Picture at top: Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach, an 18th-century advocate of atheism.
The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature. The pertinacity with which he clings to blind opinions imbibed in his infancy, which interweave themselves with his existence, the consequent prejudice that warps his mind, that prevents its expansion, that renders him the slave of fiction, appears to doom him to continual error.
—d'Holbach, The System of Nature...
read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

-------------------------
Read also: http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/australian-identity/republic/kate-and-williams-baby-is-no-biggie/

And see: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3803637.htm

read also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_d%27Holbach... His dad was a wine maker...

 

The majority of the progressive and innovative British physicists of Tyndall's generation were conservative and orthodox on matters of religion. That includes for example James Joule, Balfour Stewart, James Clerk Maxwell,George Gabriel Stokes and William Thomson — all names investigating heat or light contemporaneously with Tyndall. These conservatives believed, and sought to strengthen the basis for believing, that religion and science were consistent and harmonious with each other. Tyndall, however, was a member of a club that vocally supported Darwin's theory of evolution and sought to strengthen the barrier, or separation, between religion and science. The most prominent member of this club was the anatomist Thomas Henry Huxley. Tyndall first met Huxley in 1851 and the two had a lifelong friendship. Chemist Edward Frankland and mathematician Thomas Archer Hirst, both of whom Tyndall had known since before going to university in Germany, were members too. Others included the social philosopher Herbert Spencer. See X-Club.

Though not nearly so prominent as Huxley in controversy over philosophical problems, Tyndall played his part in communicating to the educated public what he thought were the virtues of having a clear separation between science (knowledge & rationality) and religion (faith & spirituality).[48] As the elected president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1874, he gave a long keynote speech at the Association's annual meeting held that year in Belfast. The speech gave a favorable account of the history of evolutionary theories, mentioning Darwin's name favorably more than 20 times, and concluded by asserting that religious sentiment should not be permitted to "intrude on the region of knowledge, over which it holds no command". This was a hot topic. The newspapers carried the report of it on their front pages — in the British Isles, North America, even the European Continent — and many critiques of it appeared soon after. The attention and scrutiny increased the friends of the evolutionists' philosophical position, and brought it closer to mainstream ascendancy.[49]

read more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tyndall

 

Read also: http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/environment/carbon-dioxides-invisibility-is-what-causes-global-warming/

 

What has this to do with royalty?... Everything. Royalty is a pompous device that some humans have invented in uncertainty, in order to control "subjects" (other people) and get them to fight wars on their behalf. There is no scientific validation of royalty, nor there is any godly validation of royalty... It's all a con. Science in comparison has all to inform us of what we are and can help us formulate better relationships between humans. Not as easy as it looks but far more rewarding in the proper creation of equal rights and the true understanding of the planet.

 

Earlier this month, a baby was born, instantly becoming fourth in line to be Australian head of state; Professor Damien Kingsbury says this democratic anathema reflects Australia's political origins.

ON 2 MAY, a girl was born. She was one of around 180,000 or so girls born that day. Her life is special, as is the life of every new child, and one hopes that she – and all other babies – go on to lead happy, fulfilling and productive lives. But that one particular baby is not – or should not be – any more special than that of any other.

That this particular baby is now fourth in line to be Australia’s head of state, yet destined never to be an Australian citizen nor be elected to that role, is a democratic anathema. This democratic anathema reflects Australia’s political origins.

It is said that the core political values of a nation are constructed when it is born and retain their stamp upon it thereafter. England’s constitutional monarchy is a result of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the United States is ruled under its revolutionary Constitution and amendments, France has continued to return to the republican model and so on.

For Australia, however, there has been no single cathartic political experience and its move towards federation and democracy bear the mark of an incomplete political process. Australia avoided the worst excesses of war and revolution, but its political gradualism has favoured conservativism and tradition as much as progress and change. 

Australia identifies its claimed cultural values of social and political notions of fairness and a generalised sense of egalitarianism, yet these, too, have remained compromised.

read more: https://independentaustralia.net/australia/australia-display/an-australian-republic-or-fourth-in-line-as-australias-head-of-state,7738

 

See image and stories at top...

 

 

The British Council has said it will investigate comments allegedly made by one of its senior employees on Facebook that criticise Prince George for living “on public money”.

Angela Gibbins, head of global estates at the charity, was reported to have commented on a picture of the young prince, which someone had captioned: “I know he’s only two years old, but Prince George already looks like a f****** d***head.”

The British Council, which promotes the UK and the English language in more than 100 countries, said her alleged comments, in which she called the now three-year-old Prince George “royal, rich” and “advantaged” and referenced “white privilege”, were not representative of the organisation’s views.

A spokeswoman said: “This comment was made on a private social media account. It has absolutely no connection to the British Council and does not represent the views of the British Council.

“That said, we expect the highest standards of our staff and we will be investigating the matter further.”

Gibbins’s apparent comments, which were reported in the Sun, were on a photograph of the duke and duchess of Cambridge’s firstborn taken for a set of stamps to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday when he was two years old.

She allegedly said: “White privilege. That cheeky grin is the innate knowledge he’s royal, rich, advantaged and will never know *any* difficulties or hardships in life.

“Let’s find photos of 3yo Syrian refugee children and see if they look alike, eh?”

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/26/british-council-to-investigate-employees-reported-comments-mocking-prince-george

 

Meanwhile at the RSPCA

When the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge released a series of pictures of their son Prince George to celebrate his third birthday, they could not have anticipated the adverse reaction.

But among the four images released on Friday by Kensington Palace, one showing the barefoot future king appearing to feed his pet spaniel Lupo an ice-cream lolly has raised concern among leading animal welfare organisations. 

Experts have said that dogs are allergic to dairy products, which can cause digestive problems, and that chocolate is highly toxic to canines. George, third in line to the throne, is photographed holding what appears to be an ice-cream lolly covered with white chocolate under Lupo’s nose in the garden of his parent’s 10-bedroom Norfolk mansion, Anmer Hall.

 

Not the sin of little George, but the fault of the system... Read from top...

 

The well-worn refrain about the Australian republic is that it is off limits until Her Majesty the Queen shuffles off the mortal coil. She is such a respected monarch that it would be offensive to get out from under her skirts while there are still freshly laundered petticoats to comfort us. Apart from that she is, apparently, such a constitutional adornment that it would be impossible to carry a referendum to change the head of state while she was still on the throne.

