post LL and believe she was not wisely advised re the jabs.
September 18, 2022
I would have loved to go to Westminster Hall, but the length of the wait for someone of my age, made it inadvisable.
I remember her Coronation. I was 13 at the time. I had no idea her reign would be so long. I am surprised at the sense of loss I feel. I know time moves on, but I find it hard to imagine not watching her broadcast on Christmas Day, and her many other appearances throughout the year.
As a Christian, I believe Her Majesty has gone to a better place, and I draw comfort from that thought, and give thanks for her long life of service, to our Nation.
September 18, 2022
I feel very much the same as you CG. She was a defender of THE faith. Christmas will be very poignant without her.
September 18, 2022
A figurehead who never offered opinions apart from carefully scripted Christmas messages and state opening of parliament speeches. She was also a constant presence during the lifetime of most posters on here.
Details around the person who attempted to get to the coffin remind us of the darker side of life in this country today.
September 19, 2022
Very rarely listened to or watched the Christmas messages, stayed in the kitchen / dining room and got on with something more worthwhile. Different to the State Opening where she had to recite a lot of reasonable sounding intentions that hardly ever got attention after the New Year resumption.
September 18, 2022
Well said.
September 18, 2022
An incredible amazing woman who at such a young a young age dedicated her whole life to serving her country and its people. A real human side that when faced with internal upheavals within her family stopped, though listened and acted always under the microscope of media attention.
Very skilled in her countryside and sporting activities and lightened up the day for thousands when she attended the major race and sport meetings and was considered amongst fellow owners as an equal. A people’s Queen who always appeared comfortable wherever and with whoever she was meeting. Her length of service, working up to the very end of such a full and active reign gives her a place in history where I am sure she will become a legend.
September 18, 2022
Stopped though should have read .. thought
September 18, 2022
Meanwhile the Ā£ is at a 37 year low against the (very weak anyway) US $, about 1/6 of what it was against the Swiss Franc just 47 years ago. We have the highest and most complex taxes for 70+ years, very poor public services, a mad totally deluded religious energy policy (that Truss still retains) and very high Sunak caused inflation. Have not our many dire PMs and Chancellors done brilliantly well at debasing the Ā£ and increasing taxes while wasting most of the proceeds on dross during my lifetime.
We will see what Kwasi comes up with on Friday – he is certainly right on lifting bank bonus restrictions.
September 18, 2022
+1 LL. I await future government decisions with hope, but very little (if any) trust that they will put the UK ahead of every other country (and their people) in the world. We can’t take them all into the UK, but our government is giving it a darn good try! I wonder how many million immigrants we will have next year?
September 18, 2022
They debase the currency in order to inflate away the debt they build to buy votes. They bring in large scale (legal) immigration in order to artificially boost GDP. Now the scam is beginning to come undone.
Those with money and skills will be leaving the country whilst those (illegals) with no money and no skills sail on in.
September 18, 2022
Agreed. It’s a ponzi scheme to make company profits at the expense of the hard pressed taxpayer who provides top up benefits to the low paid and their extended families (benefit recipients and the wealthy are the only ones who can afford large families). When these low paid immigrants move to the better paid jobs which would be better given to Brits as this would gain more tax without the added expense of adding to the population, and when the immigrants get old and require pensions I guess there will be even greater demand for ‘more immigrants’ to pay the pensions of the retired immigrants) as if they all contribute highly to the economy, which they do NOT!
How many millions more immigrants can we expect? Will the promised immigration reduction result in an even bigger explosion of immigrants? No doubt we will be kept in the dark and deliberately deceived.
September 18, 2022
The government should do far more to encourage firms to train people. Training of the indigenous seems to have shrivelled into extinction since we were in the EEC and EU. How foolish can you get, but I suppose the EU were given priority over our own country, to get the EU unemployed workers offloaded to the UK to save them the cost of paying benefits and child welfare.
September 18, 2022
We need far fewer worthless degrees in grievance studies etc. and far more practical work skills.
September 18, 2022
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-apprenticeship-week-2022-building-the-future-with-apprenticeships
Apprentices are leading the charge in building back stronger from the pandemic with over 40% more people starting apprenticeships in the first quarter of 2021/22 than in the same period 2020/21, which is up again from pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
From delivering life-saving care in hospitals, to helping us deliver the skilled workforce this country needs, apprentices are a cornerstone of the governmentās plans to level up the country, with over 5 million people starting apprenticeships since May 2010.
