jonathan.rawle.org

I hadn’t intended to watch it, but then I thought, it is history in the making, and there might not be another one for 30 years, so why not? Then I discovered the live stream on Youtube, and it was fantastic simply because it had the live video from the BBC, but no commentary. That meant it was possible to watch proceedings in full and take in the atmosphere and ambience without it being interrupted by tittle-tattle. No gossip, no useless information, no “expert” opinions, no interviews with random members of the public who were foolish enough to sleep there for a week. Instead, Youtube viewers were able to see the ceremony as if they were there, except that they had a better view than anyone who actually was.

Anyone who was watching will know what happened, and anyone who wasn’t won’t be interested, so I won’t repeat what is already reported elsewhere, and instead just add a few of my own observations, rather as if I was commenting on the live broadcast, in fact!

It was good to see Kate Middleton and her father travel to the Abbey in not a horse-drawn coach, but rather a quaint-looking 1970s Rolls Royce, not least because this was the car that a bunch of idiots vandalised during so-called protests last year. Well now billions of people have seen it looking splendid and shiny, while the stupid people who attacked it have gained nothing except notoriety, and must learn that civilised society will always triumph.

The choices of music for the ceremony worked out well. People who can afford an entire orchestra to play at their wedding are fortunate, as it’s so much better than making do with “Here Comes the Bride” bashed out on a mouse-eaten organ. Particularly welcome was the version of Jerusalem in Elgar’s arrangement, the same arrangement as performed at the Last Night of the Proms. But as the camera panned across the congregation, one surprising fact that emerged was that it seems Elton John can’t sing. While his partner David Furnish, and other guests such as David Cameron (in his morning suit), were seen singing with gusto, Sir Elton seemed to make a poor job even of pretending. He had the programme with the words in front of him. Perhaps he wore the wrong glasses. I felt a little sorry for guests such as Ken Clarke who were seated behind the choir, as during the choir performances, they were inevitably caught on camera and looked rather bored.

The newly wed couple then set off for Buckingham Palace by carriage, past many familiar landmarks. They cut through Horse Guards Parade to reach The Mall, rather than passing through Trafalgar Square and Admiralty Arch, presumably to avoid having to close the former to traffic completely. Someone now has the fun task of shovelling up the sand and gravel they had put down in Whitehall in front of Horse Guards.

There was a long wait for the couple to appear on the balcony at Buckingham Palace, I suspect largely to allow the crowds to have time to be positioned before the gates. It was interesting to see the way the lines of police officers slowly and calmly moved the crowds along the Mall, then around both sides of the Queen Victoria fountain. Crowds are so much easier for the police to control when they aren’t throwing things. Also, the police all looked like old-fashioned bobbies, resplendent in their traditional helmets and tunics. The sad thing is, 99% of people would much prefer the police to dress like that all of the time – and probably have more respect for them – but it’s the hardened criminals and thugs that make stab-proof vests and fluorescent jackets necessary. Thinking about it, can’t we just deport all the thugs and so-called student protesters permanently, so that the rest of us can enjoy a pleasant country inhabited by the sort of people who turned out to watch the wedding procession?

Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

It was announced this morning that Prince William is to be the Duke of Cambridge, and so his new bride the Duchess of Cambridge. That had been the favourite in the running for possible titles, and it’s lucky they are being given a title, or else we’d have Princess William of Wales, which sounds a little silly, and the newspapers would never get it right.

The previous Duke of Cambridge, Prince George (1819–1904) believed in marrying for true love, and said that arranged marriages were doomed to failure. He instead married the woman he loved, but it was not recognised as it wasn’t approved by Queen Victoria as royal marriages must be. Thankfully the royal family seem to have learned their lesson in that respect, and have avoided repeating the mistake that was made with the marriage of Prince William’s parents. Given that the new Duke is going to have little say over any aspect of his future life, it’s happy that he’s been able to make this one choice for himself, so that one day he can discharge his duties as King with the help and support of the woman he loves.

I had felt it inappropriate to write a piece in support of nuclear power, which seems such a trivial matter when thousands of people have lost their lives in the earthquake and ensuing tsunami. However, it seems anti-nuclear groups in the UK and Germany, and no doubt other areas, are attempting to capitalise on the disaster to further their own campaigns. I find this rather distasteful, but now feel someone has to write something in defence of nuclear power.

As with every country using nuclear power (except, infamously, the Soviet Union) Japan has used nuclear reactors for decades without major incident. The current situation was ultimately caused not by a fault with the plant itself or a lapse of safety procedures, but by an earthquake. The earthquake caused a tsunami that, it is now estimated, has killed at least 10,000 people in coastal areas. The earthquake itself will have killed hundreds of people, who were trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings. The earthquake has also caused the nuclear alert, but that has so far killed no-one at all. Of course, the situation may worsen, but the number of casualties will be dwarfed by the other deaths caused by this natural disaster.