Malcolm Turnbull was at it again just before Christmas at the dinner in Sydney to mark the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Australian Republican Movement, now subtly rebadged as the Australian Republic Movement: 

The vast majority of Australians have known no other head of state than the Queen. She is so admired and respected that few of us can say – whether monarchists or republicans – that we are not Elizabethans.

I do not believe Australians would welcome, let alone support, another republic referendum during her reign. And as you know I have held this view for some time.

It might then be just as cogently argued that the Prince of Wales has waited so long to be crowned that it would be impolite for us to decamp the moment the poor fellow got the job.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/28/there-will-never-b...

 

read from top.

Picture at top: Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach, an 18th-century advocate of atheism. Religion is married to kingdom's rule...

"The source of man's unhappiness is his ignorance of Nature. The pertinacity with which he clings to blind opinions imbibed in his infancy, which interweave themselves with his existence, the consequent prejudice that warps his mind, that prevents its expansion, that renders him the slave of fiction, appears to doom him to continual error."
—d'Holbach, The System of Nature...

 

Malcolm is a duplicitous bore... 

The prospect of King Charles has given hope to the Australian Republic Movement, with polling showing not even the British are enthused by the heir apparent ascending to the throne.

Polling by FTI Consulting of 2,531 UK citizens on behalf of the Australian movement late last month found more than half of respondents believed the Queen best embodied the spirit of the United Kingdom but just 39% trusted Prince Charles and only 37% wanted him to replace his mother.

The Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, who follows his father in the succession line, proved a more popular choice at 41%, while 7% wanted another royal family member and 14% thought the monarchy should not exist.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/sep/25/australian-republ...

 

The only reason the monarchy is surviving these days is because the "goodlooking kids" sell magazines like the butt of Kim K does as well. If those kids were ugly, say look like their religiously imaginative non-ancestor Henry the VIII, the monarchy would have been kicked out a long time ago... Read from top.

 

This historical nostalgia gets reduced down to an easily marketable form, to the point where it becomes almost kitsch in the way defined by Baudrillard: “It repeats fashion without having been part of the experience of fashion.” It’s the kind of kitsch that you might think of when you see a “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster, though this kind of pre-welfare state nostalgia is better summed up by the Icelandic slang term nostaklígja, which denotes the gall-like taste you get in your mouth just before you throw up. It is used “where an overly romantic view of a bygone era transcends good taste and/or common sense”. For me it cannot help but conjure the spectre of Brexit.

That’s not to say that any of these thoughts are at the forefront of any consumer’s thought process when they purchase a royalist tea set or a pack of Polaroid Originals film (I’m pleased about the relaunch of the latter – it’s a fun and influential creative medium that counts leading photographers among its fans). But I do wonder when my generation is going to start making its own aesthetic stamp on the world rather than looking to their parents for inspiration.

To an extent it reflects the fact that the cultural gatekeepers are, in the main, part of that boomer generation – how many more BBC4 documentaries about the 1960s are we expected to sit through?

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/26/millennials-living...

 

Yes why be living in the past when you can digitise your life into little bits? It's a bit like the royal family. They invented themselves out of traditions. Say the present dynasty is a recent artistic installation. The Winsdsors did not exist before 17 July 1917. "Upon hearing that his cousin had changed the name of the British royal house to Windsor and in reference to Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, German Emperor Wilhelm II remarked jokingly that he planned to see "The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha"...

So nostalgia rules... Well, it does not really. In Newtown, there are more women wearing head-styles like that of the 1960s poster of women's power — the dangerous cleaning lady, with a scarf knotted at the front. It's charming. It reminds me of MY future as I was born way before this style of affirmation. The roaring 20s is more my thingy. Then Polaroid came and was gone. I'm still here. That Polaroid is coming back is not nostalgic but far more instant and less transient than an Instagram message on a glue-phone. 

At least Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett mentioned Derida... or was it baudrillard?

Read from top...

 

I know. Me, too. One look at the morning news – they've called Sydney's newest ferry, Ferry McFerryFace – and your next glance is to the calendar. It is April Fools Day, yes? Someone has sucked us in, and we momentarily believed that they were actually going to call a Sydney ferry by that name!

But, no. To the amazement of many, it all turned out to be true.

Read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/if-its-ferry-mcferryface-it-must-be-april-...

 

What do you expect from a mob of satirical ignorant subjects who have been treated like mugs since King Arfur? Actually, it needs only a handful of naughty kids to use a stupid "voting" system which is likely to be invaded by naughty kids eager to do a naughty thing...

And the king asked the crowd "What shall be my name?".

The chorus of course was "Kingie McCharlieMcFace the first"... (and the last)... Read from top.

Almost two decades ago, during the heady first months of the new millennium, an unruly baroness named Kate Gavron made a shocking suggestion. Prince Charles, she said, should have married someone black. It would be, she imagined, a powerful symbol of the monarchy’s commitment to racial integration and multiculturalism.

Gavron’s comments were not well received at the time. As is so often the case with race and the royals, far more interesting than these remarks themselves, were the media reactions to them. Some suspected this was merely a clandestine attempt at “getting rid” of the monarchy, erasing their heritage through interracial marriages. Not so much revolution, as racial dilution.

Others assumed that for the Prince of Wales to marry a “black girl” - as the hypothetical person was described - would be to return to the loveless, strategic marriages the royals were once so famous for. It was obvious to commentators at the time that marrying a black girl, and marrying someone you actually loved, were both antithetical and mutually exclusive. After all, you couldn’t expect an heir to the throne to actually be attracted to such a person.

In this context, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s engagement represents something genuinely different from everything that has gone before. Their marriage will bring into reality what the British establishment lacked the imagination to even conceive of as possible 17 years ago – that a senior royal can love, and marry, someone whose ethnic heritage is not just different to his own, but the heritage that has always been most othered in Britain – black and African.

The royal family plays a largely symbolic role in our society, so it’s the symbolism of this engagement that interests me. I struggled growing up with the feeling that the monarchy were fundamental to Britishness, but that the Britishness they represented was one that excluded me. This exclusion mattered. It made other people perceive being truly British, and being black, as incompatible identities. It represented a giant taboo. Every government that I can remember made some attempt, rhetorical at least, to acknowledge and protect racial diversity. The family at the apex of our society was doing anything but.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/27/prince-harry-megha...