September 18, 2022
Boosts total GDP a little but reduces GDP per cap and living standards.
September 18, 2022
Indeed. It has been the restrictions on bankersā bonuses that has caused all the problems. The mind boggles. Another 2008 anyone?
September 18, 2022
Yep. You know what happens next. Bonuses paid on present valuations. Crash is then allowed to happen. Who could have know. Lessons will be learned. Fred will have someone else to play golf with.
September 18, 2022
Well written, Sir.
September 18, 2022
From Cymbeline by William Shakespeare
āFear no more the heat oā the sun,
Nor the furious winterās rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and taāen thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.ā
September 18, 2022
Good articles in the Sunday Telegraph by Matt Ridley and Lord Rees. Though the later is surely rather deluded in his climate alarmism exaggerations. He also thinks scientists should be “on tap and not on top”. Well that depends on getting the right scientists surely – not the group think political ones we have suffered from like Whitty.
Does he really think ignorant & irrational dopes like Sharma, Hancock, May, Cameron, Major, Osborne, Bliar, Hammond, Heath. Brown, Sunak, Boris, Starmer, Drakeford, Sturgeon… should be on top? Give me a Richard Feynman, Ivar Giaever or Freeman Dyson any day over these deluded politicians & dopes.
September 18, 2022
She was the epitome of a Constitutional Monarch who performed her Constitutional role magnificently throughout her reign.
I fear the new King, who has had such a long apprenticeship, has still not learned that in order to properly perform his role, he must stay above politics and out of contentious issues. He has already, only a handful of days into his reign, indicated that he intends to continue promoting the Climate Change Propaganda and associated policies. He seems to be intent on copying the example of James I (who followed another magnificent Queen Elizabeth) and was branded “the wisest fool in Christendom” and was succeeded by Charles I who caused a Civil War and paid the ultimate price.
September 18, 2022
I believe in monarchy. However, Charles is simply unfit to be king, he has proved that already by being incapable or unwilling to learn from his mother who was exemplar in the role over decades. Similarly he does not want to conform with convention over his second wife to stand aside like his uncle, or stand by Camilla will not be queen- out of honour for his first wife.
Sadly his reign will be in itself be an advocate to get rid of monarchy. He is too dull or arrogant realise.
September 18, 2022
+1
September 18, 2022
A solemn occasion. I’m not sure all the thoughts of those attending would have been as selfless and poignant and as our host’s. We live in a world of Machievellian politics.
September 18, 2022
The British Monarchy died with the sad passing of our nation’s true figurehead. Her replacements have been captured by a political ideology that seeks nothing less than the dismantling of our world to be replaced by a world that operates along very, very different ideas.
Macron’s got the ear of this King. The Tory party will now fall silent on the politicisation of the environment. This is the fundamental problem. A party wedded to protecting the march of such an internationalist (MARXISM in all but name) ideology that seems intent on causing harm and damaging liberty to the wider spread of our population
We are being led into a dark space by people who no longer cherish our nation, its values and its history. This is mirrored in the USA which shouldn’t surprise anyone.
September 18, 2022
+1
He attended the WEF last time did he not? What on earth is he doing there with his mother at that age?
September 18, 2022
+1
September 18, 2022
A life of service and dedication to her subjects all around the world. An example to us all.
JF
September 18, 2022
Undeniably the most Majestic Queen the UK has ever had, she gave of her very very best for the whole of her magnificient reign, RIP your Gracious Majesty. Our thoughts are with your family.
On 23/9 the Chancellor will produce a mini budget, I hope Kwasi really goes for growth …. we’ve heard about a City Big Bang 2.0 and rolling back Corp Tax & NI rises … I would also wish the following included or very soon.
* VAT reduced to 15% & zero for insulation products. We don’t send any VAT to EU anymore, so lets see this brexit benefit.
* Makes IHT the exception rather than the rule. Do away with it or make it Ā£5m, so only the true rich are caught.
* Rollback the ever instrusive IR35 harming the self employed; they aren’t employees with holidays & pensions!
* Revamp the Freeports initiative, which were nobbled by the Treasury 1st time around.
* Re-instates the indexation for all personal tax allowances.
