Tony Blair's Riotous Legacy

The grainy black and white photograph on the front page of the New York Times showed firemen silhouetted against a burning building, flames rising high into the night sky.  I had seen similar pictures many times before – of London during the Blitz.  But this photograph was taken not in 1940, but earlier this week, as gangs of thugs looted and set ablaze buildings throughout the capital.

The flames had barely died down before politicians and commentators weighed in with their analysis.  Most cited poverty as a leading cause. Some portrayed it as a racial conflict.  Others cited the austerity measures introduced by David Cameron’s coalition government.  All of this is superficial and unhelpful.

Britain has a structure of social welfare benefits that are generous by most standards; the youths who looted stores in London this week used expensive cell phones to communicate their plans to one another. They targeted not the necessities of life but the luxuries – jewelry, plasma TVs, $200 trainers.  The mob included men and women from all ethnic groups and, it appears, some from well-to-do neighborhoods, with decent jobs. Poverty and race are not the issues here.  Nor is the government’s austerity program.  

It’s all too easy to blame Cameron. His government failed to respond quickly and forcefully to the first wave of rioting. Both Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg were overseas on vacation when the problems began.  So too was Teresa May, the Home Secretary, as was Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London.  Apparently a holiday in the UK isn’t good enough for the likes of them, and it took Cameron and Johnson three days to decide to take a plane home – that’s at least two days too many.  The government’s initial response to the crisis betrayed a startling complacency and ineptitude.  And it can’t have helped that the Metropolitan Police Force currently lacks a Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner, both having recently resigned in the wake of the News International phone hacking scandal.

But while the government’s immediate reaction, or lack thereof, clearly contributed to the sense of impunity with which the thugs went about their business, the cause of this lawlessness can’t simply be laid at Cameron’s door.  I believe the rioting was merely a symptom of a condition that has been growing in Britain for years.  And if you want a particular politician to hold accountable, look no further than Tony Blair.

Blair is a lot like Barack Obama. A lot of lofty talk but little evidence of real conviction.  He had some top-notch speechwriters, and did a good job delivering their work product.  They gave him some good one-liners.  For example, who can forget “Tough on Crime - Tough on the Causes of Crime”?  Well Blair apparently did.  If he actually did think about the causes of crime during his ten years in office, he did little to address them.  In fact, he made matters worse.  On a superficial level, for example, his response to the growing problem of anti-social behavior related to binge drinking was to eliminate licensing laws, enabling the louts who commit the offenses to drink all day long. Doubtless it pleased the powerful brewing industry, but it was a foolish move. Blair naively claimed it would promote a "cafe culture" in Britain, but it merely exacerbated the problems of booze-related crime.  But there are other, more profound, factors at work here.

One of Britain’s perennial problems has been its lack of social mobility and the sense of alienation it creates among those toward the foot of the pecking order.  This became more pronounced under Blair.  Not only did Britain continue to languish at the bottom of the list among developed countries in terms of social mobility, but during his period in office the gap between rich and poor (which had actually declined slightly under the Conservative government of John Major) grew again.  Under Blair, earnings of the top 20% rose at twice the rate, in percentage terms, of the bottom 20%, continuing a trend that began in earnest under Margaret Thatcher.  Over the last 20 years, the ratio of earnings of the top 20% to the bottom 20% has grown from 15:1 to 75:1.  How did Blair feel about that?  In an illuminating interview with the BBC’s Jeremy Paxman, Blair was asked a simple question – whether it is acceptable for the gap between rich and poor to widen.  This should be an easy question for any Prime Minister, especially one who purports to be a member of the Labour Party; but not for Blair.   Despite Paxman’s persistence (and Jeremy is nothing if not persistent - he asked Blair the question no less than 12 times), Blair simply couldn’t bring himself to say “no”. And after leaving office, in a 2010 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Blair expressly rejected the concept of progressive taxation and redistribution in favor of stimulating the economy by lowering tax rates on the wealthy.  

Blair did indeed slash taxes on capital gains and corporate income, and tax collections as a percentage of GDP fell to their lowest level in living memory during his period in office.  Stripped to its core, Blair’s philosophy, like that of his mentor George W. Bush, is simply that a rising tide lifts all the boats.  It’s not only discredited as an economic theory, but it’s one that one implicitly values personal rights over civic responsibilities and elevates greed from a deadly sin to an essential driver of economic growth. 