 

Read from top. Long live the republic.

The cameras had barely finished flashing on the newly engaged Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. But Emma Bridgewater, a British ceramics manufacturer, was already making a mug to commemorate the royal moment.

The next week, just under 1000 mugs - with "Harry & Meghan are engaged," and the date of the announcement on them - were on sale. They retailed online for around £20 ($34.70) and sold out within 24 hours.

 

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/big-business-selling-the-british-royal-family-20171225-h0a1jo.html

Read from top

David Matthews, father-in-law to Pippa Middleton, herself the sister to the UK's Duchess of Cambridge, was charged Thursday with raping a child in France, it was revealed Friday.

He is currently under legal supervision.

According to reports, Matthews has been under investigation by France's Juvenile Protection Brigade since 2017 after a relative reported him. The hotel owner is alleged to have carried out the assault between 1998 and 1999 during his vacations in France.

Matthews was charged with the "rape of a minor by a person with authority over his victim."

 

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/europe/201803311063085362-pippa-middleton-father...

In the hillside enclave of Los Feliz in central Los Angeles the playground and classrooms of Immaculate Heart High School are abuzz with chatter about the upcoming royal wedding.

One of their alumni — Meghan Markle — is about to become the newest member of the British royal family.

"It gives us a role model to follow," 18-year-old Sabrina Nagy said.

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-06/meghan-markle-inspires-us-high-sch...

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I've got news for you, kiddies. This stint only works if you look "beautiful". Princesses who marry a prince are "never ordinary looking" unless they are in Shrek (where the beautiful princess becomes ugly at night — that's a twist for you) or Princess Ann. Royalties or "beautiful" people about to become royalties despite "some odds" against them should NEVER be role models. Sleeping Beauty is 127 years old when she is woken up by her "beautiful" prince... This is by no mean a rebuttal of the love between Markle and Prince Harry who had needed a clip behind the ears for a while. 

There are plenty of forgotten women who should be real role-models, in sciences and other activities — but, then, many of them got forgotten because they were not "beautiful". Read from top.

 

Good luck to the couple. Long live the republic of Australia.

Melbourne-born Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner and anti-monarchist, says he plans to do the weekly shopping on Saturday and clean the house.

Yes, he’s heard there might be something on the telly.

"I am totally disinterested in the royal wedding and will be ignoring it,” he said. “For me, it will be another ordinary Saturday.

“The royal wedding is escapist nonsense; a real-life soap opera for people who fantasise about fame, riches, status and fairy-tale romance. Good luck to Meghan and Harry but don’t expect me to fawn over them.”

Trying to hold back the tide is a royal tradition in England, thanks to King Canute. But this would not be a metaphor appreciated by the UK’s republicans, who are grimly suffering through yet another royal wedding.

 

 

Read more:

 

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/the-royal-wedding-is-escapist-nonsen...

 

Read also:

 

lovely... but despite the impending royal wedding, we still need australia to be a republic.

 

 

Read from top (note the time of publication).

Come Saturday night, most of the world will be glued to their television sets, revelling in a ceremonial tribute to love that can only be achieved through enormous, taxpayer-funded wealth.

While it's refreshing to see how popular hereditary monarchy is in 2018, for anyone who isn't a member of a royal family, watching the wedding is a massive waste of time.

In the end, it'll be like every other wedding you've been bored stiff by — only longer, more expensive and with more obnoxious voiceover commentary. 

Here's some better alternatives for your Saturday night.

 

Read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-19/watch-royal-wedding-live-eight-bet...

As a bi-racial, divorced, American actor, Meghan Markle revolutionised the British Royal family simply by marrying into it. 

Key points: 

• The Duchess of Sussex is due to give birth to her first child soon
• Her child with Prince Harry will be seventh in line to the throne
• Kensington Palace put out new social media guidelines to combat racist trolling of Meghan
  

 

Many Royal watchers have welcomed the Duchess of Sussex as a breath of fresh air for a family which has mostly been dominated by white Anglican aristocrats. 

Anticipation is now mounting for the birth of her first child with Prince Harry, who will be seventh in line to the throne.

The significance of a bi-racial Royal baby is not lost on many British people. 

But where there is hope for a more inclusive monarchy and society, there is also apprehension.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-02/meghan-markle-and-prince-harrys-b...

 

Read from top... And the soccer prediction for today is one-nil.

No doubt Epstein's many victims regret ever encountering him — women have testified that he ruined their lives.

Virginia Giuffre said she was groomed by Epstein as a teenager, and forced to have sex with Prince Andrew on three occasions. 

The unflappable host of Newsnight, Emily Maitlis, spent much of the interview zoning in on those allegations, which the Duke of York has always vehemently denied.

On one of the dates Ms Giuffre has cited — 10 March, 2001 — Prince Andrew said he could not have been with Ms Giuffre as he had taken his daughter to Pizza Express in Woking in Surrey.

An unusual location for a Royal, he suggested with a slight smile, and one he'd remember frequenting. 

He dismissed claims he was sweating profusely on the evening, because he had a "peculiar medical condition" making him unable to perspire, caused by an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-18/prince-andrew-jeffrey-epstein-int...

 

Read from top.

 

Read also:

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/37218

 

Long live the Australian Republic !!!!!

 

 

Earlier, reports emerged that Queen Elizabeth II did not approve of Prince Andrew’s decision to give the BBC Newsnight interview, as the royal faces fallout from his ties with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and allegations of child sexual abuse that he has repeatedly denied.

Prince Andrew’s recent claims he “never really partied” and avoided “public displays of affection” have been dealt a serious blow as footage of the Duke of York engaging in some serious partying with young women in St Tropez has been exclusively revealed by MailOnline today.

“Crazy years for Andrew”

Prince Andrew is shown at a seemingly raucous party thrown by wine tycoon Claude Ott on the French Riviera in July 2008, just weeks after his disgraced friend Jeffrey Epstein admitted trafficking an underage girl.

In the footage the Prince appears to look quite disheveled and is then seen leaving the party with a bevy of beautiful women.

Photos from the 2000s also appear to contradict his earlier claims regarding partying and PDA, as he is seen sweating and embracing a number of women including socialite Chris Von Aspen.

In footage dated July 2007 Prince Andrew is seen hugging Canadian socialite Pascale Bourbeau at a party in Saint-Tropez, France.

