Deal worth £700,000 signed with regime guilty of using excessive forces against pro-democracy activists
Cahal Milmo , James Cusick - Tuesday 14 May 2013
For much of the world, Bahrain is notable for unpalatable reasons related to its repression of democracy protests. For the Prince of Wales, the Gulf state is of more interest – it is claimed – as a business opportunity for the charity set up to expound his ideas on town planning.
The Prince’s Foundation for Building Community has signed a £700,000 agreement with the Bahraini government to advise on a sustainable-housing development inspired by Charles’s Poundbury village in Dorset.
The deal, announced a week after the Prince, inset, hosted Bahrain’s Minister of Housing at Clarence House, was sharply criticised by campaigners who said it deflected attention from human-rights abuses in the Gulf state perpetuated during bloody protests for reform in 2011.
Three years ago, the Prince found himself in hot water after it emerged his personal lobbying of the Emir of Qatar about the proposed £3bn redevelopment of the Chelsea Barracks in central London led to a drastic revision of plans which the Prince had described as a “gigantic experiment with the very soul of our capital city”.
Clarence House said that Prince Charles had been “kept informed” of the signing of the Bahraini deal but underlined that the decision to enter into the agreement with the Bahraini Housing Minister, Basim al-Hamer, had been taken by staff at the £8m foundation, of which he is the president.
Clarence House said the Prince’s long-standing personal ties with the Bahraini royal family had not played a direct role in the negotiations for the agreement. Charles escorted Bahrain’s Crown Prince around Poundbury in 2007. According to the Court Circular, Charles also met Mr Al-Hamer in London on 26 April. Clarence House said the agreement had been signed prior to the meeting.
Campaigners said the cementing of ties with Bahrain by the foundation was inappropriate at a time when Bahrain is facing strong criticism for the slow pace of reforms following the brutal quashing of pro-democracy protests.
An independent inquiry found that Bahraini security forces used excessive force against peaceful protesters, some of whom were tortured, ill-treated and denied fair trials.
Graham Smith, the chief executive of Republic, which campaigns for the replacement of the monarchy, said: “Prince Charles should be ashamed. By orchestrating this immoral deal he is giving legitimacy to one of the world’s most repressive regimes. The Bahraini people need solidarity and support – not their own Poundbury.”
The agreement with the Prince’s Foundation, to last for 11 months, will be focused on proposals to develop a 5 sq km area along coastline in the south of Bahrain for up to 4,000 homes.
The Foundation underlined that the project was aimed at meeting the needs of communities from housing to infrastructure as well as passing on knowledge to Bahraini officials for future building schemes.
Exclusive: Duchy estate bought Milton Keynes supermarket depot despite his famously forthright views on preserving traditional architecture and countryside
Cahal Milmo - Friday 14 June 2013
Prince Charles, renowned for his aversion to “monstrous carbuncle” buildings, has spent £38m on an industrial depot in Milton Keynes as part of a £102m series of confidential property deals, The Independent can reveal. The purchase of the vast supermarket warehouse through his estate – one of the single largest acquisitions by the Duchy of Cornwall in its 670-year history – was completed 18 months ago but has been kept from being made public.
A recent judicial ruling declared the Duchy to be a “public body” potentially liable to freedom of information rules.
But Clarence House has repeatedly refused to disclose any details of the expensive acquisition due to what the Prince’s officials said was the Duchy’s “private” status.
The Prince bought the sprawling grey warehouse complex in Milton Keynes from an Anglo-Indian property fund, The Independent has established. His tenants are Waitrose, who are using the depot as a lorry distribution hub. The deal offers a glimpse into the hard-nosed business ethos of the Duchy, established in the 14th century to provide an income for the Prince of Wales and his heirs, as well as the multiple layers of confidentiality and opaque procedure that govern the Prince’s commercial dealings.
Under an arrangement which is now being scrutinised by MPs, the Duchy is exempt from capital gains and corporation tax, saving it millions of pounds a year. Charles voluntarily pays income tax.
An investigation by The Independent has revealed that the Duchy, which is one of Britain’s largest private estates and owns more than 50,000 hectares of land, conducted property transactions worth at least £102m between 2009 and last December.
Any sale or purchase by the Prince worth more than £500,000 must be approved by the Treasury.
The Duchy’s holdings of land and property form the bulk of its assets, worth £693m, and stretch across 23 counties, including most of the Scilly Isles, Dartmoor Prison, the Oval cricket ground in central London, a Holiday Inn in Reading and the Prince’s private homes such as Highgrove. To this extensive list has now been added property title BM191066, otherwise known as the Waitrose distribution centre in Brinklow, Milton Keynes, whose new owners are listed by the Land Registry as “His Royal Highness Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay, Earl of Chester and Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Great Steward of Scotland”, and the Duchy. The sale price was £38,385,500.
Like all other significant Duchy transactions, the deal in November 2011 with Indian property fund Meghraj Properties had to be approved by the Lord Commissioners of the Treasury, an ancient post held by Government whips.
The depot, built in 1993 to withstand 20 million lorry journeys over its lifetime, sits awkwardly with the heir to the throne’s well-publicised love of traditional architecture along with his emphasis on rural life and environmental sustainability.
The purchase of the 396,000 sq ft warehouse is not the first link between Charles and the John Lewis Partnership supermarket. A previous deal between the Duchy and Waitrose in 2009 saw it take over the once-troubled Duchy Originals organic food brand, which now generates more than £1m a year for the prince’s charities.
When The Independent yesterday approached Clarence House with evidence of the warehouse purchase, it insisted there was no connection with the Duchy Originals tie-up, adding it was a “coincidence” that Waitrose was the tenant of the industrial complex.
The revelations come at an uncomfortable time for the Duchy, which is facing a private members’ bill in the House of Lords demanding that its structure be radically overhauled and its surplus income – £18.3m last year – be distributed to Cornwall rather than to the heir to throne. The bill’s sponsor, Labour peer Lord Berkeley, says the Duchy is a “feudal anachronism”.
The day-to-day management of the Duchy, including investment decisions on commercial property such as the Waitrose warehouse purchase, is carried out by a professional managerial team. But it is widely known that Prince Charles takes a close personal interest in the running of the estate. In many ways, the estate, which transfers its handsome surplus every year to the heir to the throne to form the bulk of his income, is a paragon of success. Despite the global downturn, the Prince has defied the prevailing economic winds to grow the Duchy’s income every year since at least 2008 – to £26.5m last year. His estate’s total value has risen by 15 per cent to £764m.
Charles voluntarily pays income tax on the income he receives from the Duchy (last year he paid £4.5m to the tax man from incoming funds of £18.3m). He uses the money to fund himself and the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry, a sizeable staff and his charitable activities.
But while the Duchy has been slickly managed, a growing number of critics say it has existed for too long in a constitutional no-man’s land where it discharges the duties of a public body, for example running the harbour authority on the Scilly Isles, and is subject to the financial scrutiny of Government whips, yet maintains it is a “private estate”. One benefit of this hybrid status is that the hereditary holding is exempt from both corporation and capital gains tax. The situation, which Clarence House insists is valid because the Duchy is “not a separate legal entity for tax purposes”, has led the powerful Commons public accounts committee, which is also investigating the tax affairs of Google and Starbucks, to demand answers from Treasury ministers as to whether the Prince’s exemptions are justified.
The Duchy is also fighting a separate attempt to force it to be more open about its workings. The Prince’s officials lost an important case before the Information Rights Tribunal, which after a three-year legal battle ruled that his estate was a “public authority” in performing its “primary function” to provide an income for the heir to the throne.
The landmark ruling could make the estate subject to the Freedom of Information Act. The Duchy is appealing. A spokeswoman said: “We do not agree that the Duchy performs functions of public administration. Hence we are appealing the ruling.”
Lord Berkeley, who lives in Cornwall, said there was a “conspiracy of silence” surrounding the status of the Duchy and it was time for a debate about its future: “The Duchy is a complete anachronism. It is feudal and I suspect many of those who work for it would say so if they felt able. It vacillates between being a private and a semi-public organisation according to its best advantage and yet there is no debate about how it should be best managed. It would seem to me that the Duchy would be a far better situation if it was turned into a public trust for the benefit of the people after which it is named.”
In a statement, a Duchy of Cornwall spokeswoman said: “The Duchy of Cornwall is a private estate, not a public body and is not funded by the taxpayer. The Prince of Wales chooses to use his private money from the estate to pay for his public duties, as well as those of the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry.
The Royal Family is to be granted absolute protection from public scrutiny in a controversial legal reform designed to draw a veil of secrecy over the affairs of the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William.
Letters, emails and documents relating to the monarch, her heir and the second in line to the throne will no longer be disclosed even if they are in the public interest.
Sweeping changes to the Freedom of Information Act will reverse advances which had briefly shone a light on the royal finances – including an attempt by the Queen to use a state poverty fund to heat Buckingham Palace – and which had threatened to force the disclosure of the Prince of Wales's prolific correspondence with ministers.
Lobbying and correspondence from junior staff working for the Royal Household and Prince Charles will now be held back from disclosure. Buckingham Palace confirmed that it had consulted with the Coalition Government over the change in the law. The Government buried the plan for "added protection" for the Royal Family in the small print of plans called "opening up public bodies to public scrutiny".
Maurice Frankel, head of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said that since the change referred to communications written on behalf of the Queen and Prince Charles it might be possible for "park keepers working in the royal parks" to be spared public scrutiny of their letters written to local authorities.
The decision to push through the changes also raises questions about the sincerity of the Liberal Democrats' commitment to government transparency. In opposition, senior Liberal Democrats frequently lined up to champion the Freedom of Information Act after it came into force in 2005.
Ian Davidson, a former member of Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC), told The Independent: "I'm astonished that the Government should find time to seek to cover up royal finances. When I was on the PAC what we wanted was more disclosure not less.
"Every time we examined royal finances we found extravagance and indulgence as well as abuse of expenses by junior royals.
"Everywhere we looked, there were savings to be made for the Government. This sends the wrong message about public disclosure and accountability."
Paul Flynn, another member of the committee, described the special protection for the Royals as "indefensible". He said: "I don't think it serves the interests of the public or the Royal Family very well."
Mr Frankel said he believed that Prince Charles was the driving force behind the new law.
"The heir to the throne has written letters to government departments in an attempt to influence policy," he said.
"He clearly does not want these to get into the public domain."
Later this month, lawyers for the Cabinet Office, backed by Prince Charles, will go to court to continue to resist Freedom of Information requests of ministers to publish letters written to them by the Prince of Wales.
A spokesman for Buckingham Palace said that the change to the law was necessary because the Freedom of Information Act had failed to protect the constitutional position of the monarch and the heir to the throne. He explained that the sovereign has the right and duty to be consulted, to encourage and warn the government, and by extension, the heir to the throne had the constitutional right and duty to prepare himself for the role of King.
"This constitutional position relies on confidentiality, so that all such correspondence remains confidential," he said.
But he said that change would also mean that correspondence not covered by the absolute exemption would be made public 10 years earlier than under the current disclosure rules.
The Palace's position was backed by Professor Vernon Bogdanor, research professor at King's College London.
He told The Independent: "The essence of constitutional monarchy is that the Queen and other members of the Royal Family remain politically neutral. The Queen meets the Prime Minister once a week, when both are in London, to discuss government policy.
"The heir to the throne has the right, and perhaps the duty, to question ministers on policy so as to prepare himself for the throne. Such discussions are only possible if they remain confidential. Otherwise the neutrality of the Queen and of the Prince of Wales could be undermined.
"When the Queen meets the Prime Minister, no one else is present – not even the Queen's Private Secretary. For this reason, it is right that the Royal Family should be exempt from FOI."