Under Blair, this strategy lead (or at least significantly contributed) to the development of a society driven by materialism and short-term self-interest, a society in which it became acceptable, for example, for bankers to pocket obscene bonuses while driving their companies to the brink of extinction.  No one personifies this new paradigm of greed and self-interest better than Blair himself.  He has parlayed his so-called “public service” into a substantial business empire built on lucrative speaking engagements.  A 2010 report in Britain’s Daily Mail disclosed that Blair, since leaving office, had channeled “tens of millions of pounds” through various tax-haven companies he controls, while taking advantage of loopholes in UK corporate law to avoid disclosure. 

Another element of Blair’s legacy was the introduction of university tuition fees, a de facto regressive tax that Blair’s Tory predecessor, John Major, had summarily rejected. True, the rates have increased substantially under Cameron, but it is always easier for a government to raise the rate of an existing tax than to introduce a new one.  At the end of the day it was Blair who opened the door to a structure of tuition fees that will increasingly put quality higher education beyond the financial reach of the less-affluent members of society and thereby ensure Britain remains mired at the bottom of the social mobility table. 

The Britain than David Cameron inherited from New Labour is one in which there is an ever-decreasing correlation between work and reward, between morality and success.  People read about MPs fiddling their expenses and party leaders dispensing honours in exchange for campaign contributions; they read about reckless bankers pocketing huge bonuses. They see a drunken Duchess of York caught on hidden camera attempting to peddle influence for cold cash. They read about the millions in public funds frittered on royal weddings, the purposeless taxpayer-funded junkets of the Duke of York and the tax handouts dispensed to wealthy individuals and corporations, while ordinary people are told to make do with less. They learn how leaders of both major parties cozied up to a crooked news organization in an attempt to gain its coveted endorsement. The hear about police officers taking bungs from seedy journalists in return for inside information. In short, they see greed and impunity at work in all quarters. And in what is becoming a “take what you can get” society, the rioters decided to take what they could get.

David Cameron was right to stress the need for parents to instill in their children the meaning of right and wrong, and respect for law and order.  But the government needs to lead by example.  The thugs who rioted in London and other cities need to be dealt with harshly.  But so too do those of greater rank or wealth who break the law or breach the public trust.  And Cameron should take last week's riots as a salutary reminder of the greater problems that lie ahead if government attempts to balance the budget on the backs of those who already have least, while those with the most get a free ride.  

The Debt Ceiling Debacle

It was Winston Churchill who is reputed to have remarked that the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.  Were he alive today and witnessing the great debt ceiling debate, Churchill might well form a different conclusion.  Because there can be little doubt that the best argument against democracy is witnessing a 5-minute cable TV interview with the average member of the Tea Party caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives.

I don’t know whether these people lack the capacity to understand the fundamentals of the economic system we live in, or whether their unrelenting hatred of Barack Obama simply makes them oblivious to the facts.  Whatever the cause, they seem to inhabit a world disconnected from the realities of the economy and of government. They are incapable of even discussing the issue other than through meaningless clichés – about government “living within its means” (which it was doing, by the way, before George W. Bush took office), cutting off “Obama’s blank check”, etc.  Until last night, there was hope that the Republicans in the Senate would finally show some semblance of responsibility and agree to negotiate a debt ceiling increase based on the bill proposed by Majority Leader Harry Reid.  But to the surprise of all pundits, his Republican counterpart Mitch McConnell announced he would not negotiate with Reid and that the Republicans would actually filibuster the debt ceiling bill – which has 59 votes in support, 1 shy of the number required to pass almost any legislation in the Senate these days.

What makes McConnell’s action so inexplicably irresponsible is that the Republicans have already won the debate but don’t seem to know it.  In the past, debt ceiling increases have been routine measures, as they should be.  All they do in effect is permit the Treasury to borrow the money necessary to fund the programs Congress has already authorized, and which the President is constitutionally required to carry out.  That’s why all of this talk about “blank checks” is such nonsense.  In this case, the Republicans demanded at an early stage in the debate that a debt ceiling increase be linked to deficit reduction, and Obama’s agreement to negotiate with John Boehner established that the battle would be fought according to the Tea Party rules.  It was the equivalent of taking the “public option” off the table before the health care negotiation had started.  But it got worse.  Rather than demanding that cuts in spending be matched dollar-for-dollar by revenue increases, the White House’s opening gambit was a three-to-one ratio, and over time Obama retreated further, eventually demanding only the repeal of accelerated depreciation allowances for corporate jets and the elimination of largely unspecified tax benefits for oil and gas companies.  There was even talk that Obama would agree to changes in Social Security benefits – an unacceptable prospect for most Democrats and ironic given that the Social Security trust fund is one of the principal domestic creditors of the Federal government.  But none of this was good enough for the Republicans.

