An Abdication

80 years ago today His Britannic Majesty King Edward VIII abdicated.

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The Abdication of Edward VIII

On this day 76 years ago, His Britannic Majesty King Edward VIII abdicated.

The official story is that it was due to his wish to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson.

However, a BBC Four documentary, Abdication: A Very British Coup, claims the story is more complicated. Yours truly watched the documentary previously this year when it was still available at YouTube. It has now unfortunately been removed, apparently due to a copyright issue.

According to the documentary the political establishment was looking for an excuse to get rid of the King. His modern views were not appropriate.

It could be tempting to want a King who holds traditionalist views, including keeping up pomp and circumstance and sticking to royal marriage traditions, but it may also be useful to reflect on whether one wants a monarch to the liking of the political establishment and who does not get in the same establishment's way. It may also be useful to reflect on a monarch removal's effect on future monarchs.

The abdication speech of the Duke of Windsor:

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House of Lords Act 1999

13 years ago today, Royal Assent was given to the House of Lords Act 1999.

We give you The Lords' Tale:

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Parliament Act 1911

Samuel Begg: Passing of the Parliament Bill in the House of Lords, 1911

A century ago today, His Britannic Majesty George V gave Royal Assent to what was to be known as Parliament Act 1911.

With this act the power of the House of Lords were essentially reduced to that of suspensive veto, with the exception of a bill to extend the life of Parliament.

The leaders of the opposisition to the bill in the House of Lords and the House of Commons were the 1^st Earl of Halsbury and George Wyndham respectively.

Hardinge Stanley Giffard, 1^st Earl of Halsbury PC, QC (1823-1921)

The Right Honourable George Wyndham PC (1863-1913)

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The Battle of Naseby

June 366 years ago – on the 14^th in the old calendar, 24^th in the new – the Battle of Naseby was fought.

The Battle of Naseby

The Parliamentarian New Model Army defeated the Royalist Army.

Memorial at the battlefield in Naseby

It was a decisive victory in Oliver Cromwell's rise to power, the Cromwell tyranny, and the Commonwealth of England.

Not to be amused by. Cromwell's rule is not to be amused by.

Balance of power may be a good thing, but that is certainly not what we have now.

The English Civil War may be seen as the first step on a road to an absolute democracy, an absolute, omnipotent House of Commons.

Not to be amused by.

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The Republic of India

Today we mark the sad 61^st anniversary of the end of the Dominion of India and the birth of the Republic of India.

The British Raj Red Ensign

Previously: India Independence and Partition

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The Very Few

First they came for the fleet. Now the planes.

But the RAF will bear the brunt of the planned cuts. The Air Force will lose 7,000 airmen – almost one sixth of its total staff – and 295 aircraft. The cuts will leave the Force with fewer than 200 fighter planes for the first time since 1914. In addition, the Navy will lose two submarines, three amphibious ships and more than 100 senior officers, along with 2,000 sailors and marines.

The Army faces a 40 per cent cut to its fleet of 9,700 armoured vehicles and the loss of a 5,000-strong brigade of troops.

The Telegraph has also learnt that the “black hole” in MoD finances, caused by orders which have been made but cannot be paid for, is approaching £72  billion over the next decade – double the amount previously suggested.

Plenty of money made available to bail out irresponsible bankers, the bloated mess of the NHS and countless dependency creating welfare schemes, but not enough to keep up a word class military. A nation voting itself into irrelevance. These stories make me sick, physically ill. I'm not exaggerating for effect. It is a moral crime to send men into battle without proper equipment and supply. It is as sinful as it is foolish to strip a nation of its defences.

In my bleaker moods I've thought of making it mandatory for all welfare recipients, who are physically fit and without dependants, to serve their nation in uniform. I hesitate solely because I would hate to inflict such malingerers on the forces. So much damn waste in modern Britain, and the focus is all on the only parts of the country that still work, and are still regarded as being globally first rate, the monarchy and the military.

Is there not an overweight PC, a safety inspector or diversity enforcer in the realm who cannot lose their stipend? Must the very best be punished for the sake of the very worst? What perversity and madness is this? Terrorists and religious fanatics caper freely, but fox hunting is banned! There is moral outrage at bull fighting, but one can obtain a lunchtime abortion!