* Rollback Buy to Let penal legislation against landlords – they are just selling up, reducing the rental pool.
* Higher the ludicrously low Ā£26k salary needed for a immigrant work visa… Ā£40k might be more effective & stem the flow of the hundreds of thousands legally coming here, when we don’t have houses and infrastructure to cater for them, never mind ourselves.
* Reintroduce National Savings index linked certificates to protect smaller savers pots of savings.
The Chancellor will need to explain his growth forecasts and how the budget deficits will be managed, so Sterling regains some ground against the Dollar and Euro, as this is importing higher inflation too. I’ve left the energy security question alone as this has been subject to extensive discussion already, it needs a budget response too, businesses are waiting, or many will shut..
September 18, 2022
+1 and the next election will probably be in about 20 months so Jam today is needed not promises of cuts in March 24 just before next election. You have not kept any promises from the last manifesto after all.
September 18, 2022
It will be interesting what VAT rate is set in NI
September 18, 2022
Beautifully written John.
Iāve been quite surprised that the Church of England havenāt done more around the Country to bring people together today and tomorrow, inclusive of the people that are of other faiths. This is the biggest funeral event of our lifetimes. Sadly a big majority of Christians in the Country no longer feel a strong connection with the church structure other than for baptisms, weddings and funerals. School assemblies stopped in a more secular school environment. So many people that could take strength from the church no longer feel it is approachable.
Successful churches often in wealth enclaves, where its good to be seen and network have an active set of activities for the elderly/retired and the youth through Brownies, Scouts and regular celebrations with music recitals will probably just wonder what Iām going on about but there will be a lot of lost souls tomorrow, forced out of work by the effective lockdown with nowhere open to go, just surrounded by frankly the rather depressing tv reporting methods.
September 18, 2022
I had a search online to see if there was a condolence book anywhere that we could walk to locally today or tomorrow whilst we are off work. Itās locked up from 5pm Friday to 9am Tuesday in the Council Offices! What is the point of that? If they didnāt want to keep the reception open why not have it in one of the churches or pass it around over the two days between the three Church of England Churches, actually I donāt know if theyāre open tomorrow I couldnāt see anything on the message board this morning when I walked past. Far too much focus on the tv tomorrow. Perhaps all the local vicars are on bank holiday too.
September 18, 2022
Lockdown Monday – It’s a way for the BBC or ITV to at least keep their viewing figures up, A-Tracy. People going to church services don’t help them to do that.
September 19, 2022
I watched the BBC coverage/filming which was better quality and muted the sound and listened to GB News commentary without their fuzzy out of focus filming.
September 18, 2022
Agree with your words and sentiment
September 18, 2022
Surely many churches should have the service projected on a large screen in many of the churches so people can watch it together as a congregation. But the the CofE is hardly very good at organising these things.
September 19, 2022
None of the churches near me offered a service with large screen, they werenāt open. I went for a walk to check. Like I said the CoE donāt seem to care that their attendees reduce and are dwindling away, their churches converted into dwellings or used by other faiths. Even their stock in weddings and funerals are reducing. I have been to four weddings recently none of them in church, one in a chapel with a humanitarian service (that was a first). Five funerals mainly in the crematorium, one just cut away to having the celebration of life without a crematorium service at all, it worked I can see more doing it in the future.
Would it have really been too much trouble today for the local churches to set up a screen to watch the service together, a tea and scone get together to celebrate the life of the passing of Head of the Church after 70 years loyal service? An opportunity to build community. It could have been advertised by the local schools, church notice board (ours still has something from June advertised), the local online local paper, the council, the whatās on in your area google search engines, but they chose not to. Sad, it was an opportunity missed, perhaps it was to get tv viewing figures up.
September 18, 2022
JR, that was a beautiful and fitting commentary.
September 18, 2022
I find myself reflecting on the contrast within our society, the 10 days, the pomp and ceremony, the incredible outpouring of grief, finally the world almost holding its breath. Then I think back to the Beatles ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and the sad realisation that not all people are noticed, lauded, grieved over.
September 18, 2022
Talking about the past 10 days –
Is there a reason why the BBC and Sky News arenāt covering the fortnight long riots in Leicester
September 18, 2022
What are they rioting about?
