But what does it prove JHJ? Anything? Or just another link in a long line of links that prove nothing.

Whoa there mike, chill your beans, just following the flow of chat on here…

When it comes to McDonalds straws and the clutching thereof, can you explain the link between Tasmanian grown Opium and the increased yield of Afghan Opium after allied invasion?

Apologies if it comes across as an attack on you, like the vast majority of folk on here, you seem pretty cool; given the topic of the thread, I mainly brought it up to highlight the intrinsic links between Royalty and the Military:

I never took it as an attack, it just seemed a very odd way of proving a very obvious point and I didn’t know where you were going with it.

Besides which Nick the Greek isn’t our royalty anyway 😉

JHJ what conclusions am I supposed to draw from your link to the NZ herald?

A politician tells reporters that he’ll resign if the spy services are conducting mass surveillance…This is hardly massively unsurprising is it? Or, in fact particularly newsworthy?

It would be newsworthy if he’s said something like “Every you do is being watched, suckers”

NZ Mass surveillance is still a developing story

we’ll have to see if John Key regrets those words…

If you really think WW1 was caused by three cousins as individuals having a tiff!

I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich ’cause he was hungry.

Does it matter whether he may or may not ‘regret’ is words? Politicians (Nz or otherwise) will say whatever they think is the right thing to say regardless of the facts to hand in any given situation

This isn’t a conspiracy or newsworthy, surely?

Re: Fiat Uno vs a Mercedes

I have done a fair bit of banger racing in my time and its a dead simple to spin any car with a well placed tap.
The American police call it the “PIT maneuver” I believe.
A limo with its engine far to the front is probably even easier.

But I doubt that is how it was done. I think the Uno just accidently rear-ended the limo during the crash itself after being to close trying to a “papp” photo’s

Motive
I would expect the idea of King William having a “corner shop owner” as a half brother was more than enough reason for some !!!

My link to John Key’s statement seems pretty relevant to jambalaya’s post all told…

You don’t have to look for a conspiracy in everything 😉

Bit more on New Zealand’s role in the 5 Eyes Alliance

I heard that it started when a bloke called Archie Duke shot an ostrich ’cause he was hungry.

*applauds*

My link to John Key’s statement seems pretty relevant to jambalaya’s post all told…

Not really, a random politician (Jam’s tenuous memory aside) having the view that spying agencies should, well…spy on people is not news. Neither is (in this day and age post Snowden and Wiki-leaks) a PM denying that it goes on despite most people’s (who bother to inform themselves about these things) realisation that spying agencies are in fact, well…spying on us…

Not News (Well known self interested groups making sure it isn’t), more than a bit shitty. But, sadly, not news.

Cool, so give us some news then…

If you can’t think of anything relevant, I’d appreciate help trying to get to the bottom of this:

Just how many armies and intelligence services does the Queen have authority over?

a/ It depends what you mean by authority. How many can she send to war? 0.

Can you justify your answer please Northwind?

also:

How many can she prevent from going to war?

and then we still have the small issue of the intelligence services…

Just how many armies and intelligence services does the Queen have authority over?

In principle? (as head of state, eventually some-one has to sign these bloody documents, and it isn’t going to be me, said every politician ever) or actively? (as bond style villain directing the lives of bored conspiracy theorists 😉 )

Let’s go with a sprinkle of both in principle and in terms of executive power:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/15/queen-veto-war-powers_n_2477422.html

The Queen also vetoed entirely a private member’s Bill, the Military Actions Against Iraq (Parliamentary Approval) Bill 1999, that would have transfered the power to authorise military strikes against Iraq from the monarch to Parliament

It is widely assumed that the royal prerogative, the authority to declare war, rests now with the prime minister rather than the Queen herself.

However, these documents raise questions about how much power the monarch still has over the elected government of the day.

Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert said the fact there had been a “fight to to keep this quiet” showed the significance of the Whitehall document.

“It’s quite concerning there is wider influence, and secretive influence, of the monarchy in these things than had previously been revealed,” he told The Huffington Post UK.

And he said he was particularly concerned about the revelation the Queen had fought to keep parliament from gaining the power to authorise, or block, military action.

“The power to go to war is an incredibly important thing,” he said. “It’s important to bring the country on side and to do things in a clear way and leave the choice up to parliament.

From Big Dummy’s answer on page 2

From your link:

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said: “It is a long established convention that the Queen is asked by parliament to provide consent to those bills which parliament has decided would affect crown interests. The sovereign has not refused to consent to any bill affecting crown interests unless advised to do so by ministers.
So when a private member’s bill was put forward preventing the Prime Minster from declaring war without parliamentary approval, on the Queen’s account, she was asked to veto the legislation by the Prime Minister.

Admittedly, it was shabby of the government to get the bill stopped without publicly whipping a vote against it, but that’s about as deep as the roots of the conspiracy go.

You’re going around in circles chap…

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said

😉

The CCTV cameras
There were more than 14 CCTV cameras in the Pont d’Alma underpass, yet none have recorded footage of the fatal collision.