Could those who are murdering Britain not have the decency, the plain decency, of at least waiting until all the veterans of the last great war die off? Must the few remaining soldiers, sailors and airmen of 1939-1945 live out their last years in this strange place? Where crowds of foreigners - who have inexplicably been granted residency and even citizenship - insult the honoured dead returning from Afghanistan. I have no problem with immigrants - my parents are immigrants - only with the ungrateful sods who have no intention of integrating. The strange death of Mother England.

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The Battle of Naseby

June 365 years ago – on the 14^th in the old calendar, 24^th in the new – the Battle of Naseby was fought.

The Battle of Naseby

The Parliamentarian New Model Army defeated the Royalist Army.

Memorial at the battlefield in Naseby

It was a decisive victory in Oliver Cromwell's rise to power, the Cromwell tyranny, and the Commonwealth of England.

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Manifestal Lunacy

The United Kingdom is standing before a general election.

Let us see what the major parties' manifestos say on the grand institutional matters.

The Labour Party Manifesto has a chapter 9 entitled “Democratic reform: A new politics: renewing our democracy and rebuilding trust.” Under a subtitle “The next stage of national renewal,” the Labour Party manifests:

• Referenda, held on the same day, for moving to the Alternative Vote for elections to the House of Commons and to a democratic and accountable Second Chamber.
• Improved citizenship education for young people followed by a free vote in Parliament on reducing the voting age to 16.

For those interested in details, they can be found in a PDF document.

The Liberal Democrats Manifesto follows suit. In a chapter entitled “your say,” in a section entitled “fairer politics,” amongst the main points are:

• Give the right to vote from age 16.
• Replace the House of Lords with a fully-elected second chamber with considerably fewer members than the current House.

For those interested in these details, they too can be found in a PDF document (also a PDF with only the cited chapter).

Then there is the Conservative Party Manifesto. In a chapter entitled “Change politics” and a section entitled “Make politics more accountable,” the Conservative Party manifests:

We will work to build a consensus for a mainly-elected second chamber to replace the current House of Lords, recognising that an efficient and effective second chamber should play an important role in our democracy and requires both legitimacy and public confidence.

“Conservative” indeed! In this manifesto there is no crazy flirting with minors. However, the House of Lords must go, apparently. Details can be found in a “conservative” PDF document.



The great High Tory Mr. Gerald Warner today sums up the upcoming election in Scotland on Sunday:

Choice is a luxury that is no longer on offer to British voters. The identical programmes of the three main political parties have effectively created a one-party state. It is the great irony of this general election that the expansion of the traditional two-horse race into a three-horse contest has brought not the slightest philosophical broadening of the electoral landscape.

Mr. Warner goes on:

It would be more accurate to say that Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats share a homogenous culture. It is possible to detect slight differences in their respective agendas – the Liberal Democrats' dissent from the Iraq War would be one instance – but these are purely tactical variations in the implementation of a common political culture that Gordon Brown once described as “the Progressive Consensus”. When the advent of David Cameron as Conservative leader absorbed even the Tory Party into that consensus, multi-party democracy became history.

Progressive democracy marches onwards. The “solution” to the problems of modern democracy is even more democracy. Nothing is to check the will of the popular majority – nor stand in the way of those acting in its name. Liberty and decency be damned.

By the way, anyone care to bet on when universal suffrage is expanded to two-year-olds?

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The Entente-Cordiale

For a long time the British Empire had been on unfriendly terms with the revolutionary republic, with very good reason.

On this day, however, 106 years ago – April 8, 1904 – this would end. His Britannic Majesty entered as a party to the Entente-Cordiale with the revolutionary republic. Yes, that's the one. With the “Republic of France.”

A decade and a few months away were the fateful shots heard around the world from Sarjevo. And the British Empire was eventually to be on the same side as the revolutionary republic in that Great War that was to put an end to the Old Order that was.

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Their Lordships

The Monarchist reported a couple of weeks ago on the 10^th anniversary of Their Lordships' approval of the House of Lords Act 1999.

The House of Lords Chamber

Today is the 10^th anniversary of this infamous act's Royal Assent.

November 11 is also the anniversary of the guns of the Great War falling silent, and thus it is the anniversary of the armed conflict part of the crusade to make the world safe for democracy. It was on this very same day that the Emperor of Austria signed a declaration of renunciation of power.

November 11 is too the anniversary of the famous quote from Winston Churchill:

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

Yet, few know that Winston Churchill was speaking against what would become Parliament Act 1949 in the speech that quote is from. Winston Churchill in that same speech explicitly supported the Parliament Act 1911, which he had been an active parliamentary supporter of at the time of its debate.

