UK News

from John Lloyd:

A yacht not fit for a queen

Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of Her other Realms and Territories, Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith … is in want of a yacht.

She had one, the Royal Yacht Britannia, which she loved very much. When the Labour government of Tony Blair said it was too expensive and decommissioned it soon after assuming office in 1997, she was seen to weep at the ceremony. Last year, Blair was reported as saying he regretted the decision, pressed upon him by the then-chancellor, Gordon Brown, and inherited from the previous, Conservative administration. It cost £11 million a year to run, and a necessary refit would have cost some £50 million. So it was put out to the nautical equivalent of pasture. It’s now on show at a dock in Leith, the port of Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh, where it’s in much demand as a venue for “occasions."

If in want of a yacht, Queen Elizabeth has never lacked for gallant courtiers. Michael Gove, the secretary of state for education, earlier this month wrote to the prime minister suggesting that for her Diamond Jubilee, to be celebrated in June this year, she should be promised (the event is too near for her to be “given”) a replacement yacht, to express the love her subjects bear her. After a little to-ing and fro-ing, Gove clarified that he had not meant that the expense – which might be some £80 million to £100 million – should be borne from the public purse, but rather would be raised from her (presumably better-heeled) admirers. The prime minister said he was all for it, on that basis. The deputy prime minister, Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg, made a not-too-bad joke, saying the world was divided into the “yachts and the have-yachts."

This is a storm in a royal teacup, to be sure: The money may not be raised, the yacht never built. Already, a grand river pageant is planned for June 3, when the Diamond Jubilee will be celebrated with a four-day weekend holiday for all. The star of that show will be a luxury river boat, the Spirit of Chartwell, transformed by the film set designer Joseph Bennett into a gilded, garlanded royal barge. Bennett did the sets for the grandiose TV series Rome, so he may have had in mind the lines heralding Cleopatra’s watery arrival to meet her lover, the Roman general Antony, in Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra: “The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
 Burn'd on the water."

Is not the barge enough? It will cost £10 million, the cost to be met by private sponsorship and donations. Are there enough generous royalists left after that to put up some £80 million to £100 million for a yacht?

Even if there are, it’s a bad idea. Gove, a former journalist and one of the sharpest minds in the British Cabinet, has allowed his affection for the queen to nudge him into making a rare presentational mistake. The queen should not have a yacht -- and it is the royalists who should be most concerned that she should not.

First, it puts her among the superrich. She is, indeed, very rich: Her fortune is estimated at just under £2 billion, which makes her the 19th wealthiest woman in the world and the second richest woman monarch (after Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, who tops £2 billion). But her style, her activities and above all her public relations have kept her removed from the yacht set – a set led by a near neighbor of hers, who lives a mile or so west of Buckingham Palace and who owns the Chelsea soccer team. Roman Abramovich’s Eclipse, the largest yacht in the world (557 feet) and the most expensive (nearly £1 billion) is one of four he has, the Eclipse having two swimming pools, two helicopter pads and a small submarine. Abramovich was embroiled till last week in an effort to strike down a suit against him from former fellow oligarch Boris Berezovsky. He has just lost his bid to defeat the suit, and so the substantive case will go to a full trial in October. The sight of these two enormously wealthy men, whose riches were torn from an impoverished country, brawling over billions is at once fascinating and melancholy. The queen shouldn’t join that class.

Constitution in crisis as tyrannical journalists devour cowed politicians

A sordid tale of excess and brutality, of a world dominated by journalists with their ears to the keyhole, of tyrannical newspapers wielding remarkable power and of a political class not only cowed, but consumed, by that power.

Sound familiar? With two of Britain’s most senior policemen out of a job, the prime minister under pressure for his serenading of News Corp and one of the world’s most powerful press barons, in the form of Rupert Murdoch, summoned to testify to parliament, it would be one way of describing the current state of affairs.

In fact, it is how Irish writer and wit Oscar Wilde saw the state of Britain 120 years ago.

“In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralising,” Wilde wrote in 1891, several years before a court case in which intimate details of his own private life became the centre of a media storm.

Wilde believed that in America “the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever” but that its power there had been diminished in the eyes of the public having “carried its authority to the grossest and most brutal extreme”.

In England, having not been pushed to ”such excesses of brutality”, the press remained a really remarkable force: ”The tyranny that it proposes to exercise over people’s private lives seems to me to be quite extraordinary,” he wrote in his 1891 essay “The Soul of Man under Socialism”.

Then, as many are doing now, he debated whether newspapers had the power to mould peoples’ minds or whether they merely held up a mirror to the public mood.

from FaithWorld:

Heaven is a fairy tale, says British physicist Stephen Hawking

(Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking speaks at Perimeter Institute For Theoretical Physics in Kitchener, Canada, June 20, 2010/Sheryl Nadler)

Heaven is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark, the eminent British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking said in an interview published on Monday. Hawking, 69, was expected to die within a few years of being diagnosed with degenerative motor neurone disease at the age of 21, but became one of the world's most famous scientists with the publication of his 1988 book "A Brief History of Time".