The Government claimed that the thrust of the changes announced yesterday would make it "easier for people to use FOI to find and use information about the public bodies they rely on and their taxes pay for".
The Ministry of Justice intends to increase the number of organisations to which FOI requests can be made, bringing in bodies such as the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Financial Services Ombudsman, and the higher education admissions body UCAS, and also all companies wholly owned by any number of public authorities.
In the public interest? The stories they didn't want us to know
*In 2004 the Queen asked ministers for a poverty handout to help heat her palaces but was rebuffed because they feared it would be a public relations disaster. Royal aides were told that the £60m worth of energy-saving grants were aimed at families on low incomes and if the money was given to Buckingham Palace instead of housing associations or hospitals it could lead to "adverse publicity" for the Queen and the government.
*A "financial memorandum" formalising the relationship between the sovereign and ministers set out tough terms on how the Queen can spend the £38.2m handed over by Parliament each year to pay for her staff and occupied palaces.
*The Queen requested more public money to pay for the upkeep of her crumbling palaces while allowing minor royals and courtiers to live in rent-free accommodation.
*As early as 2004 Sir Alan Reid, the Keeper of the Privy Purse, had unsuccessfully put the case to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for a substantial increase in the £15m-a-year grant to maintain royal buildings.
*The Palace planned to go ahead with refurbishing and renting the apartment of Diana, Princess of Wales at Kensington Palace after it had lain empty since her death in 1997.
*A letter exchange revealed a tussle over who has control of £2.5m gained from the sale of Kensington Palace land. Ministers said it belonged to the state, while Buckingham Palace said it belonged to the Queen. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Walter Bagehot, the great 19th century commentator on, and even shaper of, the British constitution, and editor of “The Economist”, wrote that to men of affairs, like himself, Britain was already a ‘secret’ republic” which had insinuated itself within the folds of monarchy.
‘The monarchy, he wrote, acts as a disguise ‘enabling our real rulers to change without heedless people knowing it. The masses of Englishmen are not fit for an elective government; if they knew how near they were to it, they would be surprised, and almost tremble.’ _________________ "Soon after the year 2000 has been written, a law will go forth from America whose purpose will be to suppress all individual thinking. This will not be the wording of the law, but it will be the intent" Rudolf Steiner: Gegenwärtiges und Vergangenes in Menschengeiste (The Present and the Past in the Human Spirit)
Prince Charles gets a bite out of Transylvania since he opened a B&B
PRINCE CHARLES is now more of a tourist attraction than his “ancestor” Count Dracula since he opened a B&B in Transylvania.
PUBLISHED: 05:28, Sun, Jun 30, 2013
Prince Charles bought the house in the Romanian village of Viscri for 10 000 Prince Charles bought the house in the Romanian village of Viscri for £10,000
Holidaymakers who pay £35 a night to rent a house he bought in the Romanian village of Viscri for £10,000 seven years ago are said to be more interested in Charles than the Count.
The Royal Family’s bloodline has been linked to Vlad III, the Prince of Wallachia, known as Vlad the Impaler.
Vlad the Impaler was the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula
The genealogy shows I am descended from Vlad the Impaler, so I have a bit of a stake in the country
Prince Charles
The tyrant was the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Gothic horror novel Dracula.
Charles said recently: “The genealogy shows I am descended from Vlad the Impaler, so I have a bit of a stake in the country.” _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Charles in tax storm as top MP compares the Prince to Starbucks and calls for him to pay more
Margaret Hodge MP demanded overhaul of Prince Charles' tax arrangements
Charles has never voluntarily revealed tax arrangements of Duchy estate
Duchy spokeswoman pointed out it is not a public body or taxpayer-funded
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2351728/Charles-tax-storm-MP-c ompares-Prince-Starbucks-calls-pay-more.html _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 12:23 pm Post subject:
Touchy subject of royal links with Nazi Germany
Published: 13 January 2005
....The modern royal family was founded in 1840 when Queen Victoria married Albert of Saxe-Coburg, a Germany duchy, creating The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Such was the ill-feeling towards all things German during the First World War that in 1917 Victoria's grandson King George V - an honorary Field Marshal in the German army - thought it prudent to renounce the German name and titles and adopt that of Windsor.
It was a masterful PR exercise, replacing the Teutonic surname with that of a quintessentially home counties town.
His son Edward VIII once declared: "There is not one drop of blood in my veins that is not German." Both he and George VI were bilingual in German and English.
Throughout the Twenties and Thirties, the royals were steadfastly opposed to conflict with their ancestral fatherland. Indeed George V's wife Queen Mary always maintained that Britain had "backed the wrong horse" in 1914.
His son's meeting with Hitler threatened irrevocably to undermine the royal family's support among their subjects.
It took the Queen Mother's steadfastness in the face of German bombs and her visit to the East End during the Blitz to restore public faith in the family.
The Windsors' links with Germany remained a touchy subject however. There was embarrassment in the Eighties when Princess Michael of Kent's father, Baron Gunther von Reibnitz, was exposed as a former Nazi party member and SS officer.
Less well known is the fact that one of Prince Philip's sisters, Sophie, was married to Christopher of Hesse-Cassel, an SS colonel who named his eldest son Karl Adolf in Hitler's honour. Indeed, all four of Philip's sisters married high-ranking Germans.
The prospect of the former Nazis and Nazi sympathisers attending his wedding to the Queen meant he was allowed to invite only two guests.
In this edition of the show: Roland Dumas says Britain had been planning a war against Syria some two years before to the unrest broke out in the Arab country; The similarities between Britain's Iraq invasion and planning to invade Syria.
Monarchy: As part of her 'Birthday Honours List,' the British Queen will recognize Professor David Newman of Ben-Gurion University for advocating academic partnership between countries and opposing the UK academic boycott of Israel!! A clear contradictory move against majority of British academics attitude.
Britain had been planning a war against Syria some two years before to the unrest broke out in the Arab country
Hmm...back to WW1:
Sir Edward and his wife spent Christmas 1905 with Lord Rosebery. A few days later, on 29th December, Grey was made aware by fellow Coefficients member Col. Repington of The Times – who had helped to arrange them – that secret talks had started between British and French staff officers with a view to coordinating operations against Germany in the event of war in northern France and Belgium. Let us remember that this was 1905, not 1914 !
A long read but informative of the Brotherhoods long term plans.
On the night of 30-31st of July, feeling entrapped by a seemingly inevitable march of events, Kaiser Wilhelm mused to himself doomily:
Frivolity and weakness are going to plunge the world into the most frightful war of which the ultimate object is the overthrow of Germany. For I no longer have any doubt that England, Russia and France have agreed among themselves – knowing that our treaty obligations compel us to support Austria – to use the Austro-Serb conflict as a pretext for waging a war of annihilation against us... In this way the stupidity and clumsiness of our ally [Austria] is turned into a noose. So the celebrated encirclement of Germany has finally become an accepted fact... The net has suddenly been closed over our heads, and the purely anti-German policy which England has been scornfully pursuing all over the world has won the most spectacular victory which we have proved ourselves powerless to prevent while they, having got us despite our struggles all alone into the net through our loyalty to Austria, proceed to throttle our political and economic existence. A magnificent achievement, which even those for whom it means disaster are bound to admire. _________________ "Soon after the year 2000 has been written, a law will go forth from America whose purpose will be to suppress all individual thinking. This will not be the wording of the law, but it will be the intent" Rudolf Steiner: Gegenwärtiges und Vergangenes in Menschengeiste (The Present and the Past in the Human Spirit)
William Nye, Principal Private Secretary
The Prince of Wales’s right-hand man and the member of staff with whom he spends most time.
Mr Nye [who will inevitably become Sir William soon] has overall responsibility for the Prince’s household and also keeps an eye on the running of the Duchy of Cornwall, his private estate, and his residences at Highgrove and Birkhall.
Mr Nye, 47, studied economics at Cambridge and Yale before joining the Civil Service, advising David Cameron on national security before joining Clarence House in 2011.
Unlike his predecessor Sir Michael Peat, Mr Nye does not have the use of a grace-and-favour apartment in Kensington Palace.
Mark Leishman, Private Secretary
Grandson of the BBC founder Lord Reith, the Scot, who joined Clarence House in 2009, manages the Prince’s private office, supervises engagements and has special responsibility for Scotland, Health and Education.
The 51-year-old began his career as a local newspaper reporter in Fife and eventually became a TV presenter and later the head of PR for BBC Scotland.
He is also in tune with the Prince’s love of organic food, as his wife Fiona used to run Gordon Ramsay’s Amaryllis restaurant in Glasgow.
Michael Fawcett
The man who made himself indispensable as the Prince’s valet, before his temporary exile in 2003 after the exposure of his role in selling royal gifts received by the Prince earned him the nickname “Fawcett the Fence”.
The Prince, however, insisted he could not do without Mr Fawcett, who now runs his own catering company which is used for much of the Prince’s official and private entertaining.
He remains one of the Prince’s closest confidantes and was made project manager of Dumfries House, the Prince’s pet heritage project, to raise funds for its £45m restoration. He was also allowed to have his 50th birthday party at the Ayrshire mansion last year.
Wing Commander Richard Pattle, Master of the Household
A former RAF helicopter pilot who flew in Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Iraq, Wing Commander Pattle, 44, looks after the Prince’s residences and domestic staff, including security, receptions and entertaining. He also has overall supervision of the Prince’s diary and logistics.
Two years ago his stock increased when he worked with Prince William’s principal private secretary Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton on the organisation of the royal wedding.
He previously spent two years as the Prince’s Equerry, before rejoining the household in 2008 in his current role.
Sally Osman, Communications Secretary
The woman who is responsible for the Prince’s public image as head of his press and communications team.
Miss Osman, 54, who joined the Prince’s staff in June, spent eight years at the BBC where she was in charge of its PR during the crisis over its reporting of the Labour government’s “sexed up” dossier on Iraq’s weapons capability.
A calm head in any situation, she also has oversight of PR for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry, who have their own press team at Kensington Palace.
Kristina Kyriacou, Assistant Communications Secretary, Charities and Marketing
A former music industry executive who was hired by the Prince last year to promote his charities, which he felt were not as much coverage in the media as they deserved.
Miss Kyriacou works part-time so that she can carry on representing the interests of her other client, Cheryl Cole.
The feisty 47-year-old negotiated a three-day-a-week role for the Prince so that she can also work as Director of the Cheryl Cole Foundation, which donates money to good causes including the Prince’s Trust.
The pop singer and former X Factor judge met the Prince at Clarence House, together with Miss Kyriacou, to discuss the link-up last year.
Miss Kyriacou has worked in the past for Sony, for Comic Relief as its head of media and as Gary Barlow’s manager.
Simon Martin, Deputy Private Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
The man who briefs the Prince on foreign affairs and is always by his side when he travels abroad.
Mr Martin, who was previously head of protocol at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, remains an FCO employee but is on secondment to Clarence House, which he joined last year.
Mr Martin also has a major hand in overseeing The Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, The Prince’s Youth Business International and The British Asian Trust.
Dame Julia Cleverdon, Special Adviser
Regarded as one of the most influential women in Britain, Dame Julia, 63, is the Prince’s special adviser on charities, helping him with strategy and overall co-ordination of his good causes.
Dame Julia, who spent 17 years as chief executive of Business in the Community, one of the Prince’s key charities, and was hired by Labour as voluntary chair of Teach First, the social enterprise scheme that encourages top graduates to teach for two years before they go into their chosen careers.
The Prince is said to speak to Dame Julia up to twice a day on the phone, though she has gradually reduced her workload over the past year.