November 11 thus becomes an important date in democracy's march forward. Unfortunately, on that march, decency and liberty are at the boot heels.

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The Death of Marie Antoinette, October 16th, 1793.

Two-hundred and sixteen years ago to the hour (I hope), the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, was murdered by Jacobin criminals in the Place de la Revolution.

Vive la Reine!

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Her Majesty "appalled"

A report this morning, and not for the first time, that Her Majesty the Queen is "appalled" at the current direction of the Church of England.

Inasmuch as most people with functional cerebral cortexes are appalled at the current direction of the Church of England (downwards in a death spiral), this should be a suprise to no-one.

However, it remains to be seen whether Her Majesty will exert her considerable personal influence over the Church in order to halt said spiral.

We recommend the apocryphal words of the first Elizabeth, to the bishop of Ely:

Proud Prelate, you know what you were before I made you what you are. Comply with my request, or I'll unfrock you, by God!

Cross posted at Kiwi Examiner.

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Oh, how far thou art fallen

So much unrighteousness in a land! Error so wanton and unrestricted! Infamy so exalted and universal… It was once remarked that Britain, alone of nearly all nations, had for centuries been blessed not to see the campfires of an enemy army upon its shores. But I am afraid that almost every night, Britons huddle by their television sets, and in their light see just as much the glowing announcement of dreadful peril to come. The horizons of our very rooms smoulder with reports of advancing enemies, missives of conquerors, manifestoes of tyrants. The only thing that does not hold true, is that they are not often foreign, not anymore. It is instead our establishment, preaching disestablishment - the powers that be, loosing anarchy. The news is desperate, and regular, in this vein. I suppose it is so across all of the English-speaking nations - the whole world, even. But it seems worse here.

It has happened again most notably, just a few days past, with the Scottish Executive releasing the Lockerbie mass murderer - a man responsible for one of history’s most prolific dynamite outrages, accomplished in the air above a quiet Scotch town.

Whilst one of Scotia’s fair kings had Mr Fawkes and his conspirators hung, drawn and quartered, so heavily was felt their heavy wickedness, one of modern Scotland’s Arbitrary Democrats (ruling by divine right of the aggregate of those who can be bothered to vote) had other ideas. “The Scots are a compassionate people. We are different. We are better.” So they released him. He had served 11.56 days per victim slain. There were over 250 such souls he drowned in flame and fire in the heavens. He expressed, and expresses, no sorrow - no remorse.

And so Scotland died something of a death earlier this week. Or rather, the corpse, which one suspects has been decomposing some time, had at last more than just its ankle coyly displayed to the world. She was rumoured to be and has become a monster. Everything vital in her is evidently gangrenous; and honest men must be in a terrible division of mind. Either we would be well to conduct some engineering experiments as to the viability of pushing this cankered country (with the highest murder rate in Europe, incidentally) out into the north Atlantic, there to drift with whales and Greenland fishermen, the society of whom she could less readily corrupt. Or plans ought to be drawn up, or perhaps recovered from some 18th century archive, for her capture and subjugation.

Reports say that the Saltire of St Andrew was flown in Tripoli to welcome the unrepentant mass murderer home. Every British flag is less, now, for having this newly dirtied symbol as part of it. I do not advise split on the back of it. I advise the judicious repositioning of an aircraft carrier just off the Firth of Forth, and its solemn employment.

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India Independence and Partition

Every August 15, India celebrates her independence. It was on August 15, 1947 India received her independence, and India was also partitioned at the time into Pakistan and present day India. Pakistan consisted of two parts. East Pakistan later became Bangladesh. King George VI held the title of King of India until the early days of 1950, whereas Queen Elizabeth II held the title of Queen of Pakistan until 1956, inheriting the sovereign title from her father George VI.

There was no Coronation Durbar for George VI. Nor was there one for Edward VII – needless to say. There was one in 1903, and one in 1911, however.

It was on George V's coronational visit to India the move of the capital from Calcutta to Delhi, eventually creating New Delhi as the thus far last city within the city of cities, Delhi.

Yours truly has paid two visits to the Coronation Park in Delhi. The first one was in August 2005. The Daily Telegraph reported later that same year that the park was to be refurbished.

Yours truly's second visit was in November of 2008, about two weeks before the Bombay attacks (yes, it's Bombay – and it's Trondhjem, not Trondheim, for that matter). That second visit was a far cry from the first. The first visit was a visit to an abandoned place, where a few locals were sitting waiting for tourists to “guide,” whereas the area was a bit crowded during the November 2008 visit, as the video shows.