Earlier, at the start of the decade, the royal is seen chatting to German supermodel Heidi Klum at a Hookers and Pimps-themed Halloween party in New York in October 2000, also attended by Epstein's alleged co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell.

A former Saint-Tropez reveler is quoted by the publication as saying:

“These were really crazy years for Andrew. He was clearly having a full-blown midlife crisis. He would have been 47 or 48 at the time, divorced from Sarah Ferguson, and basking in the attention he got from young women. These were private parties held at mansions so I guess he felt he could let his guard down.”

Duke of York faces backlash

The latest video and pictures have put Prince Andrew under yet more scrutiny as he earlier appeared in a “car crash” BBC Newsnight interview to insist he “did not sweat” or “indulge in public displays of affection” with women while attempting to defend his friendship with disgraced American financier Jeffrey Epstein, who allegedly killed himself in prison amid an investigation on suspicion of organising a paedophile ring.

 

Read more:

 

https://sputniknews.com/europe/201911181077338082-new-pics-of-sweaty-pri...

 

 

Read from top.

 

Long live the Australian Republic !!!!!

Since the advent of television, the Royal family has had a mixed relationship with the medium. They've used it to their advantage for the most part to massage their image for the masses, from televising the coronation, weddings and the Queen's Christmas messages to recent carefully curated interviews with the younger generation. 

But when they go off script, there's always a danger they will damage the brand. 

Even the Queen is not immune. The release this week of season three of Netflix series The Crown digs into the making of a behind-the-scenes authorised documentary which the Queen later had pulled from public sight 50 years ago.

The Royal Family first screened on BBC and ITV in June 1969 and was a ratings success, pulling 30 million viewers. But the Queen apparently regretted her decision to invite the cameras in nearly immediately. Later that year, Buckingham Palace withdrew the film from public view.

Behind the palace doors

The landmark documentary, directed by the chief of the BBC documentary unit Richard Cawston, followed the Queen around for a year. He shot more than 43 hours of footage for the 110-minute film, across the family's palaces and castles and aboard the Royal yacht and train. 

The aim was to change the royal image. Buckingham Palace's new Australian royal press secretary, William Heseltine, thought that inviting the cameras in to see the Queen's daily life would soften her image and increase public support.

Prince Phillip was soon on board — chairing an advisory committee which approved all scenes — and a reluctant Queen was convinced of the project's merits.

So was the real-life documentary cringeworthy enough to withdraw?

It's nearly impossible to say for sure since it's hardly seen the light of day in 50 years.

There are a few short clips on YouTube. In one, the Queen tells a strange joke about meeting a "gorilla".

 

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-20/the-crown-documentary-the-queen-h...

Read from top.

 

Long live the Australian Republic !!!!!

An "Aussie" cartoon of Prince Andrew circa 1982. It already tells the story well...

 

A woman who accuses Jeffrey Epstein of sexually abusing her as a child has said Prince Andrew should tell US authorities what he knows about the financier.

Key points:

• The woman said she was invited to fly to Epstein's New Mexico ranch in 2004 when she was 15
• She is one of more than a dozen women suing Epstein's estate, calling herself 'Jane Doe 15'
• She called upon Prince Andrew to speak under oath about the financier

 

"Prince Andrew, and any others who were close to Epstein, should come forward and give a statement under oath on what information they have," the woman, calling herself Jane Doe 15, said at a news conference on Monday with her lawyer Gloria Allred.

The woman, who wore a bracelet with the words 'Epstein didn't kill himself', became the latest of more than a dozen women to sue Epstein's estate, saying in her lawsuit that he subjected her to a "vicious, prolonged sexual assault" at his New Mexico ranch when she was 15.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-19/jeffrey-epstein-accuser-jane-doe-...

Read from top.

 

John Spooner B.Juris, LLB (Monash) (born 1946) is an Australian journalist and illustrator who regularly contributed to The Age newspaper.

John Spooner was born in Melbourne in 1946. He practised as a lawyer for three years before he commenced drawing for The Age in 1974, finally leaving the law altogether in 1977 to draw full-time for the newspaper.[1]

Spooner has received various awards for excellence in journalism.[2] Between 1985 and 1986 Spooner was awarded five Stanley Awards, including the Black and White Artist of the Year gold Stanley Award. In 1994 Spooner was awarded two Walkley Awards for Best Illustration and Best Cartoon. Spooner's works are represented in the Collections of The National Gallery of Australia,[3] National Library of Australia,[4] The National Gallery of Victoria, The Victorian State Library,[5] The Melbourne Cricket Club Museum, public and private collections throughout Australia and internationally.

His publications include the book A Spooner in the Works, published in 1999 by Text Publishing, comprising cartoons, prints and paintings; and Taxing Air: Facts and Fallacies about Climate Change, which he co-authored with Prof. Robert Carter, William Kininmonth, Martin Feil, Prof. Stewart W. Franks and Bryan Leyland; published by Kelpie Press in 2013.

Spooner's credits include five Stanley Awards, three Walkley Awards, the joint winner of the 1986 Fremantle Print Award[6] as well as the 2002 Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award[7].

He left The Age in May 2016 along with others made redundant by Fairfax Media.[8] In 2018 he published What the Hell Was He Thinking? John Spooner's Guide to the 21st Century, a collection of his 21st-century work annotated with his own commentary.[9]

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Spooner

After years successfully shrugging off questions about his judgement, his business relationships and, more seriously, his association with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Prince Andrew was finally undone not by a newspaper headline or a law enforcement agency, but by a woman called Sue from Leeds.

It was Sue – surname as yet unknown – who submitted a question to ITV’s leaders’ debate on Tuesday, asking: “Is the monarchy fit for purpose?” Julie Etchingham, chairing the debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson, put the question to the two party leaders, asking for their answers “in as few words as possible, perhaps even a yes or no”.

And with that, the Guardian has learned, the fate of the Duke of York was sealed. It was one thing for newspaper commentators and Twitter observers, in the wake of Andrew’s calamitous interview on Saturday with BBC Newsnight, to savage the prince’s performance, even to describe his position as untenable.

But the moment the value of the monarchy itself was being challenged in a general election debate was the point when Buckingham Palace and the rest of the royal family could stand by no longer. The debate question became the critical tipping point when it was finally clear the Duke of York had to be jettisoned.

