News

Britain is resisting a European Commission plan that would reduce the £500,000 paid in farm subsidies to hereditary head of state Elizabeth Windsor.

The Commission wants to slash subsidies from taxpayers to the owners of big farms in order to rebut claims that the Common Agriculture Policy favours the rich. But a spokesperson for the British government told the Financial Times that there was "no clear link between wealth and the size of a farm". Ms. Windsor is one of the wealthiest individuals in the world. In the 2006 - 2007 financial year her income from agricultural land mostly in Northern England was £1.6m

According to the government 6,100 farms, 4 per cent of the total in Britain, would be affected if Commission rules were changed. The taxpayers of Europe pay £32bn a year to subsidise farmers.

05:42 PM | | (0) | (0)

Australians will have another chance to vote on whether to become a republic as a result of the Labour Party gaining a 22-seat majority in the general election. New Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has promised a referendum.

Australia shares an hereditary head of state with Britain. In the 1999 referendum Australians voted 55 to 45 per cent not to change the constitution to allow the people to choose an Australian to hold their chief public office. Commentators attributed this defeat to disagreements among republicans on whether the head of state should be directly elected by the people.

Mr. Rudd has not said how soon the referendum will be.

05:39 PM | | (0) | (0)

Two Spanish cartoonists have been fined £2000 each on a charge of insulting Felipe Bourbon, who is heir to the office of head of state.

The charge arose from a law intended to boost the birth rate by paying cash to families for adopting or giving birth to a child.

Guillermo Torres and Manel Fontevilla depicted Mr. Bourbon having sex with his wife and saying "Do you realise if you get pregnant this will be the closest to real work I’ve ever done".

The magazine in which the cartoon was published was confiscated by the court. National Court judge Vazquez Honrubia complained that the two men had "vilified the crown in the most gratuitous and unnecessary way".

06:42 PM | | (0) | (0)

The British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) has been described as "a state agency with police powers to collect a tax". This unusually honest description of the media giant was made by BSkyB Chief Executive James Murdoch at the Monaco Media Forum and reported by the Financial Times

Criticising these powers Mr. Murdoch said that funding of the BBC had increased by 28 percent over the last five years although its audiences had gone down 10 percent. He added that viewers should be "wary" of the use of taxes for a national news service.

The BBC enforces its right to licence TV viewing by demanding an explanation from all those who do not have a licence. If they use their right not to explain why they have no licence, the broadcaster has its investigators call at their home to interview them "under caution", a police expression for interviewing crime suspects.

06:22 PM | | (0) | (0)

New Prime Minister Gordon Brown has announced plans for a number of reforms to Britain’s constitution. But he did not include reform of the second chamber of Parliament.

This means that legislators-for-life, bishops, legislators appointed by the main political parties, hereditary legislators and legislators who have bought their seats, none of whom are accountable to the people, will continue to have an important place in the government of the country.

06:21 PM | | (0) | (0)