Alastair Martin, Secretary and Keeper of the Records, Duchy of Cornwall
The son of a Somerset farmer, Mr Martin is chief executive of the Duchy of Cornwall, which has assets of more than £700 million and generates an income of around £19 million per year for the Prince.
A former land agent and chartered surveyor, the father-of-two speaks to the Prince several times each week to update him on Duchy projects, including sales and acquisitions.
His title dates back to the Duchy’s 14th century origins, when secretaries, having the relatively rare ability to read and write, were among the very closest aides of monarchs and members of the Royal family.
Martina Milburn, Chief Executive, The Prince’s Trust
The woman who runs the Prince’s oldest and best-known charity, which helps 40,000 young people each year to pay for vocational training so that they can find work.
Ms Milburn, 56, started out as a journalist and worked as a researcher for BBC television programmes including Blue Peter before changing tack and working for charities including CAFOD.
A former chief executive of the BBC’s Children in Need appeal, she moved to her current role in 2004 and was awarded the CBE last year for services to charity.
The Queen and Prince Charles are using their little-known power of veto over new laws more than was previously thought, according to Whitehall documents.
At least 39 bills have been subject to Royal approval, with the senior royals using their power to consent or block new laws in areas such as higher education, paternity pay and child maintenance.
Internal Whitehall papers prepared by Cabinet Office lawyers show that on one occasion the Queen vetoed the Military Actions Against Iraq Bill in 1999, which aimed to transfer the power to authorise military strikes against Iraq from the monarch to parliament.
She was also asked to consent to the Civil Partnership Act in 2004.
In the Whitehall document, which was released following a court order, the Parliamentary Counsel warns that if consent is not given by the royals "a major plank of the bill must be removed".
Legal scholar John Kirkhope, who fought to access the papers following a freedom of information case, said the document revealed senior royals have "real influence and real power".
"There has been an implication that these prerogative powers are quaint and sweet but actually there is real influence and real power, albeit unaccountable," he said.
The document also contains a warning to civil servants that obtaining consent can cause delays to legislation. Royal approval may even be needed for amendments to laws, it says.
Andrew George, Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, which includes land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, said the findings showed the Royals "are playing an active role in the democratic process".
He called for greater transparency in order to evaluate whether the powers were "appropriate."
"This is opening the eyes of those who believe the Queen only has a ceremonial role," he said.
"It shows the royals are playing an active role in the democratic process and we need greater transparency in parliament so we can be fully appraised of whether these powers of influence and veto are really appropriate. At any stage this issue could come up and surprise us and we could find parliament is less powerful than we thought it was."
The power of veto has been used by Prince Charles on more than 12 government bills since 2005 on issues covering gambling to the Olympics. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 8:03 pm Post subject:
Former Jersey Senator Stuart Syvret: Royal family complicit in child abuse cover-ups?
Investigative reports. Former Jersey senator Stuart Syvret. Bristol NHS whistle-blowers get two chances to hold UHB & North Bristol Trusts to account. NATO come to Newport with massive security cordon & presence but are they actually Nazis? Interview with Stuart Syvret, former Senator from Jersey. As a former Minister of Health and Social Services, he discusses child abuse in Jersey, and how there seemed to be a criminal conspiracy to cover it up and silence whistleblowers. How politics works in Jersey, it’s tax haven status, and how it’s The City of London’s criminal offshore backyard nicknamed ‘Jersey or Jail’. Petition to get Michael Mansfield QC to chair the UK child abuse enquiry.
http://politicsthisweek.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/bcfm-politics-show-wi th-tony-gosling-4/
From Jersey to Jimmy Savile and Rotherham Stuart Syvret on UK Child Sexual Abuse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2tjtno2cmI
Jersey’s former health minister, Stuart Syvret, who backed the victims and police in the 2008 investigation, was also sacked. He was imprisoned last year for publicising a serious allegation on another, unrelated matter which, for legal reasons, cannot be described.
Syvret told the Telegraph: “Jimmy Savile abused children in Jersey. I believed his victims. Just as I believe the two people who told me of child abuse by another TV personality [this week confirmed as Brambell] on Jersey from the Seventies. Just as I believed those who told me that the authorities of the day had ignored their complaints of years of abuse by others in Jersey’s children’s homes. Savile is dead, so why must we dig into the sorry and wretched details? Because the crucial feature of this case is not so much the individual crimes, as bad as they are, and as damaging for the victims; it is, instead, what I call the 'culture of cover‑up’.”
As a result of the fallout from the investigation into Haut de la Garenne, the public was left believing that Harper and his team had over-reacted to the abuse allegations. Yet three people have since been convicted of abuse as a result of the inquiry, and to date compensation has been agreed for over 100 victims, with many more civil cases pending. Police had allegations against 150 individuals, many never adequately investigated – including Savile. There are at least four known victims of Savile from Jersey, and at least one disclosed their abuse to police in 2008, yet it is only now that their claims are being considered seriously.
Jersey Police have confirmed that one victim made accusations against Savile in 2008. But, for reasons that are still unclear, it is thought the allegations were not typed up into the statements seen by senior officers. It is believed that Savile denied ever having been to Haut de la Garenne and threatened to sue a newspaper for claiming that he visited the home.
Although the Metropolitan Police are co-ordinating inquiries across Britain into Savile’s alleged crimes, it is individual forces that are expected to examine them in detail. Carrie Modral says few of the victims trust Jersey’s police to do so. “That window of opportunity closed when the Jersey establishment got rid of the good cops,” she says.
It was a member of the Jersey Care Leavers’ Association who told police in 2008 that she was sexually abused at Haut de la Garenne by Savile. “The news about Savile has brought it all back, she is in great distress,” says Modral. “Savile visited regularly, not just Haut de la Garenne but other children’s homes on the island. He wasn’t the only visitor. The victim has named another household name who visited the home with Savile.”
Jimmy Savile: 'He was the tip of the iceberg’
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/jimmy-savile/9620223/Jimm y-Savile-He-was-the-tip-of-the-iceberg.html
The wide-ranging investigation into Sir Jimmy Savile’s depraved activities has focused attention once more on claims of a possible paedophile ring and a 'culture of cover-up’ on Jersey.
By Eileen Fairweather 8:13PM BST 19 Oct 2012
In the bleak days of March 2008, the world’s media gathered outside Haut de la Garenne, a forbidding and isolated former workhouse and children’s home on Jersey. Police were digging for possible human remains and other evidence after almost 200 former residents of the home alleged abuse, including torture and rape, by staff and visitors over many years, with claims that some youngsters had “disappeared”.
Officers from mainland British forces, who had previously taken over leadership of the local force on a mission to root out alleged “endemic corruption” within Jersey’s constabulary, led the high‑profile investigation into historical child abuse on the island.
Now two of those officers, Jersey’s former Chief Officer Graham Power and the former Deputy Chief Officer Lenny Harper, the senior officer in the Haut de la Garenne abuse inquiry, are backing victims’ calls for an outside force to investigate allegations that Sir Jimmy Savile and others, including some celebrities, regularly sexually abused children on Jersey.
The shocking revelations of Savile’s depraved behaviour have, to the relief of the Jersey abuse victims, refocused attention on Haut de la Garenne. In their view, it confirms their claims that the home was at the heart of a well-protected paedophile ring.
Allegations against Savile and other famous and powerful people were made during the 2008 inquiry. One of two boys whom he abused in a back room at the Jersey Opera House in the Seventies was from Haut de la Garenne. _________________ www.lawyerscommitteefor9-11inquiry.org www.rethink911.org www.patriotsquestion911.com www.actorsandartistsfor911truth.org www.mediafor911truth.org www.pilotsfor911truth.org www.mp911truth.org www.ae911truth.org www.rl911truth.org www.stj911.org www.v911t.org www.thisweek.org.uk www.abolishwar.org.uk www.elementary.org.uk www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149 http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
https://37.220.108.147/members/www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/
Queen Elizabeth waves, with Prince Philip, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, from the Spirit of Chartwell during the Diamond Jubilee River Pageant on the River Thames
At all times, Kate must curtsy to the queen.
She may well be the wife of Britain's future king but Kate Middleton must toe the royal line and bend the knee for her family.
An updated Order of Precedence, outlined in British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph, directs the 30-year-old Duchess of Cambridge to curtsy when greeting other royals, more so when she is without her husband Prince William.
The new rules of court dictate that the duchess must make the traditional dip to Princess Anne, princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, and the Queen's cousin Princess Alexandra. However when William is present the act is not necessary.
At all times Catherine must curtsy to the Queen, Prince Philip, Prince Charles and his wife Camilla.
The Windsor pecking order dictates that William's aunt, Prince Edward's wife Sophie, must curtsy to Catherine at all times.
News of the revised rules comes after five days of Royal Ascot racing where well-dressed women were seen to offer a range of curtsy styles to Her Majesty.
The Duke of Windsor, who is widely regarded as a Nazi sympathiser, once argued that bombing England could bring peace by ending WWII, it has emerged.
Correspondence kept in the Royal Archives between the British royal family and their German relatives in the run up to WWII remains confidential.
However, information pieced together from open archives across 30 countries, including Germany, Spain and Russia, has revealed the close relationship some members of the European aristocracy had with the Nazis.
Dr Karina Urbach, senior research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research at the School of Advance Study at the University of London, has uncovered how the Duke of Windsor told Don Javier Bermejillo, his old friend and Spanish diplomat, that the British royal blamed “the Jews, the Reds and the Foreign Office for the war”.
Writing for The Conversation, Dr Urbach explained how Windsor told Bermejillo on 25 June 1940 that “if one bombed England effectively this could bring peace.
“Bermejillo concluded that the Duke of Windsor seemed very much to hope that this would occur: 'He wants peace at any price.',” wrote Dr Urbach.
She added: “This report went to Franco and was then passed on to the Germans. The bombing of Britain started on 10 July.”
The Duke of Coburg (right) was a key member of Hitker's group of aristocratic go-betweens (Photo: Getty) The Duke of Coburg (right) was a key member of Hitker's group of aristocratic go-betweens (Photo: Getty)
Research Dr Urbach has documented in her new book Go-Betweens for Hitler also shows how Nazi supporter Charles Edward Duke of Coburg was a key figure in the network of private individuals who Adolf Hilter used for covert negotiations when he mistrusted his foreign ministry.
As Coburg's sister Alice Countess of Athlone was the Queen Mary’s sister-in-law, he was “welcomed […] by the royals, including the Duke of Windsor” to the extend he was invited to visit George V and the Queen at Sandringham in 1932, according to Dr Urbach.
The two Dukes became so close that they hoped to strike an Anglo-German alliance.
According to Dr Urbach’s findings, the Soviet intelligence services were certain that the Duke of Windsor was a Nazi sympathiser when war broke out, and reported in 1940 that he and Hitler had discussed forming a new English government, and striking an alliance with Germany based on having the USSR as their shared enemy.
The revelations come after a book published earlier this year revealed that Hitler wanted to use Windsor when he was still King as a puppet on the British throne.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 9:20 am Post subject:
“Queen Elizabeth II the largest landowner on Earth.” http://www.whoownstheworld.com/about-the-book/largest-landowner/
Queen Elizabeth II, head of state of the United Kingdom and of 31 other states and territories, is the legal owner of about 6,600 million acres of land, one sixth of the earth’s non ocean surface.
She is the only person on earth who owns whole countries, and who owns countries that are not her own domestic territory. This land ownership is separate from her role as head of state and is different from other monarchies where no such claim is made – Norway, Belgium, Denmark etc. The value of her land holding. £17,600,000,000,000 (approx).
