Those who have been following its descent into CAGW hystericism know that the “Royal Society” has long been, in Bishop Hill’s words this morning, a rather grubby advocacy outfit. Nevertheless, kudos to the Bishop for noticing three grubby advocates who have recently become fully signed up Royal Society Grubby Advocates, i.e. “Fellows”.
That “Royal” tag still impresses casual bystanders, a lot. So, is it now time to start slagging off the Queen for allowing her prestige to be abused by these grubby advocates? I think so. If it’s a story that these grubby advocates are “Royal” (and you can bet these new GAs will now use their Royal tag at every turn) then it should also be a story that the Queen is a stupid old cow for allowing this to happen. No doubt the Queen has googlers on her payroll who track what is being said about her, out here in un-Royal world. Well, now, oh Royal Surfers, Keepers of the Queen’s Internet or whatever you are called, I am saying that. In my youth I used to make fun of this woman by saying she and her shambolic family ought to be privatised. Maybe I’ll crank that up again.
Businesses, boroughs, symphony orchestras and the like, have to work hard doing good things, or at least not bad things, to earn the adjective “Royal”, or to say that what they do is “by appointment” to Her Majesty, etc. etc. So, it either is, or ought to be, possible to be told that you have worked so hard at bad stuff that you may no longer use such words. So, over to you Queen.
“The Society” has a rather different ring to it, I think. More like something in a Monty Python sketch. As would be entirely appropriate.
Just wait until Speaker to Vegetables gets his turn at the succession. Brenda is a reasonably savvy old dear, but Jugears makes one want to institute a tradition for odd-numbered monarchs of that name.
Has anyone else noticed that references to the “Royal Society for the Protection of Kim Jong Un” are starting to appear ?
I doubt that Her Maj has anything to do with appointments to the Royal Society, which is an old body dating back three hundred years and used to be a venerable one.
Something similar happened some time ago to the Royal Society of Arts (founded by Prince Albert) which used to be a respectable entity and has now become a Blairite think-tank devoted to ‘social change’.
The enemy are very definitely within the gates.
There are many societies with “Royal” in their name, but the Royal Society is the grand-daddy of them all. It lends is prestige because of its glorious history rather than the patronage of the Queen. From rigorous scientific fields, only the very best people get elected to fellowships of it.
On the other hand, at various times in its history, people have been given fellowships for political as well as scientific reasons. Patrons of science as well as scientists themselves. However, like most such organisations it now gets a lot of funding from the state, and therefore it does the state’s bidding. So we get political appointments masquerading as scientific ones.
But Paul Erlich? Ye Gods.
Could the Queen simply revoke their Royal association? Can she just send them a nastygram that reads “we are not amused” and then legally bar them from the whole royal affiliation thing?
Slightly off-topic, but my faith in the Royals faded when Billy Gates was given an honorary knighthood.
… and as for TV celebs getting knighthoods, it’s like knighting the court jester…
Well this is a flawless plan if I ever saw one.
Indeed. We went through this a week or two ago with “The Boat Race”; each sounds pretentiously as though it’s the only boat race or society out there.
Does the word “pretentious” anger the Smite Gods? Or is it just saying that that particular word might apply to the British?
I don’t think the ‘royal’ bit adds anything anyway in the light of the ‘royal’ family’s antics over the years.
There’s no such thing as ‘royal’.
It’s an axiom of American politics that any organisation that isn’t explicitly right-wing will eventually be taken over by the left. This includes garden clubs, Lithuanian genealogical societies and dog-grooming groups.
PFP is right on. All groups should have a sunset date, like laws should have, when they cease to exist.
Until then, they should stick to putting things on other things and shut up.
It’s an axiom of American politics
-well, it’s an axiom, anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_O'Sullivan_(columnist)
-Liverpool-born, adviser to Margaret Thatcher, and the coiner of O’Sullivan’s Law, stated above by PFP.
Still an axiom of American politics, even if we, er, borrowed it. But all credit to Mr. O’Sullivan: an excellent insight which fully explains the Garden Club’s ‘Flowers for Peace’ show and similar follies. ;^)
Of course we would need a court to determine the fact, but the Queen is probably a traitor.
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds she has signed away sovereign powers that were not hers to surrender. All it would have taken were for sources close to the Queen to have “voiced doubts” about the constitutional legitimacy of any one of the EU treaties and they would have been stopped dead.
For whatever reason she, in her wisdom, chose not so to do. As such she has been negligent or even downright traitorous to the British people.
Of course we would need a court to determine the fact, but the Queen is probably a traitor.
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds she has signed away sovereign powers that were not hers to surrender. All it would have taken were for sources close to the Queen to have “voiced doubts” about the constitutional legitimacy of any one of the EU treaties and they would have been stopped dead.
For whatever reason she, in her wisdom, chose not so to do. As such she has been negligent or even downright traitorous to the British people.