Month: November 2020

Politics

The Privy Council

In the UK’s constitutional monarchy the Privy Council can be regarded as a go-between for Parliament’s dealings with the Sovereign, as well […]

In the UK’s constitutional monarchy the Privy Council can be regarded as a go-between for Parliament’s dealings with the Sovereign, as well as the vehicle by which non-Parliamentary and non-UK royal affairs are conducted. These include Royal Charters, laws applicable to British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, and judicial appeals for some Commonwealth countries. Counsellors are privy to information classified as ‘secret’ and they swear an oath not to disclose it.

The concept of a ‘privy council’ is thought to have originated at least 800 years ago. It is essentially a group of trusted advisers to the King or Queen, to help him or her make informed decisions in the running of the country. The modern-day Privy Council is a remnant of this, which is retained partly out of tradition.

Counsellors (titled ‘Right Honourable’, or Rt.Hon.) are appointed for life and there are now over 600, although only those currently in government may actively advise. All Cabinet Ministers become Privy Counsellors, along with other leading politicians such as the Leader of the Opposition, top civil servants, clergy and judges. Usually, just four Counsellors meet the Queen each month for 30 minutes during which no-one sits and the Queen formally approves all agenda items.

(Top image of Privy Council coat of arms: Sodacan at Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0)

28/11/2020
3 min
4 years
217 words

Celebrations & Holidays

Winter Solstice – Yule

The Winter Solstice takes place on or adjacent to 21st December and is the day with the longest period of darkness ~ […]

The Winter Solstice takes place on or adjacent to 21st December and is the day with the longest period of darkness ~ approximately 16 hours 10 minutes. Modern-day Druids gather at Stonehenge and other ancient sites to witness the rays of the sunrise and sunset align with the monoliths and to echo our ancestors’ grateful thanks for this sign of the continuing solar cycle.

Its observance has greatly diminished today, but when the country was focused on hunting or animal husbandry and home-grown crops for food, people were much more conscious of the sun’s essential role. The belief was that the sun actually stood still for twelve days, hence the Latin ‘sol’ (sun) put with ‘sistere’ (to halt) to form the word’s root.

Some of the old customs included burning a ‘Yule‘ log brought from the forest for each of those twelve days to encourage the sun to move on, and adorning doorways with branches of oak mistletoe for good luck. Such customs morphed into the subsequent rituals of Christmas. Municipalities such as Penzance and Brighton have developed their own Winter Solstice festivals in recent times. Here is a glimpse of Brighton’s annual ‘Burning of the Clocks’, another reference to time standing still:

(Top image of winter solstice sunrise at Stonehenge: Mark Pilkington at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

19/11/2020
3 min
4 years
218 words

English language

Lord Byron

Lord Byron (George Gordon, 1788-1824) gave English literature the ‘Byronic hero’, seen in the novels of the Brontë sisters, for example. This […]

Lord Byron (George Gordon, 1788-1824) gave English literature the ‘Byronic hero’, seen in the novels of the Brontë sisters, for example. This figure has a rocky past which has made him cynical and moody, but he is dashing and devilishly attractive with a propensity for strong romantic attachment. He was created out of Byron’s own life experiences, which were plentiful, to put it mildly.

Described as a latter-day playboy-superstar, Byron travelled Europe and died of fever in Greece at just 36. Though London-born he was brought up by his erratic mother in Aberdeenshire then returned south to be educated at Harrow and Cambridge. Despite his deformed lower right leg he ‘got around’ and took innumerable lovers. He was briefly married and had one legitimate child, computing pioneer Ada Lovelace. Tellingly, Byron’s publisher burned the manuscript of his memoirs after his death!

Byron’s most famous poems include ‘She walks in beauty’ , ‘Childe Harold’s Pilgrimmage’, ‘Don Juan’ and ‘So, we’ll go no more a-roving’, with the first of these hailed as an exemplar of Romanticism:

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes; ….&c.

