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The prison service is to be freed from its long association with monarchy when it is incorporated into a new National Offenders Management Service in July. Prison Officers will no longer be obliged to display a crown on their uniforms when what is now know as "Her Majesty's Prison Service" is replaced by the new agency. Offenders sent to prison will no longer be said to be sentenced at "Her Majesty's Pleasure."

A spokesperson for the prison officers' trade union characterised the reform as "political correctness." He said that prison officers would be demeaned if they were not known as servants of the Windsor family. The trade union has a long record of obstructing improvements to the management of prisons.

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Publication of a bill to remove the remaining 92 hereditary legislators from the second chamber has been unexpectedly delayed. This follows the refusal of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parities to join a joint committee of MPs to work on a plan for an indirectly elected House of Lords unless the government dropped the bill. They believe that it cannot be relied on to implement further reform once the hereditary legislators have gone. They want the government to postpone the removal of the hereditaries until there is certainty that appointed legislators will not replace them.

The government had hoped that the joint committee would help overcome opposition to its bill to. It expects that legislators-for-life will try to block the bill in the House of Lords. And members of its own party in the House of Commons may try to amend it to make the removal of the hereditary legislators conditional on further reform.

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The government has dismissed the recommendation by a Conservative party commissioned panel that viewers should no longer be required to get permission before watching TV or recording video tapes. According to the Financial Times Labour officials stated that the media giant, which sells permission to watch TV at £116 a year, would be undermined by such a change. However, in an editorial with the title "Auntie's days are numbered" the newspaper predicted that if the corporation's chartered was renewed for another ten years from 2006 it would be the last time.

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Matthew Oakeshott, Liberal Democrat MP and member of the joint committee on house of lords reform, has come out against Peter Hain's proposal for indirect election to the second chamber of the British legislature.

In a letter to the Financial Times Mr. Oakeshott says that indirect election would still mean an all-appointed legislative chamber, not one elected by the people. He notes that voters would not be able to vote for different parties for each chamber, or choose between candidates. Such a chamber would be "a clone of the Commons" the MP says. Mr. Oakeshott calls for direct elections in order to create a democratic second chamber.

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A panel of media experts commissioned by the Conservative Party has recommended that "the television licence fee be steadily reduced from 2007 onwards, and gradually replaced by a combination of subscription and indirect public funding." The experts say that the tax "should be abolished completely when analogue television transmission is switched off."

The report also argues that the BBC's state charter and board of governors should go. Instead regulation of the media giant should be through what it calls "consumer power, creative and commercial competition and a new institutional structure." The BBC's production and sales operations should be sold off in order to end the stifling of independent production that the corporation's current dominance encourages.

According to panel member Barbara Donoghue the BBC would still be able to maintain its social purpose and high standards.

The report, which may not be accepted by the Conservative Party, was commissioned in response to the government's consultation on the future of the corporation prior to the 2006 expiration of its state charter.

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The Broadcasting Policy Group of media experts will recommend that the BBC should be funded by subscriptions instead of the licence fee, according to a report in the Financial Times. The groups says that that would be more equitable.

The licence fee that provides most of the media giant's massive funding has to be paid by all TV owners whether or not they wish to view the BBC's shows. A refusal to pay can result in a house search by the corporation?s enforcers and a magistrates court fine. People with a TV are also asked to allow their homes to be searched if they wish to stop harassment by the enforcers.

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Recent opinion polls in Australia suggest that a substantial majority of Australians want Liz Windsor replaced as their head of state by an Australian. The polls also show a majority of Australians wanting the process to begin in 2004.

A December 2003 poll by Newspoll and The Australian showed 51% of Australians wanting Australia to become a republic.

In January 2004 a poll by The Sunday Telegraph and Newspoll asked a series of questions to assess attitudes to the flag, the national anthem, Australia Day and Australia's Head of State. Some 57% of those polled wanted a new referendum to decide whether or not Australia should become a republic to be held in 2004. 64% of respondents said they would prefer an Australian head of state, up from 56% in 1995. Only 30% wanted to keep Liz Windsor, down from 36% in 1995.

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A scheme to prepare unemployed young people for work run by the so-called "Prince's Trust", has been found by the Adult Learning Inspectorate to be failing to provide useful workplace skills. The inspectors described the training as "inadequate" and "unsatisfactory."

The report says that over two years fewer than 25 per cent of the trainees got jobs when they left the scheme. It found that there was a lack of supervision, staff did not always have the right qualifications and were sometimes unclear about their responsibilities, and there was not enough attention to preparing trainees for work.

The charity, founded by heir to head of state Charles Windsor in 1976, has been much used by apologists for the monarchy as evidence of the feudal institution's "relevance" in a democratic nation.

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Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald has held out the hope that the Crown Prosecution Service may become known as the Public Prosecution Service at the end of a major transformation of the way it operates. Mr. Macdonald told the Financial Times that "no decision has been made . . . But I see it as a public prosecution service."

A change of name would be welcomed by republicans who are offended that many public institutions paid for by taxpayers are associated by their names with a pre-democratic and divisive institution. Those who wish to preserve Britain's class structure and traditions of deference can be expected to resist any change of name fiercely.

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Swedish newspapers have called for the abolition of that country's monarchy after hereditary head of state Carl Gustaf praised Brunei, a monarchy ruled largely by royal decree, on its "openness". The small south east Asia country is categorised as "not free" by the Freedom House organisation, which monitors oppressive states.

Following the monarch's statement the Dagens Nyheter newspaper said "The question has been asked before and it must be asked again: Why a monarchy?" The tabloid Aftonbladet declared that "The king must abdicate." An article in that newspaper predicted that constitution crisis would lead to the fall of the Swedish monarchy.

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At a Fabian Society conference on Saturday House of Commons Leader Peter Hain suggested that legislators in Parliament's second chamber be indirectly elected. Election would be by a "secondary mandate" system under which seats would be allocated according to the parties' share of the vote in the general election to the House of Commons. Under this arrangement the parties, not by the people, would choose the legislators.

According to the Financial Times it is likely that Hain has the support of Prime Minister Tony Blair for his proposal.

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In a new episode of the long-running farce, Charles Windsor donned fancy dress to visit British troops in Iraq at the weekend. Mr. Windsor wore battle dress showing the insignia of the Parachute Regiment. He is said to particularly enjoy dressing up in the tough regiment's uniform although, according to the Financial Times, "his belief system seems closer to Buddhism than to church-going".

Mr. Windsor, who claims the title of colonel-in-chief of the Parachute regiment, gave its soldiers what the News of the World described as a "stiff formal farewell" when they left Britain to fight in Iraq. No mention of the regiment's role in Iraq was made on his web site although it did find space for 19 paragraphs, two photographs and speech transcript on his visit to an Islamic education centre. The newspaper also claimed that Mr. Windsor believed that the purpose of the military action was for the USA to gain control of Iraqi oil.

Mr. Windsor moved on to Iran after his visit to the troops. The failings of Iran's monarchy played some part in the disastrous events leading to the establishment of clerical rule in that country.

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Culture & Sports Secretary Tessa Jowell has told the Financial Times that is "somewhere between unlikely and improbable" that the BBC will lose it right to extort money through its annual TV licence. Funding by means of a licence rather than other taxes costs TV owners £146m each year in enforcement costs, infringes civil liberties and entails harassment of those who do not own a television. It allows the media giant to be free of both market discipline and democratic accountability. The BBC has used this freedom to expand massively at the taxpayers' expense while neglecting its public service remit and endorsing shoddy journalism.

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