News from the Centre for Citizenship
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State Church Called Hypocritical
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.…
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Windsors To Be Protected From Unfair Discrimination
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…
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Republican Elected To Lead Australian Liberals
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…
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Republican Tipped To Be NZ Prime Minister
“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…
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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…
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Republicanism Is Attack On State Says Tebbit
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…
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Windsor Finds Cause of Everything That’s Wrong
Charles Windsor, who is due to become Britain’s next hereditary head of state, has told the Daily Telegraph that experiments with genetically modified food are the reason that the world is “facing all these challenges, climate change and everything”. This is believed to be the first time that this explanation for global warming has been…
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BBC Trustees Claim £1,000 A Month
The BBC Trust’s twelve members claimed an average of £1,000 in expenses last year at the expense of TV viewers who are forced to buy a licence to watch TV. Scotland’s representative on the Board was the most expensive. Jeremy Peat claimed a total of £30,976, a monthly average of £2,581. This included £9,800 for…
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Democracy Delayed (Again)
The end of feudalism in the British legislature may be delayed again. Justice minister Jack Straw has published the third discussion paper on House of Lords reform in seven years. But if he has his way there will be no more reform until after the general election, which may not be until 2010. The Conservative,…
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What Makes Our Country Special
“Along with the BBC and the monarchy, the (national health) service has become part of the way in which we define what makes our country special”. So wrote Nicholas Timmins in the Financial Times on 30 June 2008. Mr. Timmins went on to write that the five-year cancer survival rate in Britain is “well down…