This makes her the richest individual on earth. However, there is no way easily to value her real estate. There is no current market in the land of entire countries. At a rough estimate of $5,000 an acre, and based on the sale of Alaska to the USA by the Tsar, and of Louisiana to the USA by France, the Queen’s land holding is worth a notional $33,000,000,000,000 (Thirty three trillion dollars or about £17,600,000,000,000). Her holding is based on the laws of the countries she owns and her land title is valid in all the countries she owns. Her main holdings are Canada, the 2nd largest country on earth, with 2,467 million acres, Australia, the 7th largest country on earth with 1,900 million acres, the Papua New Guinea with114 million acres, New Zealand with 66 million acres and the UK with 60 million acres.
Philip and the palace plot: An explosive new documentary claims the Queen's choice of husband set off bitter power struggles in government and the royal marriage
A documentary reveals that it wasn't all rosy for the Queen and Philip
The pair argued about their marital name among other things
Prince Philip: The Plot To Make A King, Thursday, 9pm, Channel 4
By TIM OGLETHORPE FOR THE DAILY MAIL
The Queen was close to tears. She’d fallen out with Prince Philip and the cause of their rift had blown up again.
It was the 1950s and the pair were in dispute, once more, over the surname of their children – which for most of their subjects would hardly be an issue.
The battle over whether the royal offspring should be called Windsor or Mountbatten – Prince Philip’s adopted name – lies at the heart of Channel 4’s fascinating documentary about the Duke of Edinburgh.
Prince Philip: The Plot To Make A King, narrated by actress Tamsin Greig, is a tale of snobbery, scheming, tantrums and even near-treason. It suggests the Queen’s husband was partly manoeuvred into his exalted position by his ambitious uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten, and paints a vivid picture of Establishment animosity towards Philip, because his family were part-German.
‘I’m the only man in the country not allowed to give his children his name,’ Philip is famously said to have complained. ‘I’m just a bloody amoeba.’
The documentary also boasts a genuine exclusive. Prince Rainer von Hessen reads from the private memoirs of his mother Sophie, Philip’s sister, who was married to a Nazi SS officer, revealing the couple’s friendship with Adolf Hitler.
Royal historian Christopher Wilson says, ‘Philip was seen as an outsider and a threat. The Establishment thought he was too good-looking and “not one of us”. They were beastly to him.’
Key to the story is Louis Mountbatten – his British-based ancestors had changed their name from the German Battenberg during World War I – who took the penniless Philip under his wing after his mother Alice, Louis’s sister, was confined to a mental institution and his father abandoned him.
When the young future Queen and teenage Philip struck up a friendship, Mountbatten is said to have seen this as a potential route to power. But the courtship wasn’t plain sailing for young midshipman Philip. The Queen Mother, whose brother Fergus was killed at 26 during World War I, referred to Philip as ‘The Hun, because of his German connections,’ says Philip Eade, author of the book Young Prince Philip.
Even the nuptials themselves, on 20 November, 1947, didn’t put an end to the plotting, and Christopher Wilson claims Mountbatten’s ambitions were exposed a few days after Elizabeth became Queen following the sudden death of her father King George VI in 1952. ‘He held a dinner party and announced, “The House of Mountbatten now reigns,” which was almost treasonable in a way.’ News of his remark reached a furious Winston Churchill – then Prime Minister – who regarded Philip as ‘brash and arrogant’. Within weeks a public announcement decreed the family name would remain Windsor.
Even so, the issue never went away. Rab Butler, who became deputy to later Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, is quoted as saying the Queen was ‘close to tears while discussing the issue’. In his diaries, Macmillan spoke of ‘the prince’s almost brutal attitude to the Queen over this matter’, while Lord Mountbatten’s daughter Patricia tells the documentary, ‘It caused hurt between them for quite a long time.’
However, in 1960 the Queen proposed that minor royals would in future be officially called Mountbatten-Windsor – although the joint surname was in fact first used by Princess Anne when she signed the marriage register at her wedding to Captain Mark Phillips in 1973. As narrator Tamsin Greig notes, ‘Lord Mountbatten, at last, had his own, small victory.’
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2015 9:54 am Post subject:
Jimmy Savile invited guests to royal party on Prince Charles's behalf
TV executive says colleagues thought it was 'weird' that Savile was involved in organising royal engagements
Robert Booth
Wednesday 7 November 2012 18.18 GMT Last modified on Thursday 26 February 2015 09.30 GMT
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/nov/07/jimmy-savile-party-prince -charles
Prince Charles enlisted Jimmy Savile as a royal party organiser and asked him to invite guests to Kensington Palace on his behalf, it has emerged.
Savile invited a group of television producers involved in an ITV telethon in 1988 to a cocktail party at the palace. He was not involved with the telethon, of which Prince Charles was patron, and did not attend the party.
Paul Stewart Laing, a former director of programmes at Television South West, who took one of Savile's calls, said several of his colleagues were contacted and many thought it was "weird" that the star was involved in organising royal engagements.
"He was phoning to invite the producers, one from each station, to go to a cocktail party in Kensington Palace," Laing said. "He said he was phoning from the prince's office on behalf of Prince Charles. He said he had been asked to organise a get-together as Prince Charles was so pleased with the telethon he wanted to say thank you."
Savile's role, apparently at the heart of Charles's household, was confirmed by a spokesman for the prince. It will increase scrutiny of the heir's dealings with the now disgraced TV star. Savile heavily publicised his closeness to the royals, giving the impression, some observers believe, of approval from the highest stratum of British society that may have helped him to hide his criminal activity "in plain sight".
It also emerged that a detective involved in the Yorkshire Ripper murder case interviewed Savile after the Leeds-based TV presenter was identified as a possible suspect in an anonymous tipoff. John Stainthorpe, formerly of West Yorkshire police, said the person who reported Savile was "aiming in the right direction", adding: "Child perverts soon become child killers."
A force spokesman said: "As with thousands of other men in Leeds at the time, he may at some time have been approached by detectives on the investigation."
Clarence House said there was nothing unusual about Savile organising a royal party. "When the prince is patron of an event we often ask people prominent within the relevant industry (in this case, television) to help us organise a reception to thank those who helped make the event such a success," the prince's spokesman said.
Clarence House has declined to comment on the scandal surrounding Charles's former friend and has said the relationship was primarily a result of their "shared interest in supporting disability charities".
But the connections appear to go beyond that. At the weekend it was reported that Charles asked Savile for advice over the appointment of a senior aide for him and Princess Diana. They were said to have met Sir Christopher Airy before he was offered the post of the royal couple's private secretary and treasurer in 1990.
Last week a former senior royal aide said Savile's behaviour when he visited Charles's official home at St James's Palace was a cause for "concern and suspicion". Dicky Arbiter, spokesman for the Queen between 1988 and 2000, said Savile used to rub his lips up the arms of Charles's young female assistants as a greeting.
In 1999 Charles accepted an invitation to a private meal at Savile's Glencoe home, which last week was daubed with graffiti reading "Jimmy the beast". Savile asked three local women to dress up in pinafores emblazoned with the letters HRH and Charles subsequently sent the television presenter a Christmas card with the note: "Jimmy, with affectionate greetings from Charles. Give my love to your ladies in Scotland."
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 11:09 pm Post subject:
The British monarchy is far more critical to the West's global hegemony than is commonly understood. Freemasonry; the Commonwealth; the City of London; ultra secretive banks in off shore crown dependencies - play a vital role in the maintenance of international Liberalism/ Capitalism. An invisible spider's web of power enveloping the Western World. The individual members of the royal family in of themselves are not important - it's the maintenance of the institution that's key to Anglo/ American/ Western European power structures. In that sense. the monarchy is like the Vatican - now more important for its secrecy than its religious function. Once the secrecy was there to further the interests of religion - opposed to now, were the religion is a façade to serve the interests of secrecy.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sat Oct 10, 2015 7:37 pm Post subject:
Jimmy Savile and Prince Charles' very close friendship with sex abuse bishop Peter Ball
By RICHARD KAY FOR THE DAILY MAIL
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3265742/Jimmy-Savile-Prince-Ch arles-close-friendship-sex-abuse-bishop-Peter-Ball.html
PUBLISHED: 00:13, 9 October 2015 | UPDATED: 06:41, 9 October 2015
Lit by the flickering light of a log fire, their faces glowed with sober mutual interest. The prince with the troubled soul and the priest with all the answers.
Staff at Highgrove, the Prince of Wales’s country home, had grown accustomed to these intimate exchanges when the Rt Rev Peter Ball, the now disgraced Bishop of Gloucester, came to offer solace and enlightenment to their boss.
Charles had long been an admirer of the charismatic and dedicated Anglican churchman, who slept on an old horsehair mattress on the floor of his own Gloucester residence and rose for prayer at 4.30am.
When the Prince’s marriage to Diana was unravelling, Ball’s advice was sought and the prince had written ‘personal letters’ to him. Later, the bishop encouraged him over his relationship with the former Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles.
Indeed, so grateful were both Charles and Camilla for his guidance and his kindness that Ball was invited to their wedding at Windsor Castle in 2005.
Throughout these years, Charles’s support for the bishop was unwavering. ‘They would pray together in the Sanctuary,’ recalls one former aide.
The Sanctuary is a Harry Potter-esque temple built by Charles deep in a glade in Highgrove’s grounds to mark the Millennium, and where he retreats for quiet contemplation.
Constructed to a ‘sacred geometry’ design — the mathematical proportions of the building are said to have religious significance — its decorations are minimal.
Inside, there is an oak table with a rush cross hanging above it, as well as the wood-burning stove in front of which Charles and the bishop would sit.
Two stained glass windows are dedicated to the memory of Ted Hughes, the late Poet Laureate, and the writer Sir Laurens van der Post, Charles’s philosopher guru.
One former member of the Highgrove staff told me that Ball himself had consecrated the building, although it was later reported that the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, had been invited to perform a blessing.
Whatever the case, it was Ball who delivered the address at the funeral of the Duchess of Cornwall’s father, Major Bruce Shand, in 2006, where mourners included Charles, William and Harry.
Prince Charles is pictured meeting Jimmy Savile at a dinner event at the Club Double Diamond in Caerphilly in 1978
Against such a background, it is easier to understand why Charles had offered Ball sanctuary in a Duchy of Cornwall property when, in 1993, the bishop was forced to resign after being let off with a caution by police over allegations that he indecently assaulted a 17-year-old novice monk.
Yesterday, after Ball, 83, was finally jailed for this crime — along with other sexual abuse offences dating back 40 years — the Prince issued a statement denying that he interfered in the 1993 legal process which resulted in the then bishop escaping sex abuse charges.
So what is the truth of Charles’s friendship with the prelate who preferred to dress in the robes of a monk rather than the ceremonial purple of a bishop. And how did it flourish despite the unsavoury allegations swirling about him?
As we shall see, the Prince of Wales was not the only senior royal figure who knew and liked Ball. But first it is important to set Peter Ball in context.
The shuffling old man we saw arriving at the Old Bailey this week, where he was jailed for 32 months, was something of a celebrity figure in the early 1980s, when respect for the Church was higher than it is now.
And he was part of a double act with his twin brother, Michael. They founded their own monastic community, both became bishops (Peter at Lewes then Gloucester, Michael at Jarrow then Truro).
Educated at Lancing College and Cambridge, where he collected a Blue for squash, Peter was always the more affable and outgoing of the twins, enjoying the good life, especially fine wines and good food. He once dined in his monk’s habit at the Savoy with Mrs Thatcher. He even appeared in the gossip columns when he announced he was taking up stock car racing.
While his charisma and powerful personality attracted a wide circle of friends, he was also part of a High Church scene in the diocese of Chichester when Eric Kemp, a formidable figure of the old school, was bishop. Chichester under Kemp was one of the last bastions for clergy opposed to female ordinations, and it attracted a lot of openly gay clergy.