Now I’m sure people will say nevertheless that even if they are smaller in number, any deaths or serious illness caused by radiation wouldn’t have occurred had the nuclear power stations not been there. This is true, but if we are to avoid building nuclear plants in case they are damaged by an earthquake, surely we should apply the same logic and avoid building any cities anywhere on the coast of Japan, or countries with similar seismic activity, in case there is a tsunami – after all, far more people were killed by the tsunami. Perhaps we should also avoid living in buildings in case an earthquake reduces them to rubble, and all live in tents instead.

The fact is, people want to live in coastal areas, they don’t want to live in tents, and they want to use electricity. People are prepared to take risks, and using nuclear power is by far the least risky of those three activities.

So why is there so much coverage of the situation at the nuclear plant, seeming eclipsing other coverage of the aftermath of the disaster in some media outlets? I believe the reason is that the press like a current story so they can justify the existence of rolling news coverage. Following the latest events as workers attempt to shut down a nuclear power station sells newspapers in a way that covering the hardship of people after an event has already happened doesn’t. There is also the fact that the public are so poorly informed about nuclear power, and consider it some sort of frightening black magic. Nuclear reactors contain radiation, and radiation is bad, after all. That’s all they need to know. Newspapers get their sensational headlines, and everyone’s happy.

Neither the UK nor Germany experiences earthquakes of anything like the magnitude experienced in Japan. There is no risk of a similar disaster occurring in either country. In fact, the earthquake proves how good the construction and engineering of nuclear power stations is, as the reactor cores and the buildings they were housed in withstood the actual tremors.

Anti-nuclear campaigners should stop trying to take advantage of the plight of the Japanese people, using a natural disaster as an excuse to oppose something, when just about any man-made activity is just as dangerous in the face of an earthquake. Unfortunately, I think the fact that the nuclear power stations are no longer producing electricity, and the resulting power cuts, are going to affect ordinary Japanese people much more than any nuclear “incident”, just as power cuts are going to hit Europe in the next decade or two unless it invests in nuclear technology.

My thoughts are with the Japanese people. Among all the gloomy stories, it was heartening to hear some things were returning to normal in Tokyo, drivers on otherwise empty roads were still stopping at red lights, and you can bet the bullet trains that have restarted still arrive on time to the minute. I can’t think of a people better suited to deal with such a crisis, and I’m sure that in time the country will pull through and be just as great as it was.

A row is emerging over whether the Queen’s head will remain on postage stamps when the Royal Mail is privatised as per the government’s plans. Ever since the first ever stamp, the Penny Black, British stamps have featured the head of the monarch. In the ’60s, the then Postmaster-General Tony Benn, a well-known republican, proposed new stamps that would not feature the Queen’s portrait, supposedly because it was limiting the scope of designers to produce commemorative stamps. In the end, his plan to remove the Queen’s head was thwarted, and instead a small silhouette of Her Majesty was designed, which takes up less space on the stamp and is used on special stamps to this day.

One important consideration I haven’t heard discussed in the last few days is that the Queen’s head actually serves the important purpose of identifying the stamps as British. Universal Postal Union rules say that stamps must feature the name of the issuing country, yet British stamps have never followed this, which is often seen as a special privilege afforded to the country that invented the stamp. Were the Queen’s portrait no longer to be featured, British stamps would presumably have to include a country name, either “United Kingdom” or “Great Britain”. The latter would be inappropriate for Northern Ireland (although that doesn’t stop the Olympic team using it) and UK might not please Scottish Nationalists, particularly those who are still in favour of the monarchy and do not object to the Scottish monarch being shown on stamps at present.

It is doubly important that the Queen’s head remains on stamps. Otherwise not only would we lose the tradition of stamps featuring the monarch, but also that of not having a country name (or often, any text at all) on stamps, which is surely an even greater philatelic curiosity.

Post Office services

The government have also suggested that, even on privatisation of Royal Mail, the Post Office would remain in public ownership. I think that if this is the case, the Post Office should be permitted to offer services from rival couriers, and not be limited to Royal Mail services. Why should Post Offices have to be restricted to offering products from a particular private company? Post Offices should in future accept parcels for services such as DHL and FedEx, which offer much cheaper deals for sending packages abroad, yet are a pain for the average person to use as they need to pick up from premises, which might mean taking a day off work. If the Post Office could recommend a courier service from across the whole market that would be better for consumers, and help secure the future of the branch network. Unfortunately, I expect the government will come to some sort of deal with the new private operator that ensures their products exclusively are offered at Post Offices for the foreseeable future. In that case, privatisation will just mean higher prices, job losses and the same poor range of services as at present, and possibly the loss of our postage stamp heritage too. “Six first class Deutsche Post stamps, please.”

In 1999, the House of Lords Act barred most hereditary peers from sitting in the upper house of Parliament, meaning a departure of members with such colourful titles: dukes, marquesses, earls and viscounts. Most members of the House of Lords are now appointed for life with the rank of baron, meaning they are referred to simply as either “Lord” or “Baroness”.

Yet on Monday, the House saw the arrival of a new marquess. How could this be, given that the chamber is no longer a private club for those with aristocratic titles? The new member, the Marquess of Lothian, is of course better known as Conservative politician Michael Ancram. He has been granted a life peerage, presumably in recognition of his service in various senior roles in the Conservative party, but in common with a dozen or so other hereditary peers who have life peerages, he will be known by his grandest title when he sits in the House.

