Month: February 2004

The prison service is to be freed from its long association with monarchy when it is incorporated into a new National Offenders Management Service in July. Prison Officers will no longer be obliged to display a crown on their uniforms when what is now know as “Her Majesty’s Prison Service” is replaced by the new…

Publication of a bill to remove the remaining 92 hereditary legislators from the second chamber has been unexpectedly delayed. This follows the refusal of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parities to join a joint committee of MPs to work on a plan for an indirectly elected House of Lords unless the government dropped the bill.…

The government has dismissed the recommendation by a Conservative party commissioned panel that viewers should no longer be required to get permission before watching TV or recording video tapes. According to the Financial Times Labour officials stated that the media giant, which sells permission to watch TV at £116 a year, would be undermined by…

Matthew Oakeshott, Liberal Democrat MP and member of the joint committee on house of lords reform, has come out against Peter Hain’s proposal for indirect election to the second chamber of the British legislature. In a letter to the Financial Times Mr. Oakeshott says that indirect election would still mean an all-appointed legislative chamber, not…

A panel of media experts commissioned by the Conservative Party has recommended that “the television licence fee be steadily reduced from 2007 onwards, and gradually replaced by a combination of subscription and indirect public funding.” The experts say that the tax “should be abolished completely when analogue television transmission is switched off.” The report also…

The Broadcasting Policy Group of media experts will recommend that the BBC should be funded by subscriptions instead of the licence fee, according to a report in the Financial Times. The groups says that that would be more equitable. The licence fee that provides most of the media giant’s massive funding has to be paid…

Recent opinion polls in Australia suggest that a substantial majority of Australians want Liz Windsor replaced as their head of state by an Australian. The polls also show a majority of Australians wanting the process to begin in 2004. A December 2003 poll by Newspoll and The Australian showed 51% of Australians wanting Australia to…

A scheme to prepare unemployed young people for work run by the so-called “Prince’s Trust”, has been found by the Adult Learning Inspectorate to be failing to provide useful workplace skills. The inspectors described the training as “inadequate” and “unsatisfactory.” The report says that over two years fewer than 25 per cent of the trainees…

Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald has held out the hope that the Crown Prosecution Service may become known as the Public Prosecution Service at the end of a major transformation of the way it operates. Mr. Macdonald told the Financial Times that “no decision has been made . . . But I see it…

Swedish newspapers have called for the abolition of that country’s monarchy after hereditary head of state Carl Gustaf praised Brunei, a monarchy ruled largely by royal decree, on its “openness”. The small south east Asia country is categorised as “not free” by the Freedom House organisation, which monitors oppressive states. Following the monarch’s statement the…