When Kemp appointed the flamboyant Ball as his assistant in the post of bishop of Lewes, he fitted in immediately. Kemp moved in elevated London circles and was a good friend of Canon Anthony Caesar, sub dean of the Chapel Royal and the Queen’s domestic chaplain. And Ball often accompanied Kemp on his London trips.
When he moved to Gloucester to become bishop in 1992, Ball found himself catapulted into the storm over the collapse of the Waleses’ marriage.
Friends had been trying to shore up the royal marriage, among them a number of clergy. With Highgrove within his new jurisdiction, it was thought the highly personable monk might be a figure to help the couple.
He was propelled into the royal circle by two people, I understand. One was prebendary Willie Booth, a former chaplain at Westminster School, who’d taken over from Caesar. The other was Jimmy Savile.
That Savile committed a number of sex offences in Sussex at the time when Ball was bishop there is not disputed, although there is no suggestion that Ball knew about Savile’s crimes.
But during his time in Lewes, Ball got to know Savile well and he was the bishop’s principal entree into the Waleses’ household. After his appointment to Gloucester was announced, Ball became a regular visitor to Highgrove and was held in such high regard that Charles attended his enthronement.
While his magic failed to work as far as the royal marriage was concerned, both Charles and Diana were fascinated by the monk-bishop as he gradually gained their confidence.
But Ball was said to have been shattered when John Major announced their separation shortly before Christmas 1992 and for a while he remained on good terms with them both, even after being forced to resign the following year.
Neil Todd, the teenage aspirant monk who was sexually abused by Ball, said the bishop told him that ‘the Prince had written him personal letters. He didn’t say what was in them …Then he told me they were in his safe and added: “One day they will be very valuable.”’
Todd also said: ‘We knew that Bishop Peter and the Prince were good friends. He didn’t refer to him as Prince Charles. He would always say just Charles.’
According to Todd, who twice tried to take his own life before finally committing suicide in 2012, the bishop kept framed photographs of members of the royal family on his desk at his home in Gloucester and displayed an invitation from the Queen for dinner at Buckingham Palace.
According to Ball, Charles let him rent a Duchy property — Manor Lodge in the Somerset village of Aller — after he had to resign. ‘The Prince of Wales has been wonderfully kind,’ the cleric said some years later. ‘He very kindly allowed me to have a Duchy house.’
The bishop encouraged Prince Charles over his relationship with the former Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles
Charles, he added, ‘was a loyal friend and I have immense admiration for him. He has been through horrific times and is a great person’.
But Ball’s royal friendships were not confined to the Prince of Wales. He was on close terms with the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, and was invited to preach at Sandringham.
Even the Queen supported him after his police caution. In 1994, when she was distributing Royal Maundy money in Truro, Ball was there with his brother, who was Truro’s bishop.
After lunch in the Chapter House, the Queen, who had been on the high table with local dignitaries, went across to Ball, held out her hand and said in the clearest of voices: ‘My love and encouragement, Bishop.’
According to former courtiers, Charles’s continuing relationship with Ball was typical of his stubbornness and naivety when it comes to friends.
‘I have to say neither the Prince nor indeed the Princess can have known the full extent of the allegations against him, merely that he had been cautioned for a single misdemeanour some years earlier,’ says one former Palace figure.
Another insider says that while Charles was prepared to offer practical help in the form of the Duchy house, he would have been reluctant to interfere further. ‘It’s one thing badgering ministers with memos etc, but another involving himself in a judicial matter.’
So, who then may have been the royal referred to but not named at the Old Bailey this week?
One senior source has suggested to me that it may have been Diana. ‘Unlike Charles, she had no constitutional restriction to prevent her from interfering, plus she was formally separated from the Prince.’
If it was Diana who had intervened, this might explain the terse statement from Clarence House denying that Prince Charles had interfered.
Friends of the late Princess say that putting her name in the frame is ‘just too convenient’. And a former aide who handled her correspondence recalls no such letter, ‘supportive or otherwise’.
Charles, meanwhile, must surely have been advised to keep Ball at arm’s length — just as he had been advised to distance himself from Jimmy Savile.
‘The Prince did receive letters from the public complaining about Savile,’ says a senior aide. ‘But the writers were dismissed [by him] as jealous or mad.’
One reason why Ball stayed on the princely radar was that George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, allowed him to continue his ministry after 1993 by arranging for him to become assistant bishop in Bath and Wells, where Carey himself was bishop before he went to Lambeth Palace.
He remained a confidant of the prince right up until 2012, when allegations about his sexual abuse of boys and young men surfaced again.
Although it took him time to accept the facts, the Prince has now cut the cleric out of his life. It was a difficult decision because Ball had become a spiritual advisor to the Prince, particularly in the period between Diana’s death in 1997 and his marriage to Camilla in 2005.
Ball had also become close to the Duchess.
‘She liked him and he was kind to them both,’ says an aide. ‘And he preached at her father’s funeral, which indicates his standing in their household.’
Charles’s support for Ball did falter on occasion. When the bishop gave an interview confirming his friendship with the Prince, he rounded angrily on staff, saying: ‘Tell Peter that he must never talk about me again.’
Lord Carey doorstepped over former bishop sex crimes _________________ www.lawyerscommitteefor9-11inquiry.org www.rethink911.org www.patriotsquestion911.com www.actorsandartistsfor911truth.org www.mediafor911truth.org www.pilotsfor911truth.org www.mp911truth.org www.ae911truth.org www.rl911truth.org www.stj911.org www.v911t.org www.thisweek.org.uk www.abolishwar.org.uk www.elementary.org.uk www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149 http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
https://37.220.108.147/members/www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2015 2:34 pm Post subject:
Hitler's aristocratic admirers
LORD DARLINGTON was adamant. The two young German maids would have to go . Miss Kenton, the housekeeper, was close to tears as she explained that they would have to return to Germany – a terrible risk considering both were Jewish.
http://www.express.co.uk/expressyourself/126784/Hitler-s-aristocratic- admirers
By PAUL CALLAN PUBLISHED: 00:00, Sat, Sep 12, 2009
But his lordship remained unmoved. He believed in appeasement towards Nazi Germany and the employment of Jewish people was “inappropriate”.
Although fictional, there is a bitter ring of truth about this scene – featuring James Fox and Emma Thompson – from the 1993 film The Remains Of The Day, based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel.
The Lord Darlington figure was typical of a formidable group of British peers who were attracted by Hitler and supported efforts to keep the dictator placated. A new book, Aristocrats by Lawrence James, includes material on such ardently Right-wing and anti-Semitic aristocrats and how their vile attitudes brought considerable satisfaction to Hitler.
What lay behind their support of appeasement was a fear of Communism . “What emerges,” writes James, “is a picture of a knot of peers adrift in an uncongenial world, united by paranoia, pessimism and panic.”
‘A knot of peers were united by utter paranoia’ ‘One duke went to the Führer’s birthday party’ ‘Lord Brocket fawned over visiting Nazis’
They all saw an immensely powerful union between Communism and the Jewish people as a world conspiracy that could be thwarted only by Fascism.
Both Hitler and his strutting Italian cohort Mussolini offered these bewildered aristocrats a safe world that would be secure from any Communist takeover. It also confirmed their long-held private prejudice.
Explains James: “[Visceral] anti-Semitism permeated the upper classes between the wars. Jews were vilified as flashy and pushy arrivistes with a knack of enriching themselves when the aristocracy was grumbling about an often exaggerated downturn in their fortunes.”
What made such hatred additionally odious was the fact these peers continued to air their views long after Hitler’s persecution of Germany’s Jewish population had become widely known.
Prominent among such peers was Lord Brocket who joined various anti-Semitic organisations. He fawned over visiting Nazi officials whom he invited to his home and even attended the celebrations for Hitler’s 50th birthday.
Brocket, said to be “a fundamentally nice but stupid man” even deluded himself that he was a valuable link between Hitler and Britain’s leaders. It was suggested that he lit fires on his Hertfordshire estates to guide German bombers on their way to London.
Another pro-Nazi peer was Lord Redesdale . His daughters, who became famous as the literary Mitford sisters, included Unity who went to Germany and stalked Hitler, having fallen in love with him. Although she did become close to Hitler – he considered her to be a “perfect example of Aryan womanhood” – he told her to return to England as war approached. She shot herself in the head in Munich’s English Garden but survived and was dispatched home.
Another admirer of Hitler was the Duke of Westminster, a man who believed countless conspiracies among British Jews to subvert the country. He even spent the first year of the war demanding, to whoever would listen, that peace be made with Germany.
One of the most colourful ermine-clad extremists was the 22nd Earl of Erroll, the Casanova of Kenya’s debauched Happy Valley set. After being mesmerised by Hitler, this devastatingly handsome man promised to introduce Fascism to East Africa. This included a self-supporting empire that would not “trade with the dirty foreigner”.
But his plans were short-lived. The Earl was found murdered in his car on January 24, 1941, on a country road outside Nairobi. It has been suggested that his death was carried out by the British secret services when his political activities became dangerous.
Among the most famous names associated with anti-Semitism was the fifth Duke of Wellington . He became a member of the secret Right Club, which attempted to unify all pre-war Right-wing groups in Britain.
The founder, Archibald Ramsay, said of the organisation: “The main objective was to oppose and expose the activities of organised Jewry. Our first objective was to clear the Conservative Party of Jewish influence, and the character of our membership and meetings were strictly in keeping with this objective.”
Yet another extremist was the Marquess of Graham . He succeeded to the title of Duke of Montrose and went to live in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) where he became a staunch white supremacist. He served in Ian Smith’s breakaway Rhodesia Front government and in one speech said: “The Beatles, international finance groups, colonial freedom movements and students agitators were all agents of a communist plot to achieve world domination.”
One Hitler-admiring peer, the Duke of Buccleuch, was even close to King George VI as the Lord Steward of the Royal Household. He also accompanied Lord Brocket to celebrate the Führer’s 50th birthday. It was a matter of personal delight to Hitler that the duke, a man who served in the very court of Britain’s Royal Family, was there .
Buccleuch was opposed to any war with the Nazis and when it did break out in 1939, he joined the Peace Aims Group and urged a truce based on Germany keeping all the lands Hitler had stolen in Europe. Even after the bombing started, he continued to defend Hitler. A continuing embarrassment to the King, he was sacked in 1940.
One of the most alarming figures among this cabal was Lord Londonderry – Winston Churchill’s cousin and a member of one of the country’s wealthiest aristocratic families. The king called him “Charlie” and other members of the Royal Family were frequent guests at his London home, as were major political figures.
He regularly visited Germany, met Hitler several times and even stayed with Goering at his hunting lodge. But he was not taken seriously and Churchill referred to him as a “half-wit”. He was known in the press as “the Londonderry Herr” for his pro-German leanings.
One of the best-known figures was Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the Blackshirts and a man who yearned to be Britain’s own “Führer”. A highly charismatic man , he was deeply impressed by Mussolini and founded the British Union of Fascists.
I once interviewed him at his Versailles home and over lunch, at which Lady Mosley (one of the Mitford sisters) was present, we discussed the Holocaust.
I mentioned, just in the course of conversation, that I was Jewish – at which Lady Mosley went ashen, snapped a crimson nail and left the room. No explanation was given but she would later write to a friend:
“A nice, polite reporter came to interview Tom [as Mosley was known] but he turned out to be Jewish and was sitting there at our table. They are a very clever race and come in all shapes and sizes.”
But towering over all these figures were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. He had abdicated as King Edward VIII in 1936 in order to marry American divorcée, Wallis Simpson. They were later given the ducal titles .