Yours truly could not see much renovation from his first to his second time. There was no need for grass to be taken care of the second time though. Also, they sure have taken it into use. There was some bad language written on one of the pedestals. So taking it into use is not necessarily a positive change. The reader is spared the photo of the bad language.

Yours truly was – when taking photos – sarcastically asked by some children if he [George V] was his grandfather. One can imagine the propaganda fed to these kids by teachers and their family elders.

As we can see, there is some potential for a more well kept park.

Perhaps putting the Coronation Park in order really will take off up to the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010? There is a huge construction project going on for expansion of the Delhi metro system. This may make the Coronation Park a more accessible attraction, and it may help to bring it into the light.

We must, however, remember that the statue of George V stood at India Gate until the 1960s. Now it is stowed away.

Time will tell if India can come to terms with her British heritage.

An exhibition yours truly visited at the Supreme Court Museum – The Trial of Bhagat Singh – suggested that there is a long way to go.

There are no photos from the exhibition itself, as photography in the museum is strictly prohibited.

Here is some of what the exhibition said:

Only after India gained independence, it was subjected to the rule of law in a modern sense. A new Constitution was put in place that combined the principles of liberal democracy with socialist aspirations of general equality and welfare. Indeed, the use of constitutional law was intended to reach a wide societal compromise.

Today, we take our freedom for granted only because it is our fundamental right protected by our Constitution. We are free, because our judicial system led by the Supreme Court of India is the guardian and guarantor of that freedom. In spite of undeniable difficulties, it is clear that it has not failed to serve the nation and that it is precisely the reason why Judiciary in India is held in high esteem. Its integrity being the basis of its power. It relentlessly performs to fulfill the expectations of the society while upholding the rule of law and impartial justice to all.

Also, we could read:

When World War I broke out in Europe, Ghadrites decided to return to India [from Canada and the U.S.] with the object of liberating India from British slavery through armed struggle and to establish a National Government on the basis of equality and justice.

The trial of Bhagat Singh is as much a story of revolution in India as the farcical system of law and justice under the British rule.

And also:

They are ever anxious to devise new forms of treachery. We are eager to see what limits there are to oppression.

It is interesting. It sounds a lot like the Animal Farm attitude. British rule bad, self-rule good. No recognition of any good British heritage in their present system.

If the new regime can always point to the British and the liberation from British rule as freedom, they can perhaps more easily justify the new regime's own actions.

With all the bureaucracy and other interventions that comes from the Indian “self-government,” proving that the new Indian regime is not freedom should not be the hardest task in the world.

Moreover, the way terrorists of the Indian independence movement are glorified, it should come as no surprise that India has problems with terrorists.

The late Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn wrote about anti-colonialism in his Leftism Revisited. Not only did he deplore the decline that end of colonial rule often represented, but he also stressed that the end of colonialism took place in an era where republicanism was in high esteem. Not a good combination.

Let us remember that it was Indian independence and republicanism that put an end to the Princes of India.

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The Phony Pharoah Loses Big

There is no evidence that the Duke of Edinburgh ordered Diana's execution.
- British coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker

Thank God our dirty raincoat show for the world is finally over. 10 years and £10 million too late, as far as the taxpayer is concerned. The Phony Pharoah is -- surprise, surprise -- undeterred that his farce of a conspiracy theory was found wanting, his preposterous claim that the Princess was murdered by M16 and the British Monarchy, with the sole exception of the Queen. We can only assume he didn't include the Queen because he calculated this would not go over well with Her subjects, whereas Prince Charles and Prince Philip are fair game, given their less than perfect past in the minds of the public. Al-Fayed may be crazy and twisted, but he is no dummy.

It was, of course, long ago established that the man is a rather loathsome figure with a dishonourable past. There was the Department of Trade Inquiry into his purchase of Harrods; there was his maliciously false accusation that Rowland Rowans stole millions in jewelry from his store; there was his cash for questions scandal, for which MPs were paid for asking questions on his behalf, who were later dismissed or imprisoned; there was his arrest by the police, for which he sued and lost; and there were his numerous fruitless attempts to gain British citizenship, but denied on the grounds of proven bad character. Yet, for all of this, for the last 10 years he was handed a public soapbox and the circus platform opportunity to air his multiple grievances against the State.