September 18, 2022
A Cricket Match
September 18, 2022
Probably for the same reason they didn’t cover the Gilet Jaune riots in France.
September 19, 2022
Remember Norman Tebbit and the cricket test, Glen? I think he called it right. But even he probably didn’t imagine it would come to rioting.
September 19, 2022
These are meant to be British citizens supporting England! It appears Charles, as self-declared head of all faiths, is required to help resolve Hindu versus Muslim conflict already.
What a Tory govt self imposed diversity mess.
September 18, 2022
King Charles has Green credentials that are totally flawed. As they are based on do as I say , not do as I do!
His use of ICE vehicles are a prime example of this. The largest aircraft to bring the Queens body to London from Scotland for example.
I will continue to ignore the green brigade as their thinking is totally off the rails. Associating carbon ( soot) with life giving plant food Co2 ( a needed element in life) is a prime example!
To many are looking to expand their wealth with this SCAM!
September 18, 2022
+1 I am still waiting for an explanation of how the earth came out of the last ice age when there were few, if any, people around and definitely NO industrialisation. What caused the global warming then? A hint for the religious net zero zealots, it was NOT caused by man or fossil fuels. Could it have been the sun, the moon, and even Jupiter and Venus affect our climate, or maybe it’s just nature doing it’s own thing as it always will, regardless of mankind?
September 18, 2022
Too many polar bears and mammoths having barbecues of course.
September 19, 2022
scientificamerican.com, 04/04/2012, āWhat thawed the Last Ice Age?ā
September 18, 2022
Indeed I see Biden is bringing about 200+ people plus many huge vehicles over!
September 18, 2022
They even call this vital plant, tree and crop food āpollutionā!
September 18, 2022
As the world pays its respect to the passing of a faithful Queen, there’s a sense of the passing of an era, a framework of values that she embraced and lived by, thus speaking for many obscure, unsung souls who felt marginalised by the modern world.
I recently buried one such of my own, who’s hand I’d held since a little child – a difficult life, but one gloriously redeemed by grace through faith in Christ, whose heavenly Presence she earnestly looked forward to passing into. My sadness is turned to Joy (that was her name!)
September 18, 2022
Norman,
My condolences. A state funeral will make many reflect on their own losses.
September 19, 2022
+1
September 18, 2022
It is going to be interesting to see how far Lizzie and Kwasi will go towards some MMT thinking. The UK is near top of the G7 income inequality table, a situation that has developed over the last four decades.
Tax cuts will have little effect on the sixty percent that are lower income households; most effect on the top ten percent who will have little need to spend a tax cut and just bank it. Alas, tax cuts for the high earners and big business is Conservative ideology. Most tax cuts on the income side take months if not a year or two, to have an effect on confident household spending and spending is desperately needed now. Public and private.
More spending, needs cuts to spending (consumption) taxes, VAT is the most effective at increasing and decreasing spending power quickly. On the business side large portions of Capital Allowances are more effective than reducing Corporation Tax at getting a business to spend on new kit. Then there are Excise Duties; Import Duties and Import VAT. The cuts could be time limited as āspecial offersā, supermarket style.
September 18, 2022
Acorn, not that this is the thread for this discussion but Iām curious, regarding the British lowest paid do their benefits packages get added into their earnings from perhaps a 16 hour working week? How is their annual income calculated and if housing is excluded how do they exclude the housing cost for the average family to take it out of their annual income?
September 18, 2022
By the detail in your question, I assume you have far more intimate knowledge and experience of benefits packages than I have.
September 18, 2022
Acorn, our government seem to enjoy taking lots of tax and national insurance then feel generous and cuddly giving it back to the select groups. If they are counting the annual wages for the statistics and comparing them country to country not all our working tax credits, child tax credits, universal credits, housing benefits, free school uniforms allowances, free school meals, allowances for furniture, allowances for childhood disabilities etc. I just believe the poor when compared in inequality tables should have all their benefits totted up and included. Especially when the UK imported lots of citizens who get benefits sent abroad to their home countries. I know a lady that gets more from her benefits package not working with children spaced out in age than she ever would in full time paid employment.
September 19, 2022
a-tracey Universal credit has changed that. In order to rake in the full benefits package a certain amount of minimum wage work needs to be undertaken each week. Not too much and certainly not at an increased hourly rate otherwise they start to lose out and it’s not worth the effort (the margin rate of withdrawal would make a Ā£100,000 loser of tax free threshold or Ā£50,000 loser of child benefit blush).
