Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Set in the mid nineteen nineties, this fast moving thriller lifts the curtain on sex, sleaze and corruption in high places as the long reign of the government totters to an end, following the ousting of the iconic Margaret Thatcher. The novel catches the mood of those times with a host of fictional characters who engage in political intrigue, sex, money laundering and murder, pursued by an Irish investigative journalist and his girlfriend, the daughter of a cabinet minister found dead in a hotel room after bondage sex.

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The news that the Royal set up is to be given a 6.7% pay increase for the coming year, based on some formula connected to the crown estates, is both preposterous and insulting and should not under any circumstances proceed. Shortly George Osborne is to get to his feet in the Commons and announce how he is going to axe £12 billion from the welfare budget, by its very definition an axe which will cut through the daily lives of the weakest is society and the poorest in the land. It is absolutely out of order and morally indefensible for the Royal Family, who live in luxury beyond the imaginings of the majority, surrounded by armies of servants and flunkies from a bygone age, to accept a lavish helping of public cash when up to a million of their subjects rely on foodbanks, while public servants lower down in the pecking order have to make do with a 1% pay rise.

This blog supports the monarchy, but not at any price and certainly not with this degree of public insensitivity. As for the plaintive whine that  the Queen might have to move out of Buckingham Palace while it is refurbished, because it has not been redecorated since 1952? Well they had the money every year and it was their responsibility to maintain their property. Cameron needs to put a stop to this.