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Church of England leaders have been accused of hypocrisy for attacks on city traders.

According to the Financial Times the state church commissioners "lend foreign stock from their £5.5bn of investments - an essential support for short-selling".

The newspaper also reported that the church had invested £13m in Man Group, the biggest hedge fund manager. Last year it also sold a £135m mortgage portfolio, although church archbishop Rowan Williams has attacked those who trade debts for profit.

The church’s pension board has invested in an Auriel Capital hedge fund intended to profit from currency trading, including the short selling of currencies.

Church Commissioner Andreas Wittam-Smith was reported to have responded that the church’s ethical advisory group had approved the lending of stock, which could be used for short-selling. Andrew Brown, secretary to the church commissioners said that the church invested in Man Group shares, not its products. He claimed that the church’s stocks had not been used in short-selling against "financially vulnerable institutions in the US and UK". The church also says that none of the managers it uses sell short. The policy of the church pension board is not to lend out stock.

Archbishop Williams has supported a ban on short-selling. Another archbishop, John Sentamu, described traders who benefit from falling prices as "bank robbers and asset strippers".

The Church Commissioners manage £5.6bn in equity, property and land holdings. This year it started lending non-British and American stock through global financial services firm JPMorgan Chase.

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Female and Catholic members of the Windsor family will be protected from gemder amd religious discrimination if government proposals becomes law.

According to a report in the Guardian newspaper the government intends to ask Parliament to change laws going back 300 years that determine which Windsor should become head of state.

At present Catholic members of the Windsor family and their spouses are specifically barred from becoming hereditary head of state. As the head of state is also head of the state Church of England, she or he is also required to be a Protestant Christian.

Male members of the Windsor family also have precedence over females when there is a vacancy for head of state.

The Guardian reported that the government would be proposing legislation to end both forms of discrimination. It also reported that the government intends that the powers of the privy council be reduced.

If the reforms are agreed all British citizens who are not members of the Windsor family will still be barred from consideration for the country’s chief public office. The effective constitutional ban on a non-white head of state will also continue.

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Malcolm Turnball has been elected by 45 to 41 votes to lead the Australian Liberal Party.

Mr. Turnball chaired the Australian Republican movement in the 1990s. When the referendum on a republic was lost he said that the then Liberal prime minister, John Howard would be remembered for “only one thing: he was the prime minister who broke the nation's heart”. Mr. Howard was widely believed to be responsible for the failure to achieve a majority for an Australian republic.

Following Mr. Turnball's election, prime minister and Labour Party leader Kevin Rudd said he looked forward to working with him on “our move towards a republic”.

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“Many New Zealanders . . . think it inevitable Mr. (John) Key will be the next prime minister” according to the Financial Times. Mr. Key is a republican who has said that it is “inevitable” that his country would become a republic. He thought that this might happen when Britain changes its feudal head of state or when neighbouring Australia moves towards a republican constitution.

Mr. Key is a 47-year old former investment banker who has led the conservative National Party since 2006. Polls suggest that his party would win 60 out of 120 seats in an election for the New Zealand parliament. However, it is likely to need the support of smaller parties to form a government.

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The weakness of Britain's democratic culture has been demonstrated by an extraordinary attack on republicans by former cabinet minister Norman Tebbit. The prominent conservative has alleged that MPs who have signed a House of Commons motion to end the requirement that legislators swear allegiance to the Windsor clan, are attacking the state or wish to swear allegiance to the European Union.

“This seems to me to be an attack on the state itself” he said of a proposal to allow republican legislators an alternative to swearing a fasle oath of allegiance to the hereditary head of state and her family. Mr. Tebbit went on to say that “the people behind this campaign must either oppose the idea of anyone who is non-partisan having a role in the affairs of state or they would rather be swearing allegiance to Brussels”.

The parliamentary motion is supported by at least one conservative MP but it has shown that the British reluctance to recognise the legitimacy of basic democratic rights knows no party boundary. Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik told the Western Mail newspaper that he had “always been happy to swear allegiance to the Queen” rather than to his country or a democratic constitution. He added that the feudal system that denies most citizens the right to be considered for head of state “has a traditional and attractive place in British society”. The legislator said that he would vote against a democratic alternative to the monarchy.

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