In my own situation (if I did not have savings!) I could take home Ā£36K doing a minimum wage job with Universal Credit, on top of that I would get the Ā£1,650 gas and electricity help, plus free school meals which get me closer to Ā£40K TAKE HOME.
Where is the differential between jobs with responsibility (who pay tax and NI on their wages which minimum wage recipients do not) and those without?
September 19, 2022
After Budgets we have the rather poor examples of the effect on income and taxation for single, married, married with children and pensioners. That crude somewhat inaccurate portrayal never includes those on types of benefits. I agree when all advantages taken into account it would appear many find themselves better off when compared to fulltime working low income families struggling to make ends meet.
Chloe Smith was appointed Secretary of State for Work and Pensions on 6 September 2022
The Secretary of State has overall responsibility for the business of the department. They have direct responsibility for departmental expenditure and departmental management and are responsible for the departmentās overall response to COVID-19.
DWP is responsible for the administration of the State Pension and working age benefits system, providing support to:
people of working age
employers
pensioners
families and children
disabled people.
September 19, 2022
You said it acorn
For once I agree with you.
September 18, 2022
acorn
How is your post relevant to today’s article by Sir John about Her Majesty?
September 18, 2022
Somebody has to stick up for the economy which is in the toilet. We have a non-functioning government and a nation suffering a major bout of media inspired vicarious grieving. When is some ranking politician going to tell the nation what to expect and prepare for next January?
September 18, 2022
Ridiculous response acorn.
Have some empathy.
September 19, 2022
We’ll see in January who was ridiculous, Peter. People are concerned that the new government might perhaps be taking advantage of the Queen’s death to delay action that’s urgently needed now.
Energy companies are about to tell customers their new charges, so there’s a lot of anxiety on that front. Not only do some face grim choices between heating or eating, but also jobs are at risk if the employer can’t pay the energy bill. I’m no fan of the EU, but at least there they are already facing up to the situation.
Reply The government has to observe a period national mourning prior to the funeral. They have now agreed to have an active Wednesday to Friday in Parliament tackling energy, recession threats and health delays at the first opportunity for them.
September 19, 2022
@R – the next increase in gas and electricity prices does not arrive until October. If the action government takes is at the point of sale rather than hand outs it does not matter that there have been no pronouncements in the last 10 days. The government said they were going to cap @ Ā£2,500 (therefore mental health and anxiety have been assuaged) so the only issue is the mechanism.
Wind your neck in until Friday maybe?
September 18, 2022
off topic usually appears every day. I make my share…..terribly sorry.
September 18, 2022
Rather than reflect on all the competitive and insta-mourning I will commend you on the writing Sir John.
You have shared your experience well and brought the event to life.
September 18, 2022
The funeral has been hijacked for leftist ideological purposes. Utterly vile
As a mark of respect for our Queen, I won’t be watching an occasion infected by Covid, Green and NHS politics
Rest in Peace Elizabeth.
September 18, 2022
Dom,
???
I watched the procession of funeral coffin to Westminster. I saw/heard none of that.
There are some posters going off at a tangent on here – but the live coverage I saw was difficult to fault.
September 18, 2022
Indeed I see Biden is bringing about 200+ people plus flying many huge vehicles over all to save the planet one assume.
September 18, 2022
Lovely person, women and mother, no one better.
The queen frist son has alway been controversial in his thinking, founder of the WEF in 1971 and also picked the leader to run the group, sometimes writes for them, and has always had great influenceur in the place of west minster and now your King.
September 18, 2022
We have had some very rum people doing the job over the years and George VI and Elizabeth II have likely been amongst the most normal and the most dedicated to the people. We have been fortunate to have had them. Charles and William show signs of being much the same.
September 18, 2022
Off topic, at a meeting today between Liz Truss and the Irish Prime Minister:
https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/2022/09/18/taoiseach-and-truss-agree-opportunity-exists-to-find-negotiated-outcome-on-ni-protocol/
“The two leaders also discussed the Northern Ireland protocol and they agreed an opportunity exists for the European Union and the United Kingdom to find a negotiated outcome to the disagreements on the mechanism for avoiding a hard Border in Ireland.”
