…our present woeful cultural state, that is.
I have mentioned before that I am in full agreement with what Member Of Parliament Enoch Powell said in an interview a good number of years ago. During the course of it he explained that he could never join the Reform Club:
INTERVIEWER: Never join the Reform Club? But why ever not?
POWELL: All members of the Reform Club must assent to the Reform Act of 1867 [which extended the vote]. That I cannot do.
INTERVIEWER: (Astonished) Do you mean to say that you object to the Reform Act of 1867?
POWELL: That is precisely what I mean to say.
INTERVIEWER: My goodness, Mr. Powell, what is the most recent reform of which you do approve?
POWELL: (Long pause) With some reservations, Magna Carta.
Now you understand the kind of conservative I am and why this report upsets me…
From The London Daily Mail, Sara Malm reporting, we learn:
The proposed law changes to ensure that a daughter born to Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge can succeed to the throne, should apply to titles as well, daughters of the aristocracy have said.
The current tradition follows the previous royal succession law which sees a male heir inherit over a female.
Now daughters of the gentry are calling for a equal rights to inherit titles as the new law would leave the aristocracy ‘two steps behind’ the royal family.
The aristocracy’s current rules are even harsher than those of the crown, as a title will die out rather than be passed onto a female heir.
Lady Clare Kerr whose father is Tory politician Michael Ancram, is the 13th Marquess of Lothian, will miss out on inheriting her father’s title due to the aristocracy’s rules.
‘There is certainly a conversation to be had with regard to moving even one step forward to where the Royal Family were before this recent change,’ she told The Independent on Sunday.
‘In the absence of a son there should be no reason a daughter should not inherit – and once that has been established it is difficult to argue against girls inheriting if they are the firstborn.’
In Lady Clare’s case, her father’s title will eventually be passed on to her uncle.
…
Peter Yorke, author of the Official Sloane Ranger Handbook, said there is no reason why a title cannot be passed on to a daughter in modern society.
‘What mattered was that the estate goes to one person who will take care of it for the next generation,’ he told The Telegraph
‘But now the daughters often go off to Harvard and places like that – there is no reason why a daughter who has done three years of law and then maybe gone off to PricewaterhouseCoopers, for example, should not be able to run a great estate.’
MPs will meet today to start rewriting 660-year-old laws to ensure that if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s have a girl she will become Queen, even if she has a young brother.
Ministers are to prioritise the law change with the urgency usually reserved for anti-terror laws.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said: ‘This Bill will bring to an end centuries of discrimination against women so that the first born is next in line to the throne, regardless of whether they’re a boy or a girl.’
The Liberal Democrat leader added: ‘I’m delighted that all of the Queen’s realms have agreed to this historic piece of legislation, that will enact in law what we agreed back in 2011 – that if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have a baby girl, she can one day be our Queen even if she has younger brothers.
‘We’re pressing ahead with this as quickly as we can – it’s clearly something the entire country can get behind towards the close of this momentous Jubilee year.’
The four-page Bill states that in future ‘succession to the Crown not to depend on gender’ and rewrites the Treason Act 1351 to replace ‘first son and heir’ to mean ‘eldest child and heir’.
Other laws affected include the Bill of Rights, Act of Settlement and the Regency Act 1937.
Off with their heads, I say. And the Bolshevik Clegg should be the first to taste the axemen’s blade, followed by Lady Clare [who should be granted the mercy of a swordsman's blade upon her pretty, bejeweled neck].
God how I hate the 21st Century.
