Don’t get me wrong. I think we can all feel a little sorry for Gordon Brown these days – at least until we look at our pensions, or our children’s futures. The BBC were really doing us all a kindness when they kept his poor rictus grin off the screens as Nigel Farage and Dan Hannan tore into him the other day. It was painful to see him.
But when Gordon’s advisers study the polls and attempt to get some more positive media coverage for him, there’s no need for the republicans in the BBC (i.e. 97% of the staff) to go quite so far overboard. Is the fact that the Great Leader is attempting to browbeat HRH over the tragic Royal discrimination against Catholics really worthy of the main headline on all BBC channels and the website this morning ?
It’s certainly not a subject that exercises Catholics, and I don’t think that’s what the recent trouble in Northern Ireland’s about either. The only people who are really bothered by it are the usual left wing suspects (who generally can’t stand Catholics unless they’re armed, anti-British and homicidal) and Lib Dem MP Evan Harris.
Why the BBC is acting as a megaphone for Gordon’s “diversionary exercise” I simply can’t understand – any more than I can understand why Robert Peston does the same for him on the economics front.
(of course the problem with the Act of Successsion is that Britain is (formally) not a secular democracy, but an explicitly religious state, with the head of state also head of the state church. Once discrimination against Catholics is removed, the basis of the UK constitution must also change. And why stop at Catholics ? Discrimination is discrimination, surely ? Shouldn’t Prince William be able to marry someone like Chah Oh-Niyol Kai Whitewind ?)
That’s part of the whole point – Prince William CAN marry a Muslim, a pagan, an atheist or a Jedi Knight !
The Act of Settlement was written up to prevent any Stuart from reclaiming the throne, and since the Stuarts were seen to have Catholic sympathies, the wording was wrapped up in the popular ‘Romanophobic’ language of the day.
The Act of Settlement should be rewritten either to
a) lift the ban on marrying Catholics
b) extend the ban to marrying Muslims, as they are now the main ‘enemy’ religion
c) extend the ban to ALL non-Anglicans
After all, a few years ago, didn’t one of the Dutch royals marry a Catholic despite an “unofficial bar”, and the Dutch did not feel too worried about it, and their Royals survived.
But there again the Dutch are probably more worried about Islam than Catholicism…
I am more and more watching SKY News in the morning, despite forays into celeb/trash TV that makes the bouffant’s obsession with Kate Silverton’s nuptials seem cerebral.
But when they address real news, they actual get their teeth in.
On top of actually mentioning the Hannan ‘affair’ and how it’s got the MSM in a tizzy (not in a good way), it was followed by an interview with Dear Leader.
Clear, straight…unedited… the interview I mean.
And unlike some media giants and their overpaid, over-pensioned, beholden, market rate talents, the interviewer would not allow him to get away with ‘What you should be asking is…’ and stuck with getting him to simply answer the question.
It goes beyond party political or anything else, the stuttering buffoon was like a rabbit in the headlights over a simple question posed by someone (again) looking him in the eye and asking for straight answers.
Leadership requires the ability to lead, and anyone who follows this person, based on such performances as i just witnessed, have truly taken the Kool-Aid.
As a proud Catholic I can honestly tell you that nobody in my parish is in favour of abolishing the Act of Settlement. In fact the only Catholics I can think of who would remotely support such a move are Tabletistas.
Frankly I’m insulted. This Government has kicked Roman Catholics in the teeth at every available opportunity. This is just a cynical attempt to win votes.
I hope it backfires.
Laban,
Sorry for double posting on this, I only spotted your contribution after I had scribbled my own effort. Good to see we identified the cynical manipulation at play here.
I’m a practising Catholic for whom my faith is the centre of my life. I’m also a proud Monarchist. And I couldn’t care less about the Act of Succession.
I just wish the Church of England would return to orthodox Christianity and start offering some genuine moral leadership in our spiritually barren and morally imploded times.
The idea that Abortion King “Dr” Evan Harris, Doctor Death himself, the most satanic MP of recent times would somehow care about this suggests a malign motive or intent.
Our poor Queen must be weeping inside to see what this nation has become in the fifty years she has been faithful Monarch. As Catholics, we don’t give a damn about succession. What we do care about is this government’s anti-morality, anti-family, anti-child, pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality, anti-Christian, multiculturalist, Islamist, and socially and culturally destructive agenda which is driving millions of good people to foreign countries.
Actually Britain is not an explicitly religious state at least in relation to a particular denomination. The Church of England is precisely that – the established Church of England and nowhere else since the Queen is head of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland and the Anglican Church in Ireland was disestablished in 1869 and the Anglican Church in Wales disestablished in 1914.
The real reform would be to sever the link between the Crown (and therefore the taxpayer) and the Church of England. However, like the secular established BBC-Church, the C of E wants the freedom to mouth left-wing platitudes, attack capitalism, champion terrorists and abhor Israel whilst at the same time putting its snout in the public trough despite the fact that it has fewer adherents than the Catholic Church or Nonconformist and Evangelical Churches (when added together) let alone those of no particular faith. It is also a reform too far even for modernising Nu-Labour as this exchange indicates:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2009-03-19a.1050.0
One interesting sideline of the current proposal to scrap male primogeniture in the succession rules, a matter which is totally academic until Prince William marries and has children, is that it would have the effect of elevating Peter Phillips(m) from 11th to 5th whilst demoting Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie (f) from 5th & 6th to 8th & 9th respectively. Aren’t liberals (and Lib-Dems) wonderful!
Labour needs Catholic votes in Glasgow and such like, so it tries this pathetic sop – while being in fact the most anti-Catholic and anti-Christian government this country has ever seen, as witnessed by its actions in promoting abortion (200K p.a.), embryonic stem cell research, and closing Catholic adoption agencies over homosexuality. And the anti-Christian BBC (remember ‘Jerry Springer The Opera’?) goes happily along with this charade.
It’s all diversionary nonsense. When there was a real Catholic in the Labour Government (Ruth Kelly), reember all the dark rumblings? Labour and the BBC don’t want real Catholic power in this land, only the appearance thereof, to placate one of its ovine voting blocks.