On Wednesday, as companies, universities and charities rushed to distance themselves from the prince and his charitable activities, Andrew was summoned to meet his mother, the Queen, at Buckingham Palace, and was told in no uncertain terms that his role as an active, publicly funded royal was over “for the foreseeable future”.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/nov/21/the-toxic-prince-andrew-...

 

 

Read from top.

 

Prince Williums:

 

Oh Jeeves…. bugger little Harrium… He’s become too heavy, he ain’t my brother any more… We all have to play for Team Royal, you know… Grandma has managed very well keeping these awful republican sentiments in the populace at bay, but she nearly got derailed when mummy lost her life… We know, eventually, Grandma played the Royal game very well by shedding a little tear of regret, and organised a beautiful funeral with tons of British flowers… Granddaddy was unfortunately the acidic joker of bons mots reserved for Her Royal Herself having done a turnaround… Royals should never cry...

We were very young then and Harryum was a mess. I kept the stiff upper lip, placed my arm on his shoulders and I follow’d the orders… You know, Jeeves, marry a good sort with a title that would give you pleasant sex on selected Tuesdays and a couple of nice Royal heirs… Make sure you always smile, showing your white royal teeth for the tabloids… They’re awful things, the tabloid, Jeeves!… But We, Royals, need them, don’t We? Otherwise, We would have to work ten times as much to be noticed and maintain our Royal poise, would We not? Here, all We — Jeeves I mean you — have to do is brush off the red Royal jacket, cross it with a Royal golden sash, fill it up with medals of this and that, and smile. Simple. Is this so hard? Harryum is bored with all this… It’s possibly whatsername's, his foreign alien wife’s fault… But Harryum picked her We know not where, but We had to go along with it...

After dia… mummy’s funeral, Harryum had gone bezerkoo, as the Aussielanders say, possibly following in the foot steps of that other non-team player, Prince Andrown… Did I say, what a drippum? Where is the Royal world coming to, Jeeves? Andrown had married that red-headed woman, you know. Royals should only marry white brunettes, Grandma said… Oh Jeeves, did Harryum go on the rampage to sow his wild oats! It seems the tabloid went for him as the wild Royal boy… and he enjoyed these awful wild nights when he wore a Nazi uniform that sent the floozies… you know, the young ladies wild… This smelled like Royal troubles. We had to stop the Royal bleed… So we got him a helicopter commission to spent some time in the real world, in Aussielum and Afghanistanium, with a gun… Nothing like a gun to make a young Royal think of the Kingdom and a horse, you know... Fighting for the good oil, the old Empire cause, with the Royal regimentum… We all had too. Pity about the Americanuses, telling We what to do, Jeeves. One day, We, British, will reconquer the world as it should be. This would be nice, waving from the palace’s balcony to the entire adoring world, on YouTubum. 

Jeeves, We have to keep the Royal flag flying up the mast to promote the Royal hope, with dignity, tradition and pomp, otherwise this country could end up being ruled by Donald Duckum, like the poor Americanoes, you know…

So Harryum is not playing the game, Jeeves. What do Us do? Let him go and cut his entitlements? He married in a hurry, We must say, Jeeves, an Americano commoner, which We hoped would bring some Royal exposure in the Tabloids and help Us conquer the Americas again, you know… Sure, she’s a “brunette”, but she is a bit too dark skin for the fair Germanicum stock we are… Great great grand mummy, Victoria, would be so displeased. We should only marry Royal cousins from Germanium, she woulduv'd said. Harryum’s wife is too old as well and was not a virgin as demanded by the Royal coitus Bookum… She would have enjoyed common popularityum and a free freedom that is not deemed Royal duty, you know. So, We had to cut her wings a bit and batten the hatches and stand tall like Royalties on the poop deck, looking forward to more Royal charitable Team games on the sea of adoring subjects… 

Oh, Jeeves... and with daddy Charlie indulging the Greenies at the bottom of the garden, He is not serious, is He? And why is Harryum looking more and more like the horse stablehand that mummy liked so much…? Oh Jeeves...

Jeeves, please, the Black Royal Jacket, tonight… These are very serious Royal times… Grandma is on the Royal warpath against Harryum. There could be blue blood on the walls…


A republicano...
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Shock horrors of the Aussie Press, rolling in the guttering of the palaces...

 

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A Woman’s Day cover story which said the royal family had confirmed Prince Harry and his wife Meghan’s marriage was over was “blatantly incorrect” and a breach of standards, even though gossip magazines are not held to the same factual standards as other media, the press watchdog has found.

An issue of Woman’s Day published in May last year said on its cover: “Palace confirms the marriage is over! Why Harry was left with no choice but to end it”.

The Australian Press Council has ruled that Woman’s Day, which is a member of the self-regulatory body, was in breach of standards for accuracy for the headline, which was not backed up by the article.

Even allowing for the latitude given for factual exaggeration and inaccuracies in publications of this kind, the magazine had crossed a line, the council said.

 

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https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/feb/17/womans-day-headline-declar...

 

 

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It’s an open secret in the gossip magazine industry that many of the stories are made up, or at least highly exaggerated.

Celebrities are increasingly vocal about the practice, with some, such as Rebel Wilson, taking legal action and others, such as the Sunrise co-host Samantha Armytage, calling them out for falsehoods.

Armytage, a popular target of the magazines, said last year the so-called sources they quoted were “made up”. “There’s a special place in hell for people who work at Woman’s Day,” she said on social media.

With standards such as these it came as a shock when Woman’s Day was rapped over the knuckles by the media watchdog last week for publishing a headline about Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, which it said was “blatantly incorrect”.

Dr Megan Le Masurier, a media academic from the University of Sydney, says when she saw the reports she was stumped.

“When I read this story I just thought you could pick any copy of New Idea or Woman’s Day any week and they are doing headlines like this,” Le Masurier, a former ACP magazine editor herself, says.

“This is not journalism; it was never meant to be journalism. And I’ve got a term for it: ‘fabulous reportage’.

“The way it works is they get the pictures in and then they make shit up. It’s just fantasy and all they’re trying to do is get clicks or sales in a dying market.”

So why did the press council, which usually takes aim at articles in the Herald Sun or the Sydney Morning Herald, sit in judgment of a Woman’s Day cover story which said the royal family had confirmed Prince Harry and his wife Meghan’s marriage was over?

The short answer is someone – not the royal family – complained about the article, and the council saw merit in the complaint and investigated because the magazine’s owner, Bauer Media, is a member of the press council.