(Image: Wikimedia Commons / Public domain)

16/11/2020
3 min
4 years
212 words

Geography & Environment / History

Hampton Court Palace

King Henry VIII (1491-1547) owned dozens of castles, mansions and palaces. One that remains today is the magnificent Hampton Court Palace in […]

King Henry VIII (1491-1547) owned dozens of castles, mansions and palaces. One that remains today is the magnificent Hampton Court Palace in Surrey. Not every subsequent monarch lavished as much money and time on it as Henry, but King William III (1650-1702) and, to a lesser extent, King George I (1660-1727) were two who did. Henry massively extended it to accommodate his 1,000-strong court; William re-built half of it in the Baroque style; while George added new royal apartments and converted the Great Hall into a theatre.

The 60 acres of gardens include the famous hedge maze, commissioned by William, making it the oldest in Britain. There are also 750 acres of parkland, called Home Park, with 8,000 trees, a deer herd and some rare species of plants and wildlife. The palace itself covers 6 acres and is a Grade I listed building. It was opened to the public in 1838 by the young Queen Victoria (1819-1901).

Its enormous size and opulence has been used as an impressive statement of power. However, the enormous cost of its upkeep ensures that what was once Henry’s favourite summer playground and William’s overt display of his and Queen Mary II’s (1662-94 ) regal promotion, will remain a historic monument funded by millions of visitors.

(Image: Steve Cadman at Flickr.com / CC BY-SA 2.0)

13/11/2020
3 min
4 years
216 words

Law

Common law

Common law embodies the natural instinct towards knowing what is right (‘lawful’) and wrong (‘unlawful’) and the appropriate degree of punishment that […]

Common law embodies the natural instinct towards knowing what is right (‘lawful’) and wrong (‘unlawful’) and the appropriate degree of punishment that should be given to someone who is found guilty by an independent judge and jury. In essence, common law, based on our Christian values, demands that you do no harm and cause no loss.

Government and lawyers would sometimes have us believe that common law is obsolete, but in reality it is ever-present since it is ‘the law of the land’, Nevertheless, a mass of Parliamentary legislation has been introduced in the last 150 years aiming to supersede common law and state precisely what is ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’ (as opposed to ‘lawful’/’unlawful’). However, the common law system comes into play when a judge makes an interpretation of a point of law, setting a ‘judicial precedent’.

A term which persisted until the late 20th century was ‘common law wife’, meaning a woman who had lived with a man as his wife even though they had not had a ‘legal’ marriage ceremony. Under common law, it was thought fair that she should inherit the man’s property after his death, but this was not laid down in statute law as a right.

(Image: succo at needpix.com / CC0)

08/11/2020
3 min
4 years
208 words

Culture

School-leaving qualifications

While some children in the UK do unfortunately finish their time at school without any or very few qualifications, most will breathe […]

While some children in the UK do unfortunately finish their time at school without any or very few qualifications, most will breathe a sigh of relief on receiving their exam results in the summer. Under current regulations, they must remain in education until age 18, giving them plenty of time to amass their individual collections of school-leaving qualifications. The options include GCSEs, GCE A-Levels, BTECs, OCR Nationals, Scottish Highers and the International Baccalaureate Diploma, depending on what is offered at the particular secondary school or college.

The school-leaving age has steadily risen from 10 in the late 1800s and at that time the concept of obtaining a qualification at school was fairly new, with the very first examinations having been set in 1858. From 1918, by which time the school-leaving age was 14, the School Certificate was introduced for the 20% of children who stayed on until age 16 and the Higher School Certificate for those still there at age 18.

In 1951 a range of subject-related General Certificate of Education (GCE) O-Levels and A-Levels came into being. In 1965 the Certificate of Secondary Education (CSE) appeared but was not valued by employers as highly as O-Levels, so in 1988 they were merged into the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE).

(Image: David Hawgood at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)

02/11/2020
3 min
4 years
209 words

Quoting Neil Oliver...

I love Britain more than anywhere else in the world. With all my heart I declare that those of us born here, or who have made a home here by choice, are the luckiest, most blessed of all people. I am British. I will always be British.