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New Zealand prime minister Helen Clarke has announced a select committee enquiry into that country’s constitution. It will be chaired by United Future leader and republican Peter Dunne. His report is not expected to lead to any immediate change. Republicans in New Zealand hope, however, that the enquiry will provide a forum for discussion of the case for a republic. Mr Dunne said that he would chair the committee impartially but believed that a republic within the next ten years was possible.

Support for a republic has been expressed by two former governors-general, Paul Reeves and Cath Tizard. They said that this would indicate New Zealand’s maturity. At present the British head of state, queen Liz Windsor, is also head of state of New Zealand. Paul Reeves said that he would be happy to renounce his feudal knighthood if necessary.

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It has been disclosed that Charlie Windsor, who is due to become Britain’s head of state when his mother dies, seems to acknowledge that being his mother’s son may not make him fit to hold the nation’s highest public office. In a confidential memo produced during an employment tribunal hearing he asked "What is wrong with everyone nowadays? Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical capabilities? …………… without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability."

However, Mr. Windsor also wrote that an educational system that promoted aspirational attitudes was to be considered flawed and "the result of social utopianism which believes humanity can be genetically and socially engineered to contradict the lessons of history." The memo was written after personal assistant Elaine Day suggested that staff such as she might be trained as private secretaries. Ms. Day is claiming unfair dismissal and sexual harassment by Mr. Windsor’s assistant personal secretary.

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