News from the Centre for Citizenship

The state church clerics who are given seats in the House of Lords “offer a unique and varied spiritual perspective” according to a speaker who recently addressed the House of Commons. The speaker also referred approvingly to the ways in which the Anglican Church is intertwined with the executive and legislature. You might imagine that…

“Why does your family cost us half a billion pounds a year” a taxpayer asked hereditary head of state Windsor on a street in Newmarket, Suffolk on 22 July. The inane looking and sounding “king”, not used to justifying himself, has no answer other than “Ah yes”. View the encounter here.

According to the Guardian newspaper documents that might reveal truths about Britain’s former hereditary head of state and her husband are at risk of being kept secret when the time for their release becomes due. Thousands of documents related to Elizabeth Windsor and husband Philip are due for release in the next two years. According…

They shamelessly charge the lifeboat service for permission to cross a beach to launch its lifeboats. They can do so because although the beach is public property they have control of it and can extract a profit to add to their great unearned wealth. Six lifeboat stations must pay £600 a year to be able…

The Windsor family has again undercut the country’s claim to be a true democracy by shamefully insisting that it is above the law. The Guardian newspaper has reported that “royal courtiers” pressured the government of Wales to exempt hereditary head of state Charlie Windsor from prosecution under a new law being put forward by the…

According to a Financial Times report most unelected legislators will keep their seats in Parliament if the Labour Party wins the next general election. Only the 92 hereditary legislators will be removed in the party’s first five years in power. More than 700 other legislators will remain. This is despite Labour leader Keir Starmer’s previous…

The Church of England, Britain’s state church, has offered to spend £100mn to make good “past wrongs” in the enslavement of Africans. The church, which is followed by a minority of Britons, profited from slavery to the extent of £1bn in today’s money. An independent committee chaired by one of the church’s bishops has stated…

The cost of policing the coronation of Charlie Windsor was around £150m. Most of this burden was carried by the police of the capital city. But research by Republic has given insights into how police forces and taxpayers outside London suffered from the celebration of feudal privilege. The spending by the Met included £6,389 taken…

The Labour Party has reneged on its promise to legislate for the abolition of the House of Lords, according to a report in the Financial Times (FT). The second chamber is composed of unelected “lords” for life, hereditary “lords”, bishops, legislators appointed by one of the major parties, and legislators who have bought a seat…

The Guardian has reported that the National Archives has put protection of royal privilege before its duty to the British people. The newspaper found that the Archives had doctored records to conceal documents that show that former head of state Elizabeth Windsor asked for details of a relative’s wealth to be hidden from the British…