"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first," he told the Guardian newspaper. "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

Hawking gave the interview ahead of the Google Zeitgeist meeting in London where he will join speakers including British finance minister George Osborne and Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Addressing the question "Why are we here?" he will argue tiny quantum fluctuations in the very early universe sowed the seeds of human life.

His 2010 book "The Grand Design" provoked a backlash among religious leaders, including chief rabbi Lord Sacks, for arguing there was no need for a divine force to explain the creation of the universe.

Read the full story by Nia Williams here. A link to the interview is here.

from FaithWorld:

UK Catholics urged to shun meat on Fridays

(Fish and chips in London, 31 July 2010/Javier Vte Rejas)

Britain's Catholics have been urged to make more effort to follow religious custom and abstain from eating meat on Fridays, potentially boosting sales of fish.

Church law required Catholics over the centuries to comply with this abstinence as part of Friday penance, the day set aside for special prayer and fasting to mark the day Jesus died. Traditionally Catholics have opted to eat fish instead, though a combination of new church guidance and changing eating habits has eroded this habit.

Now the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales wants to re-establish the practice of Friday penance and its abstinence from eating meat as a symbol of a simple shared act of self-denial.

"I think Catholics will welcome this," the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, told reporters. "What we have sought to do in this decision is to establish a shared practice, a shared habit, because habits that are carried out together are better learned and are stronger -- we give each other mutual support. So that's why there's a simple, across-the-board expectation that this will be something that Catholics will do."

In 1984, the Church broadened its list of things Catholics could do to mark Friday penance in an attempt to attract more people to take part, but it only seemed to dilute adherence to the non-meat rule. The Church hopes the practice will be resumed from September 16 to mark the first anniversary of Pope Benedict's visit to England and Scotland.

from FaithWorld:

Archbishop of Canterbury voices unease over bin Laden killing

(Britain's Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, at Lambeth Palace in London September 17, 2010/Chris Ison)

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual head of the 80-million strong Anglican Communion, has said the killing of an unarmed Osama bin Laden left a "very uncomfortable feeling." Rowan Williams said the different versions of events coming out of the White House "have not done a great deal to help here."

Bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces early Monday during a raid on his home at Abbottabad, a garrison town near Islamabad in Pakistan.

U.S. accounts of what happened have changed throughout the week, and initial characterisations of a 40-minute gun battle have given way to officials being quoted as saying only one of the five people who were killed had been armed.

Citing U.S. officials, the U.S. television network NBC said four of the five, including bin Laden himself, were unarmed and never fired a shot.

"I think that the killing of an unarmed man is always going to leave a very uncomfortable feeling because it doesn't look as if justice is seen to be done in those circumstances," Williams told reporters in response to a question at a press briefing on Thursday.

Ignore the data, Royal Wedding and sunshine give Britain Plc a Q2 kickstart

A lot of the economic data in recent days has made for pretty grim reading, reinforcing expectations that interest rates will remain at record lows for some months yet.

But a string of bullish updates from British retailers and manufacturers suggest that the second quarter could have got off to a flying start, with fine weather, the Easter holiday and the Royal Wedding all improving the national mood.

Anybody who ignores such signals from within the real economy does so at their peril. In January the pound tumbled when it emerged that the British economy had suffered a shock contraction in the final three months of 2010. The market was caught off guard again a month later when revisions painted an even bleaker picture.

Those of us who had been following closely the steady stream of profit warnings from UK retailers, travel groups and builders were not quite so surprised, particularly as we churned out long lists of companies hit by December’s big freeze and predicted a looming standstill in the construction industry.

The big question now is whether the glow left by a month of unusually sunny weather and two holidays in swift succession for Easter and the Royal Wedding will translate into a sustainable recovery, or at the very least be enough to dull some of the pain of government cutbacks and job losses.

Supermarket group Morrison is sounding very cautious this morning. In common with a growing pack of retailers it has reported stronger than expected sales thanks to a bumper April but has not raised its forecasts for 2011 as a whole, citing falling disposable incomes and economic uncertainty.

from FaithWorld:

Archbishop of Canterbury praises “unpretentious” Kate and William

(Britain's Prince William and his fiancee Kate Middleton in Darwen, northern England April 11, 2011/Adrian Dennis)

The Archbishop of Canterbury, who will marry Prince William and Kate Middleton next week, said on Thursday he had been struck by their wedding preparations, describing the couple as courageous and unpretentious. Rowan Williams, spiritual head of the Church of England, praised the couple's "simplicity" and the way they had dealt with the build-up to next Friday's wedding, which is set to be watched by an estimated two billion people worldwide.

"I've been very struck by the way in which William and Catherine have approached this great event," Williams said in a short film released by his Lambeth Palace office, adding it had been a "real pleasure" to get to know the couple. "They've thought through what they want for themselves, but also what they want to say. They've had a very simple, very direct picture of what really matters about this event."