Sources have claimed that they were turned to face the wall, or were simply switched off. The official French judicial enquiry into the crash was told that none of the cameras were working.

Sauce for the goose… etc etc 😉

Just a quick look to see how the conspiracy is going – and I’m wondering JHJ – what do you do all day ? Apart from keeping us up to date on, well I’m not sure what ???

jive your question has been answered with explanations .. The answer is 0.

crankboy – Member
Is the Governor General of Australia acting on the written advise of the Australian high court really the Queen though rather than simply the guardian of the Australian constitution…

I am not qualified to comment on the legality of it, but I was a public servant in Oz at the time, and it was made very clear to those of us (public servants) objecting to this that our oath of allegiance was directly to the Queen and it was our paramount loyalty, and it would be taken very seriously if we breached it, ie possible treason charges.

I believe the same may have been said to our military.

One day we thought we were a democracy, the next the Establishment flexed its muscles and we learned different.

Democracy under the Westminster system is an illusion IMO. How much power the Queen actually wields, I do not know, but it is in her name.

jive your question has been answered with explanations .. The answer is 0.

I can’t see any sufficient explanation, especially in light of the secrecy surrounding the Royal Family and their guarded response to revealing the extent of their power:

“This is opening the eyes of those who believe the Queen only has a ceremonial role,” said Andrew George, Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, which includes land owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, the Prince of Wales’ hereditary estate.

“It shows the royals are playing an active role in the democratic process and we need greater transparency in parliament so we can be fully appraised of whether these powers of influence and veto are really appropriate. At any stage this issue could come up and surprise us and we could find parliament is less powerful than we thought it was.”

What’s more, also bear in mind that is only in relation to the UK, rather than the several other countries and territories that come under the Queen’s authority…

Good post Epicyclo…

seems the UK were on the brink of a security services coup of Harold Wilson’s government at one point:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/mar/15/comment.labour1

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4789060.stm

On a related note, many accounts state that it was Louis Mountbatten who first introduced Prince Charles to Jimmy Savile…

Question: If the Windsors have all this power that you say they have, why do they work so hard at staying popular with the general public?

Because if you want people to believe in democracy, you can’t appear to be too authoritarian…

Don’t get me wrong, compared to many countries in the world, we have it very good, but not so sure about those on the receiving end of the aforementioned armies…

So let’s see – every four years or so, we have an election to put in a different set of politicos if we want a different set of policies. These are not influenced by the Queen, who merely reads them out at a set-piece ceremony once a year during the tenure of whichever government has been put in place by a popular vote.

And you think that all this is an elaborate theatrical performance to obscure an authoritarian Monarchical System and no-one who works in the regular media who keeps an eye on this stuff has noticed it. Not even the Grauniad.

I think you’re either an obsessive compulsive disorderist or an incredibly elaborate troll (motivated by the same disorder), or a complete dimwit.

No offense.

So who holds power regardless of those elections?

How many Prime Ministers have there been since 1953?

How many Monarchs?

The government holds power through the elections results, dummy. As has already been explained to you. Several times.

Who’s government?

The term is employed in order to signify that the government of a Commonwealth realm or,[3] less commonly, a division thereof, belongs to the reigning sovereign, and not to the cabinet or prime minister

Perhaps you are having trouble getting your head around the democratic principle of temporary power. In the USA, where there is no “Monarch” but where the democratic principle of government by election also holds, conspiracy theorists just make up a substitute, like poor old David Icke and his invisible lizards.

Aye, whatever…

seems the UK were on the brink of a security services coup of Harold Wilson’s government at one point:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/mar/15/comment.labour1

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4789060.stm

On a related note, many accounts state that it was Louis Mountbatten who first introduced Prince Charles to Jimmy Savile…

You DO know that all property income held by the “Royal” Family goes to the exchequer, don’t you? It’s nominally theirs, but in fact supplies the exchequer ot the level of the elected government. In the same way, the Commonwealth countries only nominally “belong” to the Crown.

The security services are there to maintain the status quo, that is to say – the elected government figure-headed by the Queen. It was thought at the time that Wilson was a dangerous left-winger who wanted to upset the established relationship as I have described it.

The Queen holds no constitutional authority in this arrangement.

The Exchequer became unnecessary as a revenue collecting department as a result of William Pitt’s reforms. It was abolished in 1834.

Very well, “Treasury”, if you prefer, but the Chancellor is still the “Chancellor of the Exchequer” by title.

So, by your way of thinking, as this is his title, the “exchequer” must still exist. But in secret, no?

The security services are there to maintain the status quo, that is to say – the elected government figure-headed by the Queen.

So in the case of a coup to remove the elected government, on who’s behalf were the security services acting?

The constitution – that is to say, the arrangement which defines how the country runs itself, of which the Queen is a figurehead only.

Do you mean the constitution of Her Majesty’s Government?

What part of the word “nominally” is it that you don’t understand?