Their admiration for Hitler concerned the government, particularly after they were entertained by him on a visit in 1937. Even the Americans were alarmed – the FBI sent a memo to President Roosevelt stating that the duchess was “exceedingly pro-German in her sympathies and connections”. The Duke was given the wartime job of governor of the Bahamas and Roosevelt ordered the FBI to follow them when they visited the US.
It was believed that Goering had concluded a deal with the Duke to install him on the throne after Germany had won the war. His court would, no doubt, have comprised many of those pernicious peers who had lauded Hitler so lavishly.
l To order Aristocrats: Power, Grace And Decadence by Lawrence James (Little, Brown, £25) with free UK delivery, send a cheque or PO made payable to Express Bookshop to Aristocrats Book Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth TR11 4WJ or phone 0871 988 8367 (calls (10p/min from UK landlines) or visit www.expressbookshop.com _________________ www.lawyerscommitteefor9-11inquiry.org www.rethink911.org www.patriotsquestion911.com www.actorsandartistsfor911truth.org www.mediafor911truth.org www.pilotsfor911truth.org www.mp911truth.org www.ae911truth.org www.rl911truth.org www.stj911.org www.v911t.org www.thisweek.org.uk www.abolishwar.org.uk www.elementary.org.uk www.radio4all.net/index.php/contributor/2149 http://utangente.free.fr/2003/media2003.pdf
"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
https://37.220.108.147/members/www.bilderberg.org/phpBB2/
Prince Charles | Prince of Wales | Royal family
Media experts and republicans have reacted with anger to revelations that the Prince of Wales is demanding that broadcasters sign up to 15 pages of strict pre-conditions for interviews, giving him the right to block the final product.
The Independent revealed that the contracts restrict interviews to precise pre-agreed questions and give Clarence House the right to take part in various stages of the editing process and to pull the interview “in its entirety” if it is not satisfied with the finished package.
The terms of the contract, likened by one source to the media control exerted in North Korea, led to Channel 4 News and presenter Jon Snow pulling out of an interview with Prince Charles due to take place on 29 November in Paris ahead of the COP21 Climate Change conference, at which the Prince was a keynote speaker.
Clarence House has argued that the contract is similar to those used by other members of the royal family in media engagements. “The issuing of broadcast contracts is standard practice across the royal households,” said a spokesperson.
The Independent understands that other broadcast news organisations have signed up to pre-broadcast contracts prior to interviews with the Prince.
In pictures: Prince Charles through the years
The BBC, which has carried several interviews with the Prince this year, maintained that “we always maintain editorial control of the programmes we broadcast”. CNN, which had exclusive access to the Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall prior to an American tour this year, said it had “full editorial and creative control” over the interview. Sky News, which carried an exclusive interview with the Prince last month, declined to comment on the matter.
The extremity of demands in the Clarence House contract shocked broadcasting experts. Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications at the University of Westminster and author of The Rise and Fall of Television Journalism, said: "Taken as a whole, these terms are patently unreasonable . Any public figurehead paid for out of taxpayers money - let alone a future king - should be prepared to accept independent journalistic scrutiny. We should congratulate Channel Four News for standing up to a clear attempt by the Royals to set their own news agenda, unchallenged.”
Prince Charles speaking to Sky News’ Rhiannon Mills last month
Paul Lashmar, head of journalism at the University of Sussex and a former reporter for ITV’s World in Action , said: “That Prince Charles, as the heir to the throne, prevents the news media asking important questions about how he runs his businesses during interviews, is shocking. It is the most important task of a robust British news media to ask the difficult questions of those who use public monies, are powerful and seek to influence the public debate on many subjects.”
The general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, Michelle Stanistreet, said: “Broadcasters need to assert their editorial control and, as long as they reporting in a fair manner, should resist this level of censorship. We cannot have a situation where supine news organisations become favoured “broadcasters by royal appointment” because they agree to Clarence House terms. Channel 4 news was right to refuse these terms and others should follow suit.”
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The republican campaign group Republic said it would be writing to the broadcast regulator Ofcom, and to BBC News, Sky News and ITN “to clarify their position on interviews with members of the Royal Household”.
Graham Smith, the group’s CEO, said the Prince was trying to use broadcasters “as extensions of his PR operation”. He said: “These contracts raise serious questions about the editorial independence of our national broadcasters. Any broadcaster signing these contracts should hang their heads in shame. Prince Charles should be subjected to the same level of scrutiny and challenge as anyone else.”
Channel 4 said in a statement: “We do not sign pre-interview agreements, and interviewees appear on Channel 4 News on that basis. We would still be delighted to interview Prince Charles.” _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Reverend Norman Smith, accused of raping a pupil at Geelong Grammar School, Australia, now faces further accusations
Adam Luck Saturday 2 January 2016
The Church of England has been accused of a cover-up over allegations that a chaplain at the Australian school attended by the Prince of Wales was a paedophile.
At the Australian royal commission into child abuse in September, the Reverend Norman Smith was accused of raping a pupil at Geelong Grammar School in the late 1960s.
Now a 68-year-old former churchwarden has come forward to say that the Church dismissed his earlier claims that he was abused by Mr Smith in Sussex in the early 1960s.
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Teachers and health workers among child abuse suspects arrested
Alan Baker, from Gloucestershire, has also written to Prince Charles to ask if he can provide any information that would help his case for damages.
“I would like to know what the links were between Geelong and the Church of England and the Anglican Communion,” said Mr Baker.
“Was it a coincidence that Smith abused me and then moved to Australia and then abused a child in Australia and moved back to the UK to take up a position as a vicar? The Church of England has treated me disgracefully and dismissed my complaints even though they must have known about the Australian allegations.”
Mr Smith died in 2012 and an obituary stated “Norman would certainly have known him [Charles] and administered Communion to him”. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Prince Charles speaking in France on Tuesday. A planned interview there was cancelled after Channel 4 refused to accede to the conditions demanded Getty Images
Prince Charles is demanding “North Korean-style” pre-conditions in television interviews, including advance knowledge of precise questions, the right to oversee editing and even to block a broadcast if he does not approve of the final product.
The Independent has learnt that the Prince of Wales will only speak to broadcasters on the condition they have signed a 15-page contract, demanding that Clarence House attends both the “rough cut” and “fine cut” edits of films and, if it is unhappy with the final product, can “remove the contribution in its entirety from the programme”.
The degree of censorship led to the cancellation of an interview with Prince Charles due to be conducted by Jon Snow of Channel 4 News on Sunday at the British ambassador’s residence in Paris, on the eve of the Paris climate change talks.
Channel 4 News was not prepared to conduct the interview under the conditions demanded. But it is understood that several news broadcasters have agreed to pre-interview contracts with the Prince.
The contract stipulates that an interviewer of Prince Charles “may solely ask questions” previously approved by Clarence House. The questions are written out in full within the contract.
“In the event that the Interviewer or any personnel of [the broadcaster] asks a question which has not been pre-approved, HRH or the member of [Clarence House’s] staff present during the filming of the contribution may intervene and halt filming.” In such circumstances, the broadcaster “shall have no right to use or exploit in any form whatsoever any of the material filmed”.
It specifies that, during the editing of the filmed interview, “issues concerning matters of fairness, balance, confidentiality or security or concerns about religious, political or racial sensitivities may be raised by the representative of [Clarence House]”.
Although the contract includes Clarence House’s recognition that “full and final artistic and editorial control” should reside with the broadcaster, this is overruled by the other strict conditions.
One source said the degree of news control was reminiscent of “North Korea” and would never be accepted in respect of other senior figures being interviewed. The existence of the contract – which some journalists believe puts them at risk of being in breach of the Ofcom broadcasting code on editorial independence and transparency – will add to controversy surrounding Prince Charles’s attempts to influence national debate.
The “black spider” memos, published earlier this year, showed how Prince Charles has for decades attempted to influence public opinion by sending secret letters to government departments on pet subjects as diverse as climate change, homeopathic medicine, housing policy and hospital food.
Copies of the private letters that the Prince of Wales wrote to ministers
He has previously shown a greater willingness to engage with the media than other members of the Royal Family, most notably the Queen who consistently avoids comment on controversial issues.
But the emergence of Prince Charles’s “access agreement” contract suggests that he is not prepared to debate matters on the same terms as other public figures, including politicians, who are habitually subjected to questioning on topics beyond those they agreed to discuss. Senior figures in broadcast news said that written pre-interview contracts for pieces on news programmes are highly irregular.
The contracts are drawn up on behalf of Prince Charles by his principal private secretary, Clive Alderton, while the Prince’s negotiations with the media are led by his communications secretary, Kristina Kyriacou.
Clarence House said that other members of the Royal Family used similar contracts. “The issuing of broadcast contracts is standard practice across the royal households,” said a spokesperson. “All broadcasters who enter into them are keen to ensure that they do not breach any of the relevant broadcast rules and go to great lengths to protect their independence in this regard. The contracts are put in place to ensure factual accuracy and protect the broadcaster as well as the interview subject.”
The Independent understands that contracts are customised according to the media project.
Sensitivities around television’s portrayal of the Royal Family were heightened by the “crowngate” scandal at the BBC in 2007, when footage of the Queen was misrepresented in a trailer that wrongly suggested she had stormed out of a photoshoot with the photographer Annie Leibovitz. The BBC1 controller Peter Fincham was forced to resign after claiming the Queen had left “in a huff”.
In its contract, Clarence House demands prior approval of “all trailers, press releases and other promotional material” associated with an interview and to be given advance notice of the “identity of any interviewees or contributors” who feature in any programme.
Channel 4 is not a subscriber to the royal rota media arrangements operated by Buckingham Palace. Sky News carried an extensive “exclusive” interview with Prince Charles on 23 November before the Paris talks, where he is a keynote speaker. In the 26-minute package, interviewer Rhiannon Mills, Sky News’s royal correspondent, said of Prince Charles: “In his own way, the Prince of Wales has become a climate change celebrity, able to get people talking and attracting star support for campaigns including his push to protect the rainforests.”
The Independent understands that Sky News and other news broadcasters have signed pre-broadcast contracts with Clarence House. Sky News declined to comment.
Prince Charles has also given interviews this year to CNN, whose royal correspondent Max Foster spent time with the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall before their tour of America. CNN said: “CNN had full editorial and creative control over the interview with HRH the Prince of Wales, and no questions were set out in advance.”
The Prince has spoken several times this year to BBC Radio, including an interview with Radio 2’s The Sunday Hour in February, in which he said the radicalisation of young people was “alarming”. He also spoke out in support of small farmers on Radio 4’s On Your Farm. The BBC said: “As a matter of principle we always retain editorial control of the programmes we broadcast.”
The contract: Charles’s broadcast riders
* The Interviewer may solely ask a set of questions mutually agreed between Clarence House and [the news organisation].
* A representative of Clarence House shall be permitted to view the Programme prior to broadcast at the final “rough cut” stage
* Any issues concerning matters of fairness, balance, confidentiality or security or concerns about religious, political or racial sensitivities may be raised by the representative of Clarence House
* A representative of Clarence House shall also be permitted to view the Programme at the “fine cut” stage prior to the first transmission of the Programme (and in good time should any changes be required)
* [The news organisation] shall provide a copy of the final transmission version of the Programme to the staff at Clarence House, prior to… broadcast and Clarence House shall be entitled to require [the news organisation] to remove [Prince Charles’s] Contribution in its entirety from the Programme
* [Prior approval is required for] all trailers, press releases and other promotional material in relation to the Programme
* [Prior approval is required for] the identity of any interviewees or contributors to the Programme other than HRH
* [The news organisation] will stop filming immediately if reasonably requested to do so at any time by Clarence House
* [The news organisation] shall have no right to use or exploit in any form whatsoever any of the material recorded immediately around the interruption in filming
* [The news organisation] shall share with Clarence House its proposed marketing, press and publicity
* [The news organisation shall] keep in strictest confidence and not at any time disclose publish or reveal at any time hereafter, either personally or by means of press or publicity or advertising agencies, or by means of any social networking sites, chat rooms or otherwise by supplying information to any website, without Clarence House’s prior written approval, the footage recorded… or details of or material relating to any incident, conversation or information concerning HRH, the Royal Family or Clarence House or any other confidential information.
