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Despite causing derision and bafflement Britain's system of awarding honours is not to be changed, according to a government announcement. This is despite an official review finding that the highly stratified system of state awards is failing in it's supposed objective of "making the country feel good about itself". The government has decided that change might offend those who hold the honours that are highest in the official hierarchy.

The review was undertaken in 2001 but published only last week. It said that the practice of awarding prestigious awards such as knighthoods to honourees of high social status and lesser ones to those lower in the country's class structure could cause derision. The review notes one description of the system as the "most complex, class-ridden and - to all but a handful of civil servants, courtiers and snobs - the most baffling honours system in the world".

The government accepted the advice of its officials, however, that it should let sleeping dogs lie, rather than risk upsetting so-called lords and knights by seeming to devalue their awards.

The government's decisions has disappointed those who had hoped that it had paid heed to Professor Linda Colley who, at a Downing Street lecture in 1999, told the Prime Minister that "We will need to cleanse our public political culture of antiquated remnants . . . Titles suggestive of rank, as America's Founding Fathers recognised, are incompatible with a Citizen Nation pledged to equality."

Civil servants recommend who should receive the over 1000 honours awarded annually.

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The BBC state media giant is setting up a freedom of information team. According to press adverts the team's purpose is to help the Corporation comply with the Freedom of Information Act.

It is illegal in Britain to receive terrestrial, satellite, cable or Internet TV broadcasts without permission from the BBC. The Freedom of Information Act does not require the BBC to stop this interference with freedom of information.

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According to a report in the Financial Times "questions over multi-million dollar payments to Lord Black and other Hollinger (newspaper) executives - totalling just under $300m - are likely to signal the end of the maverick publisher's attempts to become one of the world's most influential newspaper proprietors." Former Canadian Conrad Black is a Lord in Britain's caste system and entitled to sit in Parliament as a legislator-for-life. Although Black may be forced out of his remaining position as non-executive chairperson of Hollinger International he cannot be removed from Britain's legislature.

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In one of the more telling incidents in the brouhaha surrounding the suppression of news reports concerning Charles Windsor and his former chief of staff, Trevor Phillips, chairperson of the Commission for Racial Equality, has appeared on Channel Four's 7 o'clock news to defend the futile attempts to stop publication.

Labour Party member Mr. Phillips, who is paid by the people of Britain to tackle racial discrimination, appeared uncritical of the constitutional arrangement that ensures that the nation's highest office is filled only by white people. He told the news presenter that he had been acquainted with the heir to head of state for many years.

Mr. Phillips' parents emigrated to Britain from the Caribbean, two of the many immigrants who helped changed the ethnic make-up of this country. Neither they nor their children may hope to hold the country's highest public office, however, as only members of Mr Windsor's family are eligible to be head of state. Mr. Windsor is due to succeed his mother when she dies or resigns.

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Six out of twelve of the so-called Law Lords have opposed the separation of Britain's supreme court of appeal from the legislature. In their response to government proposals for an independent supreme court the six unelected legislators complain that they will not be able to advise other legislators if they do not sit in the legislature and that they will lose the "suitably prestigious" location for their court.

Four of the remaining judges expressed support for the reform, saying that the separation of judiciary and legislature was a "cardinal feature of a modern, liberal, democratic state governed by the rule of law." The other two judges expressed no opinion.

The first female "Law Lord," who will take her seat in January, has also expressed support for the reform of the supreme court. Justice Brenda Hale also criticised the sexism of British judges. She said that many found it difficult to accept women as their equals and required female judges to leave the dining room at their official lodgings after dinner so that men could talk in their absence. Justice Hale also criticised the wearing of bizarre 15th century wigs by judges, which she said reinforced the idea that all judges were old men.

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