I don’t see how, when the Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney very recently laid down:
https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/october-28-key-date-for-northern-ireland-protocol/
“all future arrangements must be based within a scenario, which sees Northern Ireland remaining inside the EU Single Market for goods”
Because clearly that is incompatible with all four of the UK government’s broad proposals:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/northern-ireland-protocol-the-uks-solution/northern-ireland-protocol-the-uks-solution
There could be no question of any goods being allowed into Northern Ireland from Great Britain without EU checks and controls, through whatever colour channel; the only regulatory standards permitted would be EU standards; the EU would control subsidy policy; and necessarily it would all have to be under the ultimate supervision of the EU court.
All this nonsense stems from Theresa May’s original crazy idea that the best way to regulate the small volume of goods carried across the open land border into the Irish Republic was not by the obvious answer of export controls on those goods but by import controls, EU checks and controls on all the goods brought into the UK, plus moreover EU checks and controls on all the goods produced in the UK.
September 18, 2022
DC, it was not a ‘crazy idea’ of May’s, it was a deliberate, malign plan: as she knew, her planned ‘alignment’ keeping the UK within single-market rules ‘for the sake of NI’ would have created such economic chaos and political instability that NI would have voted to join the RoI, and the UK electorate would have voted to rejoin the EU.
September 18, 2022
Dear Sir John, Thank you for this.
How wonderfully the monarchy has evolved. The Norman and early Plantagenet kings owned England and held its people in thrall. Today, we own the monarch and honour the King and the royal family,warts and all, as the representation ( not the representative) of the people. Queen Elizabeth perfectly understood this from childhood. Aided not doubt by her faith, as Queen she perfectly enbodied this role of the Lord as Servant, with cheerfulness, love and usually with good judgment.
King Charles also well understands his role, though temperamentally he will find it harder to enact.
Both he and his mother knew that they were there not by right but because we want them to represent what we would want to be. Accident of birth + training and devotion trumps a President Blair, a President Cameron or a President Attenborough.
September 18, 2022
Your introduction describing correctly the terror and attempted genocide by the Normans, which was especially meted out to the north of England, brings to my mind how England’s history is portrayed today.
Our Establishment and elite levels in society when referring to our history almost never mention the period before 1066, as if there was no society before then.
Many members of our high levels look back as if the Norman invasion was to be respected. Many of their descendents are still landiwners among us on land stolen from their predecessors.
September 18, 2022
What disturbs me most about the serpent-subtle distinction between ‘campaigning’ and ‘highlighting’ is that as king, Charles will still be pressurising ministers, but now it will be done privately and off the record.
So we should never become aware of it. Nor ever know, to take a hypothetical example, the connection between the sudden ministerial withdrawal of some fracking or coalmining or nuclear initiative, and the subsequent ennobling of said minister or the bestowal of a knighthood.
September 18, 2022
I remember with pride, swearing allegiance to the Queen in Salisbury 1963 and had the honour to take part in the birthday parade that same year.
September 18, 2022
Well done ā argumentative, informative, acute. Iāll probably add this website to my list of trustworthy websites with compacom.com on top. Itās always good to have a chance to compare some sources of information to get a complete analysis.
September 19, 2022
The House of Commons has already decided that the government should be empowered to depart from it.
September 19, 2022
Ah well Denis I am afraid that the House of Commons doesn’t have the last word by itself when it comes to international agreements – there may be other considerations as well as consequences.
September 19, 2022
It has the last word over whether an international agreement is implemented in our law. The unelected legislators-for-life in the House of Lords can obstruct the will of the elected chamber – is that what you are relying on? how very democratic of you – but not prevent its will being carried out, and they should be extremely careful how they proceed. Or perhaps you are hoping that Liz Truss will betray us, in the same way as her three Tory predecessors betrayed us?
September 19, 2022
betrayed us …who are us? If you mean many millions of Tory voters you are correct.
September 19, 2022
Denis – At this stage we can be sure of one thing – Liz Truss has already had it carefully explained to her about what is expected when it comes to NI – so watch out for the fresh talks.
Reply The PM handled this as For Sec, saw there was no shift by Eu and got on with legislating. That one of the main reasons I supported her leadership. Rishi wanted a deal too much which would have been another bad deal, not unilateral legislation.