For someone supposedly schooled in the art of brass knuckles Chicago politics, Obama has demonstrated remarkable ineptitude and timidity in negotiating with the Repubicans.  Time after time, the velvet glove has concealed merely a velvet fist.  And in this case, Obama lacks any real moral authority to preach against the dangers of a default by the United States, since he also voted against raising the debt ceiling during his short tenure in the U.S. Senate.  Perhaps he did so comfortable in the knowledge that the measure would pass anyway because others would act more responsibly, but that would differentiate him from the Tea Party only to the extent that they can at least can claim the courage of their convictions.

What we now are now left with is a bill proposed by the Senate Majority Leader that gives Republicans everything they had originally asked for, and more.  Trillions in spending cuts, no revenue increases and a mechanism for further deficit reduction down the road.  But it lacks the component that the Tea Party has decided, within the last few days, is necessary if they are to support any increase in the debt ceiling -  a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget.  This is a foolish proposal that was last seriously mooted by Ronald Reagan, who, in his eight years in office, never once actually submitted a balanced budget to Congress.  The way to a balanced budget is not by amending the constitution, but by looking at what was done the last time the budget was balanced - by Bill Clinton - and by reversing the measures taken by the inept Bush administration that were responsible for taking it back into deficit.

But back to the debt ceiling.  There is and always has been a simple and straightforward solution.  Obama should instruct Harry Reid to let his compromise legislation die.  He should then act unilaterally, using the authority apparently granted under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, and instruct Treasury Secretary Geithner to go out and borrow as much money as needed to pay the bills Congress has already racked up.  This is a post Civil War measure not invoked in recent times, and Obama foolishly questioned, at a news conference some weeks ago, whether it could be used in this case.  But he should heed the advice of Bill Clinton, who knows much more about the art of government than Obama ever will;  invoke the amendment, raise the debt ceiling, and dare the courts to stop him.  The United States would avoid default, the spending cuts would be off the table, and deficit reduction could be addressed in a mature and measured manner.  It might also teach the Tea Party crowd a lesson about the nature of government and the consequences of just saying “no”.

The Greed Factor

As if the Euro Zone didn’t have enough to worry about, the Wall Street Journal reports today that a large European hedge fund has made a massive bet against the Euro by purchasing $1 billion worth of “put” options.  Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP will have the right to require the put counterparty to purchase Euros from it at a predetermined price at a specified future date.  Brevan Howard is betting that the value of the Euro will fall in the meantime, and that it will make a profit by purchasing Euros in the market when the put comes due, and selling them at the price specified in the put.      

      

Financial regulators and tax authorities worldwide need to put a stop to this predatory currency speculation.  When a financial institution publicly bets against a currency, it relies in part on the theory of the self-fulfilling prophesy.  By purchasing puts or selling short, it is telling the market it expects the currency to fall in value.  Other traders, already jittery about the potential default of Greece and the effect such a default would have on the Euro, will see Brevan Howard’s action as further confirmation of the likely fall in value of the currency and will move to exit while they still have time - thereby contributing to the fall in value, and to the speculators’ profits. 

This is not a new game.  In September 1992, the notorious speculator George Soros made a tidy $1 billion by short selling Sterling. His actions contributed to the “Black Friday” crisis when the rapid fall in the value of its currency forced the UK to withdraw from the ERM.  Soros now likes to play the role of philanthropist. He dispenses a few millions of his profits here and there to charities of one sort or another.  He also (and this is perhaps the ultimate irony) gives his financial support to various progressive and left-wing causes.  But don’t be fooled.  He and people like him are vultures, raking in massive profits at the expense of working men and women (and those who would today be working but for the economic crisis brought about by the greed, dishonesty and irresponsibility of the financial sector).  Currency speculation does not help create jobs, and does not contribute to GDP.  It creates no new wealth; it simply redistributes more of the existing wealth to those who already enjoy a disproportionate share of it.

That’s why regulators need to move quickly and in unison to stamp out these predatory practices. Currency derivative transactions can serve an important business purpose, for example by allowing multinational corporations to protect themselves against exchange rate fluctuations.  But transactions that are not intended primarily to serve a legitimate business purpose should be illegal, “puts” and “calls” purchased for purposes of speculation should be unenforceable, and any profits derived by currency speculators taxed at 100%. 