According to the latest annual report only 10 out of a total of 669 complaints to the Australian Press Council related to magazines – and that’s all magazines, not just light entertainment or gossip magazines, which explains why these types of adjudications are rare.

The ruling also revealed the council does not treat all publications under its self-regulatory watch the same – even though they are all subject to the same standards of practice.

The council’s ruling, although it found the publication was in breach of standards for accuracy also signalled it’s OK – even expected – for these supermarket mags to “exaggerate”. The council said that “not necessarily” everything has to be “factual” when it comes to a light entertainment magazine.

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/feb/26/it-was-never-meant-to-be-j...

 

Don't be fooled... This is not "light entertainment" nor "fabulous reportage..." This kind of woman's magazines tomfoolery is a cleverly tightly designed manipulation of "masses" (individuals en masse) to stop people, especially women, thinking about democracy and their proper rights, while glorifying frocks that look like coutured handkerchief: fit in this ladies! And here is this fantastic way to loose weight! These rag-mags are constructed as innocuous gossip but amongst the crap, there are tight guidelines that reinforce the Royals, and the privileges of celebrities and their cash, even if shown is various bad light — with before and after fat-bum-suction surgery. Glorious gorgeous! It's a finetuned reverse deceitful psychology to make sure you go and see the latest movie with Brad — and applaud the Queens's parade... 

Meanwhile Assange is being tortured for telling the truth... Sickening...

 

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...

Given the ubiquitous role that royals play in childhood, it’s ironic that theirs have traditionally turned out to be so dysfunctional. This is what two new novels, The Governess and A Most English Princess, excel at revealing. Their authors, bestselling Wendy Holden and first-timer Clare McHugh, both grew up fascinated by royalty. In Holden’s case, she would pore over the sepia photographs in a book belonging to her grandmother, commemorating the coronation of George VI, father of Britain’s current Queen Elizabeth II. “While I thought the crowns and furs were amazingly glamorous, it was the characters that drew me,” she recalls. “They all seemed like characters from fiction to me and from that point on, albeit subconsciously, I wanted to put them in a novel. But it wasn’t until I found the amazing story of Marion Crawford that I found the right way in.”

Marion Crawford was a career girl with a social conscience who’d planned on teaching in the slums of Edinburgh. Instead, she ended up becoming governess to two princesses, Elizabeth – known as Lilibet – and her little sister Margaret. She was with them for 17 years until her retirement in 1948, whereupon she made the fatal error of writing a book about her experiences with the Windsors. The publication of The Little Princesses saw her frozen out of royal life forever.

 

 

 

Read more:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20200907-the-strange-world-of-the-royal-family

 

 

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while real journalism is put to death via assange' s trial...

The royal family has suffered setbacks before.

Many years ago now, in her own tell all interview, Princess Diana taught us how difficult, or frankly dysfunctional, life can be living behind palace walls. 

We heard then of affairs, bulimia and depression. She was the 'People's Princess' and the world listened and sympathised. 

'The Firm' — as Prince Philip has coined the royal family — moved on, behind a steadfast and respected Queen. 

But the allegations levelled by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex run deeper.

The couple, at one time thought to have been part of the answer to rejuvenating and modernising the institution, have said things the palace will find difficult to overcome. 

Mainly, that the royal family is implicitly racist. 

"How dark would the child be?" Was apparently the question. The inference — the lighter the better. 

In the UK, America and across Commonwealth nations — including in Australia — it's an allegation that may not shock, but it will stick. And for many it will hurt.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-09/meghan-and-harrys-interview-plunges-palace-into-crisis/13211784

 

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Oprah Winfrey has said Prince Harry clarified it was neither the Queen nor the Duke of Edinburgh who questioned what his son's skin colour would be.

Winfrey told CBS News on Monday the prince "did not tell me who was part of those conversations".

The revelation that a family member wondered "how dark" Archie's complexion might be came during a TV interview that aired overnight in the US.

The Duchess of Sussex had described the remarks as a low point.

"He did not share the identity with me but he wanted to make sure I knew, and if I had an opportunity to share it, that it was not his grandmother or grandfather that were part of those conversations," Winfrey said.

When asked for further details on Monday, Winfrey said she "tried to get that answer on camera and off" but the prince did not elaborate.

She told CBS This Morning that she was shocked to hear about the skin colour remarks during the interview. "Even on the take, you can hear me go, 'whoa I cannot believe you are saying this now'."

When asked why she thinks the couple agreed to speak with her, Winfrey said she felt they "were ready to do it" after having been "lied about for a series of years".

"I said to my team, the most important question to be answered here at the end of this show will be, 'why did they leave'?" Winfrey said. 

"And I think the stories of blindsiding the Queen were very damaging to them and also hurtful because they understood clearly that there had been months and months of preparation."

CBS has also shared new clips from the couple's three hour interview with the chat show host.

 

 

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56323906

 

 

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If Archie Mountbatten-Windsor grows up to bemoan his lack of princely status, he may have his great-great-great-grandfather to blame.

A decree issued by King George V — the Queen's grandfather — in 1917 limits the titles of prince and princess to the children of the monarch, children of the monarch's sons and "the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales".

Bob Morris from the Constitution Unit at University College London said the rule was introduced to trim the increasingly unwieldy number of royal titles.

"Queen Victoria had nine children who were all princes and princesses, and then they had children and so forth, and George V took the view … that something needed to be done to tidy up the situation," he said.

The queen has the power to change the rules, and in 2012 she decreed that all the children of Prince William and his wife, Catherine, not just the eldest living son, would be princes and princesses.

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-11/why-is-archie-not-a-prince-meghan-markle-harry-concerns-title/13234348

 

So what? The royal family have a couple of flat tyres...

 

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If 1992 was Queen Elizabeth’s annus horribilis, goodness knows how she might describe its 30th anniversary, 2022.

Just put yourself in her shoes; a 95-year-old with all the money and power in the world, and a family that is so dysfunctional it makes Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie look perfectly normal.

It must be hard, even for the most diehard Republicans, not to have enormous admiration for her. That image of her sitting alone, in St George’s Chapel in Windsor, at the funeral of her husband of almost 75 years is heartbreaking.

 

So are the scandals that now hover over Buckingham Palace as she travels through the first year without Prince Philip, the longest-serving royal consort in history.