The colonel’: Prince’s fiercely loyal PR officer
Kristina Kyriacou was appointed communications secretary at Clarence House earlier this year, reportedly on the insistence of Prince Charles.
She has worked for the Prince for more than three years and is credited with arranging for him to guest-edit an anniversary episode of the BBC’s Countryfile show, as well as an edition of the magazine Country Life.
Charming and steely, she previously worked in entertainment public relations where she represented stars including Simon Cowell, Cheryl Fernandez-Versini and Gary Barlow, who referred to her as “the Colonel”.
Channel 4 News has an awkward relationship with Ms Kyriacou after she ripped the cover off reporter Michael Crick’s microphone in London as he tried to ask the Prince of Wales questions about the “black spider” memos in May.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sun Jul 24, 2016 11:25 pm Post subject:
At the top of the market the Queen is selling...
Crown Estate becomes net seller as portfolio value hits £12bn
http://www.propertyweek.com/finance/crown-estate-becomes-net-seller-as -portfolio-value-hits-£12bn/5083788.article
28 June 2016 | By Guy Montague-Jones
The value of The Crown Estate’s property empire has surged 9.7% to £12bn in a year that saw it significantly outperform the wider market and sell more than £600m of stock to take advantage of high prices.
The Queen to get 6.5% payrise - but how much will she be paid in total?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/queen-65-payrise-how-much-8296414
28 JUN 2016 BY VICTORIA MURPHY
Her Majesty is expected to be awarded £45.6m in April, an increase of £2.8 million up from £42.8 million this year
The Queen is in line for a 6.5% payrise and could net a cool £45.6 million from the taxpayer next year if the way she is funded stays the same.
Figures released show a total profit of £304.1 million for the Crown Estate.
If the Queen receives her Sovereign Grant calculated at the customary 15% of that she would be handed £45.6 million from the Treasury in April 2017, an increase of £2.8 million up from £42.8 million this year.
However, the formula for the Sovereign Grant is being reviewed this year by The Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Keeper of the Privy Purse who will potentially change the way it is calculated to less than 15% of Crown Estate profits.
This could mean her payrise is smaller, but she will still be in line for a bumper sum as rules state she cannot get less than any previous year.....
Queen in line for £2.8million pay rise as Crown Estate profits rise
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/queen-in-line-for-28million-pay-rise -as-crown-estate-profits-rise-a3282456.html
JAMIE MICKLETHWAITE Tuesday 28 June 2016
The Queen is in line for a pay rise of nearly £3million from the taxpayer next year.
Her majesty is expected to be awarded £45.6m in April 2017 if the way the Royal Family is funded stays the same.
That would mark a 6.5 per cent increase on the £42.8million she was given this year.
Traditionally, the Queen’s Sovereign Grant is 15 per cent of the total profit of the Crown Estate for the previous financial year, which was a record £304.1million.
But the Sovereign Grant is being reviewed this year and could potentially be cut to a rate lower than the current 15 per cent of Crown Estate profits.
This means the Queen would get a smaller pay rise. But rules state that she cannot earn less than any previous year.
The Royal Family's travel bill also decreased from £5.1million the previous year to £4million.
The sum included £94,000 on a charter plane for Prince Charles and Camilla’s tour of the Balkans in March and £74,500 on a charter flight for Prince Charles and Prince Harry to commemorate the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign in April last year.
A trip on the royal train by the Prince of Wales from Ayr in Scotland to Yorkshire last September also cost taxpayers more than £33,000.
But the largest expense for the royals were Buckingham Palace repairs, costing £16.3million.
Queen 'could move out of Buckingham Palace to allow £150m renovation'
During a briefing to launch the report on royal spending, Keeper of the Privy Purse Sir Alan Reid highlighted the large amount of money spent on upkeep of the royal palaces.
He said: "In 2015-16 spending on property maintenance amounted to £16.3 million and that's 30% of our total expenditure - that's an increase of 39% compared with spending on property maintenance last year."
He stressed that despite the investment they are making, the condition of the estate was deteriorating at a faster rate than they have been able to respond to.
The queen of England the rest of the world’s super-rich have hidden
between $21 and $32 trillion offshore to avoid taxation, but they will
throw any ordinary mortal into jail in England or the US, if any of
those mere mortals try and not pay taxes to support their 1% lifestyle
and taxpayer corporate welfare subsidies that goes along with it. Try
and get an offshore tax haven as a mere middle class worker; it cannot
be done.. It is illegal for you to do this, but the super rich, that is
how business is done, and Trillions are sheltered from taxation.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2016 11:31 am Post subject:
trev moffatt10
The British monarchy is far more critical to the West's global hegemony than is commonly understood. Freemasonry; the Commonwealth; the City of London; ultra secretive banks in off shore crown dependencies - play a vital role in the maintenance of international Liberalism/ Capitalism. An invisible spider's web of power enveloping the Western World. The individual members of the royal family in of themselves are not important - it's the maintenance of the institution that's key to Anglo/ American/ Western European power structures. In that sense. the monarchy is like the Vatican - now more important for its secrecy than its religious function. Once the secrecy was there to further the interests of religion - opposed to now, were the religion is a facade to serve the interests of secrecy.
Former SAS soldier 'knows who organised' Princess Diana assassination: soldier 'N' letter
An investigation by the Mail and Channel 4 has uncovered what appears to be significant undeclared expenditure by Tories in key constituency battles
Crucially, had that expenditure been fully declared, it would have taken the local candidates' spending way beyond the legal limit
Among the apparently undeclared bills and invoices one finds the names of some of David Cameron's most trusted advisers
Also involved is Andrew Feldman, the Tory co-chair, who is named on a (declared) invoice in one of the by-elections under scrutiny
Amid the actors, athletes and other famous figures rewarded in the 2016 New Year Honours list, there was a name unfamiliar to all but a few Westminster insiders. It was that of Marion Little.
She was described in the official London Gazette announcement as 'Campaign Specialist, Conservative party'. She was to be made an Officer Order of the British Empire. She had earned it for unspecified 'political service'.
At Buckingham Palace on February 24, Mrs Little duly received her gong from the Prince of Wales. But how exactly did she earn her OBE? It is a question of considerable interest. And, in some quarters, of growing concern.
Job done! Andrew Feldman, the Tory co-chair and principal party fund raiser, is named on a (declared) invoice in one of the by-elections under scrutiny. He is Mr Cameron's long-time friend, with whom he plays tennis +5
Job done! Andrew Feldman, the Tory co-chair and principal party fund raiser, is named on a (declared) invoice in one of the by-elections under scrutiny. He is Mr Cameron's long-time friend, with whom he plays tennis
Amid little fanfare, the Electoral Commission — Britain's independent but largely toothless election watchdog — announced last week that it was expanding an investigation into Conservative Party election expenditure. It was already looking at the Thanet South constituency in last May's general election. Now it was to further examine spending returns at three by-elections in 2014.
Under the Representation of the People Act 1983, a candidate's expenditure limit in a by-election is £100,000 — and considerably lower in a general election. Nothing spent fighting a seat can be kept from public scrutiny, from the most insignificant paper clip to use of a private jet.
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Nothing can be provided to a campaign for free; everything has to be given a 'notional value' as if it had been paid for on the commercial market. Notional and actual expenditure are added together and the total has to be within the limit. It goes to the very heart of modern British democracy that elections should not be 'bought' by the richest candidate or party.
And yet an investigation by the Daily Mail and Channel 4 News has uncovered what appears to be significant undeclared expenditure by the Tories in key constituency battles; tens of thousands of pounds spent almost exclusively on hotel rooms for electioneering experts parachuted in by Conservative Party headquarters in London.
Honoured: Tory activist Marion Little receives her OBE +5
Honoured: Tory activist Marion Little receives her OBE
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Crucially, had that expenditure been fully declared, it would have taken the local candidates' spending way beyond the legal limit.
Among the apparently undeclared bills and invoices obtained by this newspaper one finds the names of some of David Cameron's most trusted advisers and his party's most senior back-room fixers.
They include Stephen Gilbert, the party's deputy chairman until he stepped down in November following criticism of his close links to the campaign to keep Britain in the European Union. Also involved is Andrew Feldman, the Tory co-chair and principal party fund raiser, who is named on a (declared) invoice in one of the by-elections under scrutiny. He is Mr Cameron's long-time friend, with whom he plays tennis. Although unelected, the PM gave his Oxford University pal a peerage after the 2010 election.
Both Gilbert and Feldman were ennobled for their services to the Tory Party. What did they know about the apparent non-declaration of funds?
The period under scrutiny was one of do-or-die desperation for the Cameroon Tories. Opinion polls showed Nigel Farage's UKIP was on the march in Tory heartlands. Two Tory MPs were about to defect. A no-holds-barred response was needed or power might slip away.
Enter Mrs Little, a 61-year-old mother-of-two from Ware, Herts, who's been working on campaigns for the Tories for almost 20 years.
It is a perhaps apocryphal story in Tory circles that her party credit card has a spending limit even higher than that of the chief moneyman, Lord Feldman. True or not, Mrs Little appears to have used it to book hundreds of election-time hotel rooms which subsequently went undeclared.
On June 5, 2014, a by-election was held in Newark, Notts, following the resignation of Tory MP Patrick Mercer. The poll was seen as a litmus test for the growing UKIP threat to Tory chances of winning the general election 11 months away.
Mrs Little and other Westminster-based campaigners were told to pull out all the stops.
Hotel receipts and invoices seen by the Mail reveal how very important the Newark poll was to them.
During May and the first week of June, members of the Tory HQ election team stayed a total of 59 nights at a cost of £4,209 at the Kelham House Country Manor near Newark. Most of the bookings were made under Mrs Little's name, but the names of other senior figures are also on the bills.
The then Political Secretary at No 10, Stephen Gilbert, seems to have spent four nights at the manor. There he enjoyed burgers, pies and T-bone steak and chips.
'Political adviser' Simon Glasson showed more metropolitan tastes (asparagus and brie rarebit and Devon crab brulee), while Mrs Little ordered Guinness and fish and chips.
The names of by-election specialist Richard Piper-Griffiths and deputy Head of Press Richard Holden also appear on the Kelham House Tory room receipts.
Questions: The name of Andrew Feldman appears on one declared invoice. It was he who had commissioned local election research costing £4,500 +5
Questions: The name of Andrew Feldman appears on one declared invoice. It was he who had commissioned local election research costing £4,500
Not everyone could stay in such luxury every night. Receipts and invoices for the Premier Inn, Newark, obtained by the Mail, show that the Tories booked rooms to a total of 125 nights during the election period, at a cost of £6,250.
The names of Mrs Little and Messrs Holden, Glasson and Piper-Griffiths also appear on these bills.
All this effort was to pay off. The Tories retained the seat.
The victorious candidate, Robert Jenrick, and his agent Stuart Wallace later submitted Mr Jenrick's declared election expenditure as being 'complete and accurate … as required by law'.
The total came to £96,190 — just under the £100,000 legal limit. Like the other constituencies we have looked at, almost all the money came as declared donations from Conservative Campaign HQ.