The real conspiracy here is not a conspiracy to murder but a conspiracy to marry. The not so blind truth was surely his desire to manipulate his son to marry Princess Diana for the purpose of fathering him semi-royal grandchildren, in order to win him influence the world over, including with his public enemies. And the tragic outcome of his behaviour, of manoeuvering against the monarchy and against his enemies, is that a father lost a son and a people lost a Princess. End of sad story.

So goodbye and good riddance to the Phoney Pharaoh. You have entertained us long enough.

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Balderdash and Piffle

In more than two years of blogging I've never had to write a post like this, but I suppose it's finally time to face the unrelenting mischief of my accuser. J.J. McCullough means to level a piffle charge of racism against this blog, when he declares it guilty of celebrating "white pride", of indulging in "benign bigotry", of admiring "white men in top hats", of being interested in only the most Anglocentric aspects of the "white dominions", which, according to him, is a kind of "racism by ommission".

He attempts to substantiate this twaddle by preening that we have never missed an opportunity to order the "white realms" first and the "brown ones" last. He also cites the fact that we have never made an honest effort to champion the cultures, anniversaries and traditions of the non "Ethnically-British" countries like Jamaica and Papua New Guinea who also share the British monarchy, as if we are somehow morally obligated to do so.

Now it's true that I don't give one piddle whiff for the local habits and customs of the Papuans, nor do I profess to be all that interested in the indigenous traits of the Tuvaluans, Belizeans or Grenadians. He can call this smug indifference all he wants, this is not my hobby. Clearly the only reason why I mention these countries is because we all share allegiance to Her Majesty, because we all share something in common. It is not the things that separate us, but the thing that unites us. Our accuser is insincere and hypocritical when he feigns concern for the Papuans and the Solomons, but if he is genuinely interested in the annual feast day of the Saint Lucians, let him look it up. That is not why we are here.

To his preposterous claim that we are exaggerating the importance of "tiny New Zealand" when Papua New Guinea or the Crown Caribbean are marginally more populous, I say piffle again. As he must know, New Zealand with its wealth and aid is a much more geopolitically significant country, engaged as it is in expensive reconstruction efforts in such far away places as Afghanistan. It is to New Zealand that we look for assistance in Tonga and Fiji, for example, not PNG or the Solomon Islands, which have trouble enough looking after their own tribal and domestic affairs. On this blog there is a demand for a New Zealand perspective, and the scribes for the telling of it. I would hope for others, and other perspectives, but if not, so be it.

If tiny Tuvalu has a smaller font size it is because it is not as important as the United Kingdom, nor is Canada for that matter, and because there are 16 realms which I am trying to recognize in the small space chosen. Nonetheless, I have allotted more space for the 12 countries that have a combined population of around 10 million people, than I have for the four that have a population exceeding 100 million. Further down the sidebar he will notice them all mentioned again, only this time all the same font size where there is plenty of room, and all identified with their own unique flag. And yes, it just so happens that the historical order of these countries [UK (1801), Canada (1867), Oz (1900), New Zealand (1907), Jamaica (1962),...and the Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis (1983)] has me listing the "white ones" first and the "brown ones" last.

To my accuser who levels this balderdash and piffle at me, let me just say that I have never read anything quite like the invective and hate spewed in his own essay on the British monarchy. While we are all perfectly free to make up our own minds about the Crown, the level of revulsion and enmity he displays towards something that is essentially benign and harmless suggests an unhealthy emotional incompetency, and explains why he has engaged in this undignified bit of race baiting. He simply hates the Queen, he hates our traditions and he hates this site for promoting it. It drives him crazy:

The fact that Canada still recognizes the Queen of England as our head of state embarrasses and disgusts me to no end. Every time I hear the term "crown counsel" or "crown land" I cringe. I find it offensive that my father was forced to take an oath of loyalty to the British monarch before he could work as a parole officer and that reciting this same oath is also the first act we ask of our nation's new immigrants. I hate the Governor General's stupid medals and the fact that she still has political power. I hate the Queen's face on our coins and the culture of our military, which still teaches our soldiers to worship a foreign monarch they will likely never meet. But most of all I hate how so many of my fellow conservatives in Canada eagerly line up to defend all this absurdity.

And he has the laughable temerity to call himself a conservative. What, pray tell us, does he wish to conserve? We can only hope his sanity.