Behind the picket fences and front doors of most homes, almost all families stumble over difficult paths. Early deaths. Sick children. Awful car accidents. Ugly divorces. And secret affairs.

But few could match those offered up by Queen Elizabeth’s clan; transgressions that provide a boon for 24-hour media machines fed by sex, scandal and sensation.

Imagine reading that your eldest son, the heir to your throne and 14 other countries outside UK, wants to be a tampon. Not a firefighter. Or a soldier. Not a butcher, baker or candlestick maker. A tampon.

Imagine finding out your second son, your secret favourite, is to face sex charges that will be live-streamed around the globe; the he-said-she-said of court testimony likely to dent the monarchy’s standing, irrespective of what might be the truth.

Imagine your gorgeous red-headed grandson, the one who makes you laugh out loud, escaping the family with an American, and taking up the full-time post of talk-show fodder.

Forget the fire and divorces that prompted her 1992 declaration, 2022 is going to be the humdinger of royal scandals. And it comes as Australia nuts out whether it wants to divorce the royal family, and what Republican model might succeed in doing that.

The fact that we are not marching in the streets, demanding to be cut off from the royal family, is an indictment on how we are selling the benefits of a republic. The litany of scandals should have provided the impetus for our separation – and the fact that it hasn’t, perhaps, is a strong show of our affection for the 95-year-old Queen.

 

Republicans are lobbying for a model where Australians don’t have a say in who might take over from Queen Elizabeth, as our head of state – and this might prove to be their biggest mistake.

They want us to trust our states and territories to come up with a shortlist of eminent Australians. A national ballot would then choose the president, from those applicants.

The 1999 Republican vote failed because of the proposed model. It’s hard to imagine this time it will be different. Indeed, this model is a slap in the face to Australians, who are only allowed to choose from a set list of candidates.

It’s really like walking into a restaurant and being forced to have the set menu.

The new proposed model also comes at a time when our trust in those who fill our parliaments – and who makes the shortlist – is at an all-time low.

So what do we do? We grant them the power to tell us who should be our head of state.

The Australian Republic Movement says Australians should have a “genuine, merit-based choice’’ about who speaks for them as head of state, rather than a British king or queen on the other side of the world.

That’s right. But how does the proposed model ensure that? And why argue for Australians to have a vote, and then only offer them a restricted vote where they have to choose from a list of candidates made up by politicians?

Shouldn’t our emphasis initially be on convincing all Australians that it is best to have an Australian as head of state?

That our children – including females – should be able to aspire to the highest office in the land.

And that every one of them has an equal chance; not just those few propelled forward by politicians whose judgement continues to disappoint us daily.

 

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2022/01/27/madonna-king-republic-queen/

 

 

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Britain's King Charles III has evicted Prince Andrew from Buckingham Palace following a series of scandals over his alleged ties with convicted American pedophile Jeffery Epstein, The Sun claimed on Friday.

The Duke of York, 62, will now be barred from having an office in the royal residence in London and from using it as a corresponding address, the British tabloid reported.

“Any presence at the Palace is officially over,” a source told The Sun. “The King has made it clear. He isn’t a working royal. He’s on his own.”

The report also suggests that all the staff, which had been reduced to a bare minimum after Prince Andrew left public life three years ago, will apparently soon lose their jobs. At the same time, the scandal-ridden royal will reportedly retain The Royal Lodge house on the Windsor estate to London’s west.

Prince Andrew, the middle son of the late Queen Elizabeth II, announced that he would step back from public life in 2019, following allegations of close ties with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was arrested in July of the same year on charges of sex-trafficking minors and was found dead in his jail cell a month later.

While his death was ruled a suicide, the suspicious circumstances surrounding his departure as well as claims that he might have had compromising information about powerful figures, prompted public skepticism about the official version of events.

In January, Buckingham Palace stripped Prince Andrew of his military affiliations and Royal patronages as he fought allegations of having sexually abused Virginia Roberts, one of Epstein’s alleged victims, when she was 17.

He managed to settle this lawsuit. Though the sum involved was supposedly confidential, British media reported it to be as much as £12 million ($14 million). The Duke has consistently denied any wrongdoing, but agreed to “make a substantial donation” to a charity “in support of victims’ rights.”

 

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https://www.rt.com/news/568876-king-charles-prince-andrew-epstein/

 

 

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BY Jenny Hocking

 

At the heart of Prince Harry’s latest salvo in the trans-Atlantic royal family breakdown, now clearly beyond repair, is his ultimate target – the media-Palace relationship which has torn his family apart and which in its public disintegration now threatens the monarchy itself.

The unseemly family dysfunction, institutional racism or ‘unconscious bias’ in the descriptor de jour, the emotional outsourcing to anonymous courtiers whose sole purpose is to protect the royal family as institution – the firm above family – the father unable to hug his son when telling him of Diana’s death, and the sons unable to cry at their time of greatest grief, this is a royal horror story whose ending is yet to be written.

This now openly feuding family provides our head of state, imposed on us and 14 other Commonwealth nations by dynastic succession and inherited title alone, in which we have no say and no relevance. It inevitably reignites questions about why Australia is still a Constitutional monarchy. As Bill Shorten said, ‘why do we need to keep borrowing a dysfunctional British family to be the head of state of Australia?’ Why indeed. It is a national humiliation to accept an imposed head of state from among this thoroughly unpleasant, cosseted, entitled family. An Australian republic is long overdue.

The most significant contribution of Spare, a matter of ‘public interest’ as Harry told Tom Bradby, is the insight it brings to the toxic symbiotic relationship between the Palace and the media. Harry’s latest public airing of celebrity family feud has laid bare this abject media ‘compact’, in which stories are planted, leaked, namelessly dropped, by competing royal media units to ensure no negative stories about their own principals by providing negative stories about the others, with no regard for truthfulness or impact. That’s the compact, the tawdry deal, that pits brother against brother, family against family.

Forget the minutiae of claim and counterclaim and internecine disputes, this mutually dependent media-Palace nexus is the one point of genuine public interest which ought to be addressed. It has profound implications for our understanding of both the monarchy and the media – the lofty idealised ‘fourth estate’, the holder of power to account and a lynchpin of democratic accountability for the three ‘estates’ of power. What becomes of that critical function when one has so seamlessly merged into the other?