A notional £11,140 was declared for the rent of the campaign HQ. But there is no sign of the more than £10,000 spent on the two hotels for Mrs Little's election 'hit team'.
If that amount had been included, it would have taken the Tory spending in Newark several thousand pounds over the legal limit.
A spokeswoman for Mr Jenrick said it was a matter for the national Tory Party rather than him. Mr Wallace did not respond to enquiries.
A pattern was being set. The next crucial Tory-UKIP by-election face off took place four months later in the Essex seaside constituency of Clacton. The poll was called after the defection to UKIP of sitting Tory MP Douglas Carswell.
Once again, Mrs Little and her team went into overdrive. As in Newark, the visiting Tory election specialists would have two tiers of local accommodation.
The Lifehouse hotel and spa at Thorpe-le-Soken was the luxury option. Receipts seen by the Mail show that a Mrs Marion Little booked rooms for Conservative Party workers for a total of 258 nights at a cost of £20,640.
The names of Mr Piper-Griffiths, Mr Holden and Mr Glasson once again appear on the bills. The latter seems to have stayed 32 nights. Victoria Goff, the Tory election agent, spent a total of 28 nights at the Lifehouse. Her home was in Chelmsford, a 40-mile drive away.
Meanwhile the foot soldiers were found space at Clacton's Premier Inn. Receipts and invoices show a total of 68 nights were booked at a cost of £6,146.
On October 9, 2014, with almost four hours before the Clacton polls closed, Mrs Little sent an email to her 'sector agents' which ended, 'THANK YOU — it has been a great team who have worked amazingly hard and I look forward to seeing you all south of the river.'
Front up: Among the apparently undeclared bills and invoices one finds the names of some of David Cameron's most trusted advisers +5
Front up: Among the apparently undeclared bills and invoices one finds the names of some of David Cameron's most trusted advisers
In other words, Mrs Little's team would be parachuted into the Rochester and Strood constituency to take on Mark Reckless, another Tory MP defector to UKIP for another by-election due on November 20.
The Clacton poll was confirmed as a Conservative humiliation, as the party finished a distant second to UKIP's Carswell.
A month later the Tory election expenses returns were signed off by the defeated Giles Watling and his agent, Victoria Goff. Their declared spending was £84,049 — well inside the £100,000 legal limit.
One of the biggest individual items of expenditure for which a receipt was declared was the £5,640 spent on hiring a helicopter to fly Prime Minister David Cameron from London to Clacton for a 'last ditch' attempt to save the day. We can also see Mrs Little's name on an invoice for a printing firm which produced campaign literature. But there was no mention of the rooms taken at the Lifehouse spa or the Premier Inn.
This is odd — not least because, as we have seen, Miss Goff apparently spent 28 nights at the Lifehouse.
If the cost of these rooms had been included, the total would have gone more than £10,000 over the legal limit.
How can this be explained? Mrs Little, Mr Watling and Miss Goff all failed to respond to our enquiries.By now familiar Tory faces moved on to battle UKIP in Rochester. This time, Bridgewood Manor, a country house hotel near Chatham, was chosen as base for the Westminster Tory election fighters.
Hotel receipts show the Tories booked a total of 446 nights at a cost of £38,112. Mr Holden, Mr Piper-Griffiths and Mr Gilbert all appear on these hotel invoices.
What of Mrs Little's foot soldiers? Hotel room bills for the Premier Inn in Rochester show that a total of 226 nights were booked for the period of the by-election under the name 'Conservative and Unionist Party.' Three of the rooms were booked solidly for a month.
The address given for all the bookings was Mrs Little's home in Hertfordshire. The total spend on these rooms was almost £19,000.
Again, all their efforts were to no avail. UKIP's Mark Reckless held the seat against Tory candidate Kelly Tolhurst. The latter, along with her agent Julian Walden, signed off her declared election expenses one month later. They came in at £96,793 — just under the legal limit.
The name of Andrew Feldman appears on one declared invoice. It was he who had commissioned local election research costing £4,500.
But of the hundreds of hotel nights, valued at £56,866.75, there is no sign. If they had been included, it would have taken the Tory election spending over the legal limit by more than half as much again.
How to explain this? Neither Mrs Tolhurst nor Mr Walden responded to enquiries.
The general election took place on May 7, 2015. UKIP leader Nigel Farage stood in Tory-held Thanet South and had high hopes of a win.
But the Cameroon Tories were not giving up. In fact they planned a decapitation strategy. If they stopped Farage, it would be a mortal blow to their main rivals in the Tory heartlands.
They succeeded. Although the Tory vote dwindled, candidate Craig Mackinlay beat Farage into second place by 2,800 votes.
The following month, Mackinlay and his agent Nathan Gray signed off their election expenditure. In the final month he had spent a declared £14,837 against a legal limit for the period of £15,016.
One of the largest declared items was the hire of a hall to host visiting Chancellor George Osborne in election week. There was even an invoice for £25 for the hire of a tandem for a PR stunt.
No hotel bills for local electioneering accommodation were entered.
In January, the Electoral Commission published campaign expenditure returns of the main political parties at the 2015 Election.
Among the Tory Party's declared 'national spending' — as opposed to local candidate electioneering expenses — there were several bills for the Royal Harbour hotel in Ramsgate, at the heart of the Thanet South constituency.
The receipts showed that a total of 95 individual nights had been booked there by the Tories during the election campaign at a cost of more than £14,000. Mrs Little is known to have stayed.
As the national spending limit for each party at a general election is £19 million, this amount was a drop in the ocean.
But that £14,000 would not have been a small sum if included — as it almost certainly should have been — in Mr Mackinlay's candidate expenditure. In fact, by itself the hotel bills would have swallowed up his entire legal amount.
Why was the Royal Harbour placed in national spending? Were the Tories really running their national campaign from Ramsgate? Last night, new evidence of alleged undeclared spending in South Thanet was emerging. The Mail understands that some 40 activists were bussed into the constituency on April 11, 2015, and put up overnight in a hostel in Margate.
This does not seem to appear on public records.
Tory Party chiefs have been assured by senior officials that no rules have been broken. Lord Feldman said yesterday: 'I am confident that we have done everything properly and in accordance with the law.'
And last night a Party spokesman told the Mail: 'All local spending has been correctly declared in line with the requirements of the Representation of the People Act.
'With regards to the national return, we are looking at the spend on this hostel. We will issue a full statement in due course and keep the Electoral Commission informed.'
And yet the evidence suggests that hotel expenditures for crucial elections have indeed been hidden.
The problem for the Electoral Commission is that its powers are limited. It can investigate and admonish but it cannot prosecute. That is a matter for the police.
However, disturbingly, in the case of the three by-elections, it is already too late because the 12-month time limit for investigation under the Representation of the People Act has expired.
Meanwhile those who appeared repeatedly on the missing hotel receipts have largely prospered.
Stephen Gilbert, the Tories' director of campaigning for the 2015 election, was elevated to the peerage as Baron Gilbert of Panteg. He now works part-time for the firm Populus, which is providing polling, research and focus groups for the EU Remain campaign.
Richard Holden is now a special adviser to Baroness Stowell, Tory Leader in the Lords.
Political adviser Simon Glasson is now a special adviser to George Osborne. Victoria Goff is the Head of Local Government at Tory HQ. Kelly Tolhurst, defeated in the Rochester by-election, stood again and won at the general election.
And Mrs Little got her gong. Though no one is prepared to say why — or explain the discrepancies in legal and illegal spending in those vital by-elections.
The following questions urgently need answering by the Conservative Party:
1. Why were the 734 nights of hotel accommodation which were paid for in her own name by party official Marion Little not submitted to the Electoral Commission?
2. Was Lord Feldman aware of arrangements to provide hotel rooms to election campaign workers?
3. If so, was he told of the plan to pay for much of this accommodation through Marion Little's own credit card?
4. Was Mrs Little subsequently repaid by the party HQ?
5. If she was repaid, who authorised these paymens?
_________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2016 11:10 am Post subject:
WAS OLIGARCH KILLED OVER 'PRINCE PHILIP PORN PICS'? Boris Berezovsky was assassinated by British secret services because he had highly embarrassing photos of Prince Philip, author sensationally claims
Claim was made by pro-Putin author countering widspread belief Berezovsky was killed by Russian agents
By WILL STEWART
7th September 2016, 1:30 pm
RUSSIAN tycoon Boris Berezovsky was assassinated by British spies after threatening to expose photographs dubbed “royal porn” allegedly featuring a young Prince Philip, a Moscow espionage author has sensationally claimed.
The pictures, said to show the Duke of Edinburgh at Thursday Club parties, were rumoured to have been taken by his photographer friend Baron Nahum in the 1950s.
The private photographs are thought to have been secretly copied by a Soviet spy, who then smuggled them back to Russia during the Cold War.
Getty Images - WireImage
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Prince Philip, pictured with the Queen at the Royal Ascot, has been embroiled in rumours since the 1950s
PA:Press Association
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Boris Berezovsky, pictured, died in 2013 with Moscow espionage author Gennady Sokolov claiming he was killed by British spies to stop him from releasing the photos
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Russian intelligence expert Gennady Sokolov alleged there was evidence that the Russian oligarch had been wanting to return to Russia and would again use the photographs to barter his way in
News Group Newspapers Ltd
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Sokolov wrote a biography of GRU agent Ivanov, famous for seducing Christine Keeler, pictured, who was the lover of British War Minister John Profumo
Russian intelligence expert Gennady Sokolov has now made the startling claims there was evidence that the one-time billionaire Berezovsky had managed to come into possession of the controversial photographs taken by spy Yevgeny Ivanov.
He claimed Berezovsky had likely handed the photographs to the British authorities, so in theory taking them out of circulation and preventing the risk of an humiliating publication, as part of his successful effort to gain political asylum in Britain, so avoiding jail time in Russia.
He was widely rumoured to have been assassinated by Pro-Putin Russian hitmen but these claims that British secret service agents may have been behind the killing would dispute the theory.
Berezovsky, a former billionaire and fierce critic Vladimir Putin, died in unexplained circumstances in March 2013 amid suggestions he had been seeking the Kremlin leader’s forgiveness.
A post-mortem examination found there was no signs of a violent struggle but the coroner recorded an open verdict as theories that shadowy Russian or British forces could have killed him continued to circulate.
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Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was allegedly pictured in ’embarrassing’ photos taken in the 1950s while at the Thursday Club
PA:Press Association
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The pictures were copied by a Russian spy, who had been hoping to discredit the Royal family during the Cold War
Getty Images
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The Duke of Edinburgh dances with his wife, Princess Elizabeth, at a square dance held in their honour in Ottawa, by Governor General Viscount Alexander, 17th October 1951
Getty Images
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Baron Nahum, renowned society photographer, took the initial pictures at the Thursday Club in Soho
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Patricia Kirkwood was dating Nahum, who was the Duke of Edinburgh’s photographer friend
But Sokolov has now claimed the tycoon may have secretly kept copies which – just before his death – he was preparing to hand to the Russian government as part of his effort to leave Britain and return to his motherland.
The photos, taken at the social Thursday Club in the 1950s, allegedly show Prince Philip at a party with other members and semi-naked women.
Previous reports have stated Prince Philip is fully-dressed in the photographs, which would not be described as pornographic by today’s standards.
Author Sokolov has now made astonishing claims that Russia’s one-time richest man had been killed over the photographs.
He claimed: “Later, Her Majesty’s secret services disposed of the oligarch because they did not need him any longer.
“Or, perhaps more likely, they feared or discovered that wily Berezovsky had made copies of the sensational photographs which he was preparing to push into the wrong hands.”
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