Reflection on 60 Years of Our Queen.

The Golden Jubilee celebrations currently under way allow some reflection upon the reign of Elizabeth the Second.

I've often said of politicians that you should judge them by their deeds and not their words and the same goes for the monarchy.

The Queen appears to brand herself a staunch upholder of the British constitution, upholding history and all the pomp and ceremony that we British and a fair few foreign tourists revel in.

However, despite the façade, over her reign she has presided over the wholesale destruction of our democratic constitution. To the point now that she is a subject of the European Union and has to defer to their wishes in matters of state.

Not only that, she has sat idly by while the house of lords, the last bastion of sense in Parliament, has been weakened and reshaped by government for their own ends.

In effect she has sat idly by while our sovereignty and democracy have virtually been abolished.

She may say that its down to the wishes of the people, because elected governments are elected by the people and enact the policies the people voted for. But in an age where governments are elected by a minority of the people, where a huge majority refuse to vote for the smug, self-serving  slimy toads that infest political parties, where effective democracy has ceased to exist, when huge long-reaching changes to the constitution are enacted without referenda, it's saddening that her madge has consistently stayed quiet.

Of course the role of monarchy changed to that of token figurehead changed during the first world war, when the Windsors came into being to distance themselves from the inter-woven, interbred bloodline of European monarchies. Unfortunately the name-change seemed to work: they became "our" monarchy, not linked with the Kaiser, whom we were at war with, nor linked to the Russian royal family and their untimely end during the bloody revolution.

Nope, instead our royal family became tokens, positive discrimination for the posh and privileged, a tourist attraction wheeled out in  times of crisis to serve as a distraction to the slumbering masses.

Well sorry, I don't identify with the pomp, ceremony and the high constitution that in essence is "Brand Windsor". I see a monarch that has had very little positive effect on this country, allowing her cabal of cohorts to destroy the lives of those they chose to bring into the family, a monarch that has sat and watched idly as her power has been diminished by various governments in the thrall of large corporations, I see her turn a blind eye as checks and balances in government are destroyed, as the rights of the common man in the law courts are eroded in her name.

I don't see any reason to celebrate her 60th year as monarch, as there isn't much of anything to celebrate at all.

This Evening's Question Time Programme.

I'm currently watching BBC's Question Time programme. The abiding theme is do we have austerity or growth and how do we achieve either?

The real issue is the problem is much greater than those essential questions. The big question is one of control: who, once the course is plotted or the plan made, has the power to enact those plans and steer that course?

The answer is, in the UK, no-one has the power to do much of anything about the problems that are killing our country. You'd think our sovereign government in Parliament would have the power to solve the issues. But the problem is they don't: so much power has been given away to supra-national organisations that Parliament has all the power of a Town Council.

In order to control unemployment, we need to have control of immigration, in order to limit the influx of people from outside the country. That way we can have some idea of how large the population will be and plan accordingly. Those plans fall apart when we have uncontrolled immigration adding a huge influx of people  into the job market.

But of course we don't have control of immigration, the EU does. We can't stop immigration from other EU countries, so its impossible to prepare and plan for the future.

You'd think our sovereign government would have control over fiscal measures, but no, the EU is increasingly making grabs for power in this area too. During the worst economic period of the last century, the EU Commission actually demanded increased contributions from member states. No state can contest these increased demands and so we have to pay up despite being on our uppers.

Now we have the spectre of increased fiscal control from the EU, with the EU Commission moving towards having the power to control the budgets of member states.

There are other areas of competence that have been surrendered to outside control, making it virtually impossible to control what happens within our borders.

Without our hands on the levers to control huge swathes of our country's legislation means we are truely out of control.

Recovery is virtually impossible until we can control our own destiny. Relying on others (i.e. the Eurozone) to drag themselves up as well is not a proactive strategy. You don't win a 3-legged race by tying yourself to a corpse.

There is an air of self-delusion about all of this.

The EU political elite is deluding itself that it is benefiting the EU member states with its governance.

The UK political elite is deluding itself that it is still in power and can do anything about our current problems.

We are deluding ourselves that we can trust the other two groups to sort it all out for us.

Its about time we started making our own decisions to benefit ourselves, our children and our country.

A U-Turn on a U-Turn: The Full Circuitous Cycle of MOD waste

The Government has U-Turned on a previous U-Turn decision to pull out of buying the STOVL Version of the F-35 JSF, with millions of taxpayer's pounds being thrown away for no gain.

They had previously decided to drop the STOVL version and go for the Cat- & Trap equipped version, alongside modifying the new QE Class carriers to carry Catapults and arrestor gear.

I've blogged about the operational difficulties of having two dissimilar-equipped carriers, but this decision is wrong, mainly because it rules out the maximum interoperability with other navies. Sure, the F-35 can work off our carriers and any Navy equipped with VSTOL or STOVL aircraft can also work off our carriers, but more capable catapult aircraft such as the F-18 will be unable to.

Being locked into the VSTOL/STOVL operational concept means that all our naval air assets have to comform to the platform type. Including, as I've said before the Airborne Early Warning assets on board the carriers. Cue that massively over-complex and expensive to buy and maintain V-22 based AEW platform (love the program name for the radar/sensor package of TOSS) currently being mooted. We could go for a Merlin-based AEW platform, but the flaws with the airframes of boih these aircraft are well known.

The other fly in the AEW ointment is the limited operational envelope of rotary aircraft, especially the lack of cabin pressurisation and limited ceiling. An AEW asset really needs altitude to see further over the horizon and see threats further away.

It seems that we're taking the worst of all options and hobbling our future Naval Air assets for decades to come, when cheaper and more capable platforms could be had instead.

All that needed to happen was for our government to have a bit of gumption, some foresight and the tenacity to stick with a plan that would have delivered the possibility to operate world-class naval air assets.

Instead I assume the RAF, feeling "well jel" got the rug pulled from under them.

So much for our defence departments working together for the security of the nation. Instead we get departmental back-biting and infighting, attempting to preserve old rivalries.