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The Man who Stole and Broke the Stone of Scone, and Lived to Tell About it

The most prominent - indeed legendary - heretic alive today, is a Scottish Nationalist Republican by the name of Ian Hamilton. His is an act of pure, premeditated sacrilege. Leading an expedition of Scottish nationalist students to Westminster Abbey on Christmas Eve, 1950, his act of ballsy thievery involved swiping the Stone of Scone, the coronation stone, from St. Edward's Chair, the coronation chair. That he broke the ancient stone in two pieces while attempting to escape from the Abbey, amplifies his larceny from a mere "touch of treason" (to use his own autobiographical words), to a crime against humanity's great treasures. Thanks to his perfidy, the Stone of Destiny is now a reconstructed Scottish ruin.

Two images of the Stone of Scone under the seat of King Edward's Chair in Westminster Abbey, the traditional coronation chair of English monarchs since Edward I commissioned it in 1296 to house the historic rock. The Stone of Destiny, the ancient coronation stone of Scottish Kings and Queens, was captured as a spoil of war by King Edward from its Scone, Perth resting place, and brought to Westminster where it sat for 700 years, as a symbol of monarchical power and dominion over Great Britain. The Stone was permanently loaned to Scotland in 1996, and now sits in Edinburgh Castle.

Upon learning this gross betrayal against the King in the dead of the night, the British Government became understandably apoplectic, and ordered a major search for the stone, which turned up some three months later on the altar of Arbroath Abbey, in the safekeeping of the Church of Scotland. In "repatriating" the busted jewel, the adult punks (Mr. Hamilton was 25 years old and a law student at the time - hardly the antics of a prankish juvenile!) had managed to navigate around the police roadblocks, and eventually had it passed to a senior Glasgow politician who arranged for it to be professionally repaired. Once the London police were informed of its whereabouts, the Stone was returned to Westminster, and Hamilton and the others were threatened with prosecution by the Crown.

But alas, no prosecutions were ever made as thousands of Scots took to the streets to demonstrate in their favour. Also, official predictions were that any court proceedings would eventually require ownership of the Stone to be lawfully asserted and proved - potentially embarrassing the Crown, some were inclined to believe. What bosh. (Yes, yes, and while we're at it, maybe we should consider returning Napoleon's cannons to their rightful owner). Apart from Queen Mary, every monarch since Edward Longshanks has been acclaimed, enthroned and annointed on that Stone, including a line of Stuarts who had no doubt about it's hitherto firmly acquired location and ownership.

(Imagine the Italian Mafia sneaking into the Louvre to "repatriate" the Mona Lisa, and in so carrying out said repatriation, inadvertently tearing a gaping hole in Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece as they make their frantic escape.)

The mind boggles at the dark humour and irony of modern justice, a process that repeatedly rewards the culprit over the aggrieved. In a political calculation of monumental stupidity, Michael Forsyth returned the Stone to Edinburgh castle in 1996 (a clearly irritated Duke of York made it quite clear that the Queen was only lending it to Scotland), hoping that this gesture would revive Tory fortunes in Scotland. Forsyth's gesture was in vain and every single Tory lost their seat in the 1997 general election. To add insult to injury, Ian Hamilton was invited to the repatriation ceremony, but refused!

Of course, Labour is just as susceptible to the same silly old game of trying to buy off the nationalist separatist vote to no avail. During the official opening of the newly devolved Scottish Parliament in October 2004, Ian Hamilton was on hand to tell the assembled crowd that "every fibre of my being has been geared towards today and the declaration of a Scottish republic". "Farewell Britannia and advance Scotland." Eat your heart out Tony Blair.

In another era, Ian Hamilton would have lived to the ripe old age of 25, having been either decapitated, drawn and quartered, left to rot in the Tower of London or strung up by his oversized gonads. But this being the 21st century, the popular and otherwise pleasant man of words is having the time of his life as an interesting blogger, watching happily and confidently as his native Scotland creeps ever so deliberately towards full independence:

".. enduring is the thing. Just going on being Scots, and damning the consequences, and damning those in every generation who sell out to go over to the other side. Without bombs, without violence, without hatred, although it is difficult sometimes not to hate the Quislings, we must plod along. The Scottish race was here, under whatever name, long before the English were woad-painted savages. It reached a low ebb in the early twentieth century, but the tide has turned, and the flood now flows.." - Extract from "A Touch of Treason"

"Damning the consequences". Ian Robertson Hamilton, Q.C., wrote the book on damning the consequences. Whether or not he is ultimately rewarded in the process, depends an awful lot on what happens to Destiny.

UPDATE: HE MOCKS US STILL.
The Great Larkster, unrepentent to the end, has visited us in the comments!

Beaverbrook

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