This relationship and its devastating impact is the focus of the Netflix series, and it makes harrowing viewing. No-one can survive unscathed from such an endless denunciation of their very essence, their character, motivations, and life’s ambitions, as Meghan Markle faced over the last 6 years. It was unrelentingly brutal, a campaign ‘of inarguable racism, sexism and sheer hatefulness’, and the more they kicked back the harder the ‘royal rota’ came. ‘Constantly just picked at by these vultures’ as Diana, whose presence haunts every page of Spare, described it.

Nor are their claims of media mistreatment without foundation. A study by the Guardian newspaper found that Meghan Markle was the subject of 843 articles in 14 print newspapers from May 2018 to January 2020, of which 43% carried negative headlines, 20% were positive, and 36% neutral. Kate, Duchess of Cambridge by contrast appeared in just 144 headline stories over the same period, 45% of them positive, 47% neutral and just 8% negative.

Through all Harry’s lament for a family lost to an arcane royal institution is a plea for this toxic compact, which has cast its destructive pall of confected ‘news’, scandal and conflict over his family, to end. From the demonstrably false News of the World’s ‘Harry’s in rehab’, to the petty and ludicrous ‘Meghan made Kate cry!’, ‘Meghan Markle’s beloved avocado linked to human rights abuse and drought’, the thinly veiled racism of ‘Megan Markle’s exotic DNA’, from the racist and dangerous BBC replication of a neo-Nazi group’s description of Harry as a ‘race traitor’ with an image of him with a gun pointed at his head, to the demotic Jeremy Clarkson’s grotesque sexualised violent imagery, ‘I hate her on a cellular level .. I’m dreaming of the day when she is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant ‘Shame!’ and throw lumps of excrement at her’. Nothing it seemed was too vile, too dangerous, or too humiliating to be deemed fit for publication by the British press.

The litany of lies and misrepresentations cast an entirely new and false persona over someone who had dared enter the royal fold as an intelligent, independent, self-made woman and, heaven forbid, a feminist activist. Recast through the tabloids as ‘Duchess difficult’ and ‘demanding’, those hackneyed gendered epithets immediately recognisable to millions of women with an opinion the world over. And through it all the Palace remained silent as Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex and a member of their own family, faced the most intense, misogynist, media bullying, to the point of contemplating suicide.

And not once did the Palace feel constrained to intervene. There was no denial of the palpably false, no statement of concern over even the most egregious incitement, much less a plea to the press to back off. Reflecting on the Clarkson vilification Harry told Bradby, ‘There comes a point when silence is betrayal’. And, as if it couldn’t get any worse, it was their own family members and media teams planting some of the most heinous stories, complicit in the media desecration. ‘Betrayal’ doesn’t even come close.

Two days after the Netflix documentary aired, as though determined to prove everything they had said about the toxic media-Palace nexus was true, came the Jeremy Clarkson obloquy, written just days after Clarkson and Meghan’s other media obsessive, Piers Morgan, had lunched with Camilla, the Queen consort.

The Palace may have remained ostensibly silent, while speaking through a stream of unnamed ‘Palace sources’, Meghan Markle however did not. In 2018 she took legal action against the publisher of The Mail on Sunday, despite the Palace urging her not to, over its publication of a private letter to her estranged father after her wedding in which she pleaded with him to stop talking to the media, ‘you have broken my heart into a million pieces’.

The significance of Markle’s victory was not so much as a legal precedent, the Mail had published the letter well-aware of the breach of copyright and privacy involved, in the expectation that she would not sue. After all, Kate Middleton’s phone had been hacked over a hundred times with no action taken. Meghan Markle’s victory was in this sense a ‘cultural and media’ turning point. She had refused to accept the media impropriety and sued. And she won.

After the verdict Meghan articulated what is now clearly the focus and the intention of Harry’s very public call-out of the royal-media nexus, of which this case was just the beginning; ‘What matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel, and profits from the lies and pain that they create’. ‘To reshape a tabloid industry’ – move over Kevin Rudd and the Murdoch royal commission, this is taking on the whole infested edifice of the British tabloid media.

In 2019 Harry joined the many others who have sued the News of the World, the Sun and the Daily Mirror, for hacking his voice messages. His decision to take legal action was seen as an ‘all-out war with the British newspaper industry’, so rare is it for the media’s illegal activities in the misplaced name of ‘journalism’ to be challenged. Rupert Murdoch’s News Group has admitted in court documents that Harry’s phone was hacked by the News of the World royal correspondent Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, and now claims that it is too late to sue over articles published in 2006. The case continues.

For the media, the legacy of Harry and Meghan’s flight is yet to play out and it will be fascinating. It’s captured in a little noted remark by Harry to Tom Bradby, that his ’mission in life’ is now to change the way the British tabloid media function. And that really is a force to be reckoned with because, unlike the other victims of the illegal phone hacking, he has the financial means to do so. It marks a major shift in this long-running saga, from tragic family breakdown to a campaign against the tabloid media and their special relationship with the royal family. Break out the popcorn, this could take a while.

The royal family’s silence at the appalling media treatment of its own members is the most damaging legacy of Spare. Had the monarchy been more receptive to change this could have been an opportunity for royal renewal and not, as it has become, a dangerous point of destabilisation. In what now appears a naïve expectation, Meghan and Harry clearly believed that they could make a uniquely modern contribution to the ageing edifice of the monarchy. It was an opportunity lost. The monarchy may rue the day it failed to recognise a rare opportunity for it to evolve, to embrace the contemporary reality of the post-imperial Commonwealth, even to genuinely ‘modernise’ other than merely changing two words in the coronation ceremony, and by doing so survive.

It might even have halted, or at least delayed, the now established path toward an Australian republic under the Albanese government. But that would have required a willingness to change entirely alien to an institution built on a rigid adherence to protocol, ‘cos-playing at being their ancestors’ in the arch description of Patrick Freyne, and fearful of change as merely the first step toward royal oblivion. Such is the insecurity and fragility of a dynastic monarchy in a democratic state.

This unedifying display of royal family discord will only hasten Australia’s move towards a republic with our own choice as head of state, no longer determined by the dynastic succession of the British monarch. Surely one of us can only be better than one of them.

 

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10 YEARS AGO WE PUBLISHED THE ARTICLE AT TOP.... IT WAS PRESCIENT OF COURSE.... AND WE'RE APPROACHING THE DENOUEMENT...

 

 

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spilling the beans on "the dismissal"...

 

family feud.....