"They're responsible to the whole society, and responsible to God for their relationship. And I think it's impressive that they've had that simplicity about it, they've known what matters, what's at the heart of all this," he said. "They are deeply unpretentious people."

The Dean of Westminster will conduct the April 29 ceremony at Westminster Abbey and Williams will marry the couple while the Bishop of London Richard Chartres, who knows William well, will give the address.

Read the full story here.

from FaithWorld:

U.K. academic says Easter date can now be fixed

(The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci, 1498)

The Last Supper took place on a Wednesday -- a day earlier than thought -- and a date for Easter can now be fixed, according to a Cambridge University scientist aiming to solve one of the Bible's most enduring contradictions.

Christians have marked Jesus' final meal on Maundy Thursday for centuries but thanks to the rediscovery of an ancient Jewish calendar, Professor Colin Humphreys suggests another interpretation.

"I was intrigued by Biblical stories of the final week of Jesus in which no one can find any mention of Wednesday. It's called the missing day," Humphreys told Reuters. "But that seemed so unlikely: after all Jesus was a very busy man."

His findings help explain a puzzling inconsistency between the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, who said the Last Supper coincided with Passover and John, who said the meal took place before the Jewish holy day commemorating the Exodus from Egypt.

Read the full story here.

from FaithWorld:

Kate Middleton confirmed ahead of royal wedding

(Kate Middleton, fiancee of Britain's Prince William, during a visit Witton Country Park in Darwen, northern England April 11, 2011/Alastair Grant)

Royal bride-to-be Kate Middleton has been confirmed into the Church of England ahead of her wedding to Prince William this month, his office said on Wednesday. The ceremony, carried out by the Bishop of London Richard Chartres who will give the address at the April 29th wedding, took place on March 10 with Middleton, 29, accompanied by her future husband, a spokeswoman for St James's Palace said.

"Catherine Middleton was confirmed by the Bishop of London at a private service at St James's Palace attended by her family and Prince William," the spokeswoman said. "Miss Middleton, who was already baptised, decided to be confirmed as part of her marriage preparations."

William himself was confirmed by Chartres in a ceremony at Windsor Castle in March 1997 when he was 14, around the usual time for a youth to be confirmed. That ceremony represented a break in tradition as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the Church of England and the worldwide Anglican Communion, usually performed such services for the royal family.

The Church of England and the throne have been linked since Henry VIII broke with the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century and had himself declared the supreme head of the Church of England, a position currently held by the Queen. As second in line to the throne, William is set to become supreme head of the Church of England when he becomes monarch.

British law forbids a Catholic, or anyone married to a Catholic, from taking the throne.

Libya crisis could scupper British aircraft carriers once and for all

So the world has unfurled a no-fly zone over Libya, apparently undeterred by the lack of Royal Navy aircraft carriers. Judging by the uniforms gracing the steps of 10 Downing Street on Friday and the attacks launched over the weekend, Britain’s military top brass haven’t been put off either.

The Libya crisis has, until now, provided a platform for the “Save our Aircraft Carriers Campaign” to champion its cause but in the process they’ve thrown down some whopping red herrings.

First we were told Britain could have done a better job extracting citizens from Libya if it had an aircraft carrier. In the event nature’s own aircraft carrier, Malta (immune to rough seas and mechanical failure) proved a perfectly good operations centre from which to manage rescue efforts. If Britain’s response was slow, that had more to do with the speed of decision making than the available military hardware.

Even if HMS Ark Royal had been in service, victualled, crewed and ready to put to sea from Portsmouth, she would have taken a good four days to reach Benghazi sailing at full steam the whole way, through still waters. Had she been in the Gulf of Oman supporting operations in Afghanistan, it would have taken closer to five days at best. Once in theatre she would have required defence from air attack and even the threat of submarines should any of Gaddafi’s Soviet-era vessels still be operational.

The C-130 Hercules aircraft the Royal Air Force and Special Forces used in the end to land in Libya’s Eastern Desert and to evacuate people can fly from Wiltshire to Tripoli in under 5 hours.

A second strange conclusion was that without aircraft carriers, Britain would be forced to police a no-fly zone from Cyprus – putting its jets out of easy range of Libya. Why Cyprus? NATO allies Italy and the United States run an airbase at Sigonella in Sicily which is less than a third of the distance from Tripoli.

Another argument deployed in favour of carriers has been the Falkland Islands but the smartest strategy there must be to defend them properly in the first place, maintaining or bolstering the Typhoon jets and Rapier surface-to-air missiles already based there. In the unlikely event the islands were left open to occupation, retaking them would be almost impossible –aircraft carriers or not – because unlike in 1982 there is a proper airfield from which any enemy should be able to establish and maintain air superiority. Land-based aircraft, with much higher sortie-rates, have a huge strategic advantage over marine-based jets and whoever controls Mount Pleasant Airfield controls the Falklands.