Michael Ancram’s actual surname is Kerr (pronounced in Scottish English more like “car”) but from birth he was known as Earl of Ancram, a courtesy title he used as the son and heir of his father, the Marquess of Lothian. Before becoming an MP, he practised law as an advocate in Scotland, and it’s said he decided to go by the name of Mr Michael Ancram as it was confusing people in court if he and the judge both referred to the other as “My Lord”. After he succeeded to the marquessate on his father’s death in 2004, he continued to use his established name of Ancram rather than Lothian – as he has only daughters, his current heir, his brother, isn’t entitled to be called Earl of Ancram anyway.

However, now he has entered the House of Lords, Lord Lothian is using his title in public life for the first time. It is not uncommon for people to choose a title other than their name when entering the House of Lords in any case. Earlier this year, John Gummer became Lord Deben (perhaps to further disassociate himself from beef burgers?) and Ian Paisley took the title Lord Bannside (with uncharacteristic sweetness, he said it was to be clear that his wife, Baroness Paisley of St Georges, was sitting in her own right, not as his wife; alternatively, it could be a dig at the Ulster Unionists).

The Kerr family have held the title Marquess of Lothian since 1701. Lord Lothian also holds all the following titles: Earl of Lothian (1606), Earl of Lothian (again, this time from 1631) Earl of Ancram (1633), Earl of Ancram (again from 1701), Viscount of Briene (1701), Lord Newbattle (1591), Lord Jedburgh (1622), Lord Kerr of Newbattle (1631), Lord Kerr of Nisbet, Langnewtoun, and Dolphinstoun (1633), Lord Kerr of Newbattle, Oxnam, Jedburgh, Dolphinstoun and Nisbet (1701), Baron Ker (1821), and finally Baron Kerr of Monteviot (2010). All of the titles from before 1707 are, of course, Scottish titles rather than British ones.

A new Lord Kitchener?

A long list of yet more new members of the House of Lords was announced a couple of weeks ago, which will controversially take membership to well over 800. Hidden among the names on this list is Julian Fellowes, an actor and screen writer for productions such as Gosford Park (for which he won an Oscar) and Downton Abbey, who is being rewarded for supporting the Conservative Party, in particular for writing speeches for Iain Duncan Smith when he was leader.

Fellowes is married to one of the few surviving relatives of Earl Kitchener, who is himself the great nephew of the first Earl Kitchener, the famous military commander. The present Lord Kitchener has no male heirs, and for a number of years Fellowes has been campaigning for a change in the law that would allow his wife – and one day his son – to inherit the title, which can otherwise only pass to males and so will become extinct when the present earl dies. He has, unsurprisingly, had no success with this. In 1998 Fellowes even changed his surname to Kitchener-Fellowes.

The title Lord Fellowes has already been used, so it will be interesting to see what title Julian Fellowes will choose. Instead of Lord Fellowes of Somewhere it might be Lord Kitchener-Fellowes. Maybe we will see the Kitchener name live on for a little longer after all.

This post is slightly late, but around two weeks ago there were two cases in the news of people who had been arrested for posts or “tweets” they had written on the micro-blogging site Twitter. The first was an appeal against a sentence earlier this year by Paul Chambers, the man who tweeted that he would be “blowing Robin Hood Airport sky high” if they didn’t reopen after snow in January. The second was the case of Birmingham councillor Gareth Compton who asked facetiously whether someone could stone to death writer Yasmin Alibhai-Brown following comments she had made during a radio interview.

Now clearly both of these comments would be pretty abhorrent if there was any real intent to carry out the threats. However, anyone who looks at the remarks in context can see they they were not supposed to be taken seriously, a view even shared by some of the arresting police officers in the Chambers case. Councillor Compton, on the other hand, actually meant the exact opposite to what he tweeted. Ms Alibhai-Brown had stated in the interview that western governments had no right to criticise countries such as Iran that stoned women to death for adultery, so Mr Compton’s tweet was intended to express his complete opposition to that view. No-one in their right mind would think he was calling for anyone to be subjected to stoning; rather that such a punishment is not justified under any circumstances, and that we have every right to criticise countries that use it.

Both men could without a doubt have chosen wiser ways to express themselves, yet many people across the country must make similar remarks in conversations every day without a team of police officers knocking at their doors. It was the fact that the messages were sent electronically that caused them to fall foul of the Communications Act 2003, which states that it’s an offence to send “by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.” The problem is that, while people who tweet may think they are simply sending the message to their Twitter followers, in fact the message is visible to anyone online, and searchable too. Anyone could see the tweet. Many people search for their name or that of their business to see what people are saying about them.

The way the Communications Act is being applied to these cases means that either it is far too wide-reaching, or else it is being applied to the sorts of cases that it was never envisaged such a law would cover. Either the law needs to be changed, or else some common sense needs to be applied. As things stand, however, people would be better off sharing their “menacing” jokes with their friends orally rather than through Twitter, thereby avoiding the attention of the authorities. Alternatively, if they have offensive views to express, they could always save them for a live interview on national radio.