Queen

Tonight Russell Brand took part in a live Q&A to celebrate the launch of his new documentary The Emperor's New Clothes. The film looks into the effects of capitalism and it has been widely noted that its release is timed conveniently close to the election. During the Q&A Brand was surprised and initially very pleased to find that Brian May from Queen was in the audience. May, who began by professing his love for the comedian, even had a question for the revolutionary: BM: I have a campaign called Common Decency which is about trying to change the system radically from within. I'm proposing that we form a strategy on May 7th and I think my strategy is so good that I'm even going to persuade you to vote but we shall see.

Division and reconciliation were the themes of the Queen's Christmas Message  this year (full text below). She started mentioning the Josefina de Vasconcellos's 1977 statue Reconciliation, which is now in Coventry Cathedral. She then went on to other examples of conflict and reunion from the First World War to Northern Ireland. And then the unfinished business of the Scottish independence referendum... "In Scotland after the referendum many felt great disappointment while others felt great relief, and bridging these differences will take time." She's right. All too many unionists in London think of the Scottish debate as being over, a closed book. This is certainly the view of the Cameroon high command.

The bishopric of Bath and Wells comes with more bear-traps than most. For one thing, there’s the baby-eating. Ever since Blackadder told Baldrick he was being chased for a debt by the ‘baby--eating Bishop of Bath and Wells’, the image has stuck. When the last incumbent, Peter Price, made his first visit to the House of Lords, accompanied by his five-week-old granddaughter, the Bishop of Southwark remarked: ‘I see the bishop has brought his own lunch.’ The present incumbent, who was elected in March, and will be formally enthroned in June, has suffered a worse indignity. Peter Hancock is to become the first appointee not to live in the Bishop’s Palace, home to each of his predecessors since Jocelin of Wells laid the first stone in 1206.

Why do the Left love the Queen? Sure, most of us agree she’s done an excellent job in a difficult role, only screwing up a few major life decisions: tricksy choice of husband, wintry education of her children, fastidious attitude to peanuts. But as one of the country’s richest women, a symbol of economic equality she ain’t.  So it’s a mark of just how willfully hostile theatreland is to Margaret Thatcher that in Moira Buffini’s new play about the two, Handbagged, it’s the Queen, not the grocer’s daughter, who emerges as the courageous voice of social justice. It’s a frustrating blindspot in an otherwise witty, watchable production, anchored by consummate performances from Marion Bailey and Fenella Woolgar.

Home Britain’s gross domestic product grew by 1.9 per cent last year, the most since 2007, according to the Office for National Statistics. The last quarter’s growth was 0.7 per cent, a little less than the 0.8 per cent of the previous quarter. In the fourth quarter of 2013, construction actually declined by 0.3 per cent, and economic output was still 1.3 per cent less than in the first quarter of 2008. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, promised in a speech that Labour would restore the 50 per cent rate of tax on higher earnings.

There has naturally been plenty of unfavourable comment on how the Revd Paul Flowers, the ‘crystal Methodist’, was allowed by the Financial Services Authority to become chairman of the Co-op Bank. But the story does not reflect very well on the media either. If you look at Robert Peston’s BBC blog on the subject, for instance, there is a lot of ‘I am told’ and ‘according to the Manchester Evening News’. Is there no one in the BBC’s enormous staff who could have done a bit of work years ago on the Revd Mr Flowers?