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"Not one of New Zealand's local authorities will hold celebrations for the Queen this Queen's Birthday weekend" according to Lewis Holden, who chairs the New Zealand Republican Movement.

The Republican Movement wrote to all of New Zealand's district and city Mayors in May. Not one indicated any celebration of the Queen's Birthday for the upcoming long weekend - instead, several announced they were holding celebrations for Matariki, the Maori new year.

"Queen's Birthday weekend is supposed to be a time to celebrate the monarchy. But the weekend is a celebration of nothing. The Queen's actual birthday was on April 21. The date was moved to June because the weather is better in the northern hemisphere. The reason for the holiday is ignored by most New Zealanders and marked only as a long weekend. We should celebrate something unique about our place in the world. We could celebrate Matariki or the Winter solstice, a fun winter festival. New Zealanders simply don't care about the monarchy anymore." concluded Mr Holden.

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"We respect the democracy and procedures in the UK".

Ghanim binn Saad al-Saad, head of Qatari Diar, explaining why he may be making concessions to the demands of a feudal institution in the person of Charles Windsor on the design of the company’s development on the Chelsea Barracks site.

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"With luck the present crisis of public trust (in MPs) may rekindle the embers of constitutional reform. But why stop at parliament? For all its self-regard, British democracy sovereignty not in the people but in the "monarch in parliament". How long before someone asks to see the Queen’s expense chits?"

Philip Stephens, The Financial Times

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Michael Lyons, who chairs the BBC Trust, has declared in an interview with The Financial Times that the state broadcaster should not be subject to democratic controls. According to the newspaper he reminded "the government and opposition parties . . . that he and the other trustees were appointed by the Queen, through the Privy Council ‘rather than just at the dictate of ministers’".

It is rare to hear such an arrogant confirmation from the horse’s mouth of the way in which the BBC fits in with Britain’s long-lingering feudal attitudes and institutions.

Mr. Lyons was "sending a defiant message to politicians of all parties that his organisation will conduct an ‘all-or-nothing’ struggle to protect" its legally sanctioned extortion of a tax on TV watching, according to the FT. But although the BBC insists that the people must finance it, it is resolutely opposed to the people having any control over it.

Yesterday the BBC successfully resisted a demand from the Conservative Party that the TV licence fee should be "frozen" during the recession. This would have meant the media giant sharing in the cut backs that are being forced on public services and business. The BBC is also opposed to sharing the fee with other public service broadcasters.

It is illegal in Britain to watch any TV broadcast through any medium without first paying £139.50 to the BBC. The Corporation collects £3.6bn a year this way. It enforces this charge with teams of "investigators" who use police powers to visit the homes of those who do not have a licence and interview them "under caution". Mr. Lyons described the BBC as a "guardian" of the money it takes in this way.

The BBC has a long record of using the "independence" from public control that Mr. Lyons insists on to oppose republicanism and encourage devotion for the feudal Windsor family. Recently it followed a report of an opinion poll on support for the monarchy with the claim that "a leading republican" had been arrested for multiple murder in Northern Ireland.

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Head of state Elizabeth Windsor is reported to be "concerned" about the constitutional implications of the MPs’ expenses scandal.

However, the constitution will allow voters to remove the MPs who have been shamed at the general election in 2010.

There is no such easy way of punishing the Windsor family who make the legislators look like amateurs when it comes to living off the people. This family claims more than £38m annually at the expense of the people and are provided with many lavish homes, aircraft and even a train for their own use.

Security for the family has been estimated in the Daily Mail to cost taxpayers £50m a year. That newspaper has drawn attention to the cost of bodyguards for a granddaughter of the head of state. She goes by the name "Princess Eugenie" and has two police officer to protect her while she holidays in Cambodia. A former head of the police squad assigned to protect the Windsors told the Mail that providing bodyguards for the likes of Ms. Windsor while soldiers fighting in Afghanistan lack adequate equipment is unjustifiable.

The more serious failings of British legislators have also been generally ignored in the press frenzy. In a notable exception, Financial Times columnist Matthew Engel dew attention to MPs’ systematic failure to hold the executive to account. Most MPs allow themselves to be "whipped" by their party into voting as it wishes. In the case of the majority party this means that they usually give the executive a free ride instead of defending the rights of the people who elected them. They do so because they put their political careers in their parties before service to the people. More harm is done that way than by the money grabbing of some.

Meanwhile, feudal legislators-for-life Peter Truscott and Thomas Taylor have been found guilty of misconduct for offering their services to have laws changed to favour paying clients. Unlike the MPs, they face a mere six months suspension from the legislature. The British constitution about which Ms. Windsor is concerned does not permit the people to remove them permanently.

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A group of British architects has called for a boycott of a lecture by Charles Windsor who is due to become Britain’s head of state when his mother dies.

Mr. Windsor will give the lecture at the Royal Institute of Architects on Tuesday. The nine architects called for a boycott in a letter to the Guardian newspaper. They are protesting against Mr. Windsor’s use of his feudal privileges to give an unfair advantage to those who oppose modern architecture.

In the 1980s an architects’ practice with a high reputation suffered a major decline in business when Windsor criticised its design for an extension to the National Gallery in London. This year he is using his influence to stop a modern redevelopment of the Chelsea Barracks site, also in London where the Windsor family have two palaces. Ten architects of international renown, including Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry, have signed a letter criticising Windsor’s intervention.

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In Australia the Senate has held a public hearing on a bill providing for a plebiscite on whether Australia should cut its ties with Britain’s feudal institution. The committee, which is due to report in June, has considered 246 written submissions and has heard nine witnesses.

A bill requiring a plebiscite was referred to the Finance and Public Administration Committee after the Senate decided the issued was "an extremely important one for the Australian Parliament and public".

If the bill becomes law voters will be asked just to say "Yes" or "No" to a republic. When Australians voted in a referendum ten years ago differences over the method of choosing the president caused an inconclusive outcome.

Australian prime minister Keven Rudd would like to postpone any move towards a republic.

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An New Zealand republican movement opinion poll shows that a majority 45% of citizens are willing for Charles Windsor to become their head of state when his mother dies. Another 43% want their country to become a republic.

Support for the feudal system of appointing the head of state is down from 48% in December 2008.

Prime Minister John Key, who is a republican, told radio station Newstalk ZB that he did not support a referendum on New Zealand becoming a republic "at this time". His comments followed a call from UnitedFuture party leader Peter Dunne's for a referendum by the time of the next general election in 2011. Mr. Dunne said that he was "tired of politicians who say it is probably inevitable we will become a republic at some stage but who are unwilling to do anything to bring it about - that is extremely weak"

Lewis Holden of the New Zealand Republican Movement accused the prime minister of using current economic and social problems as an excuse. "Whether they support the monarchy or a republic", he said, "New Zealanders want the chance to choose who their future head of State is. With the Cabinet Office helping legal academic Alison Quentin-Baxter research a book on the implications of the end of the Queen's reign, the debate is reaching a new and crucial phase".

In an editorial comment the New Zealand Herald said "If a republic is, indeed, inevitable, why wait until the end of the Queen's reign? Delay in the implementation of any good idea serves no good purpose. In the case of a republic, it only postpones the benefits implicit in the pursuit of a singular, unambiguous identity."

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