Is it me, or am I missing something with this whole, changing the law of succession, thing? I’ve been waiting for the punchline, but it hasn’t happened yet, writes Emma Suddaby.
Gordon Brown has a bee in his bonnet about equalising the rights of the monarchy, in particular giving female heirs an equal right to succeed and abolishing the centuries-old ban on an heir to the throne marrying a Roman Catholic.
He calls it an “issue of discrimination” and, on the whole, I agree with him. But – and I’ll say it so you don’t have to – how about equalising the rights of the rest of us, first?
It does seem a random turn of events, bearing in mind the UK’s current list of woes. It’s not like everything’s running so smoothly that the PM can afford to use his spare time getting some of those niggly little jobs done . . . I could run off a list as long as my arm of urgent issues that need addressing in our country, before we can recover from this low, low point.
But never mind the meaty problems, how about wasting some more of taxpayers’ cash on an issue that relates to just one family in the UK, however important, and hardly an urgent issue at that!
Unless there’s some vital point I’m missing – and if anyone knows it, please enlighten me – I shall carry on suspecting Mr Brown’s sudden concern for the welfare and equality of Royals springs from the same, evasive place as my instinctive urge to find trivial jobs that must be attended to every time I have a deadline to meet or some revision to do. It’s called procrastination.
Unfortunately, I’ve learnt the hard way that spending the whole afternoon polishing the bin will not make the tax returns go away. Yes, the bin will be gleaming for a few days but those tax returns will end up being completed in a panic at midnight and will likely wind up being returned, full of mistakes.
Let’s just hope Mr Brown doesn’t end up learning the same lesson on a much grander scale. The state of national finances, the struggles of ordinary men and women up and down the country, the fact our boys in Afghanistan are fighting for resources as well as their lives, and the holes in our broken society, will not be mended by our Prime Minister pouring his energy into creating a “modern” monarchy – love ‘em though I do.
The great and the good appear to enjoy tinkering with the things that do work in this great country of ours, rather than looking the things that don’t in the face.
I suppose nobody likes the dirty jobs, but they still have to be done.
So, as we’re still waiting for a punchline for Mr Brown, I have one . . . if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
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