It is intolerable that the continued and unabashed greed of currency speculators should be permitted to stand in the way of governmental efforts to clean up the mess the financial sector itself created.  It is equally intolerable that governments continue to let them get away with it. 

Reforming the Voting System

Reasonable people may wonder who chose the week following that of the royal wedding for a referendum the outcome of which could have the most significant effect on the British electoral system since the Great Reform Act of 1832. It was no great surprise that in recent days the subject of the referendum - a proposal to replace the so-called "first-past-the-post" system with the "alternative vote" or "AV" process - has played second fiddle to speculation over such pressing issues as what Kate's dress would look like.  But at least discussion over the dress was civilized.  Much of what little discussion there has been over AV has seemingly been intended to scare, rather than educate, the electorate. Politicians of all stripe, but especially those on the right, have done a real disservice to the voters.

Dave and Nick - Is their "Gay Wedding" headed for the Rocks  over AV?

The referendum is the major (and some may say the only) significant concession the Liberal Democrats were able to extract from David Cameron in return for joining in a coalition government with the Conservatives. LibDems have long criticized the current system of single round voting under which a candidate can be elected to Parliament with less than 50% of the vote cast in his or her constituencty. Under AV, voters would rank candidates in order of preference, and a majority - not a plurality – of votes would be required to secure election. If the leading candidate failed to garner sufficient votes on the initial round, the candidate with the fewest votes would be eliminated and his or her votes redistributed based on their voters' preferences, and so on until one candidate passed the 50% mark.

Both systems have merits and drawbacks, but the position of the major political parties appears to be based largely on self interest.

The LibDems strongly back AV, because it would result in their gaining a greater representation in Parliament.  The non-partisan British Election Study estimates that had the last election been fought under AV rules, the LibDems would have gained a net 32 seats, taking their total from 57 to 89.  The two major parties would both have lost seats - the Conservatives a net loss of 22 and Labour a net loss of 10.  The Tories oppose AV for precisely the reason the LibDems support it.  The Labour Party is split between those who take a long-term view and support the existing system simply because, like the Conservatives, they benefit from it, and those who look to derive short-term strategic advantage from the outcome of the referendum. The short-term thinkers are, in turn, divided on how to vote.  Success for "no" would deal a body blow to Nick Clegg, who badly needs to deliver victory on AV to justify to disgruntled LibDem members his decision  to enter into a coalition with the Tories.  On the other hand, success for "yes" would embarrass David Cameron among the Tory rank and file, who never wanted a referendum in the first place.  One Labour politician summarized the strategic quandry facing his colleagues by reciting a joke doing the rounds in Labour circles:  if you come upon a Tory and a LibDem standing side by side on the edge of a cliff, whom do you push over first?  The answer:  the Tory, of course, because business should always come before pleasure!

The arguments have shaped up along the following lines. Supporters of AV claim that the existing system results in unrepresentative government.  The facts support their case.  in the last election the LibDems' tally of 23% of the popular vote translated into less than 10% of the seats at Westminster.  True, their 57 seats were sufficient to gain them a place in the coalition, but had the election been fought under AV, the LibDems could have entered into a coalition with Labour, the party with which they are philosophically more closely aligned. Proponents of first-past-the-post say it is simple and fair; AV, they claim, is more complicated and is unfair because (i) it would permit the election of MPs who gained fewer first choice votes than other candidates, and (ii) would allow some voters to vote more than once (i.e., as their votes are redistributed to other candidates on a second or subsequent round of counting). AV also, or so they argue, favors "extremist" parties.

The facts clearly favor AV.  However, debates are shaped by the terminology used to define the issues, and “first-past-the-post” sounds like an inherently fair and reasonable system.  It evokes images of a horserace (that most British of sporting pasttimes), and who would deny that the first horse to cross the line deserves the winner’s purse?  The problem is that in a parliamentary election, unlike the racetrack, there is no “post” to be first past, at least not a fixed post.  Under the current system, the “post” is whatever number of votes the highest polling candidate happens to get.  If he or she achieves a majority, the post is 50% plus one.  But if the winner is elected simply with a plurality, the post could be 45%, 40% or even lower.  By contrast, AV really is a first-past-the-post contest, with the post fixed at 50% plus one. As it should be.

At the heart of the debate, though I haven’t seen it expressed in these terms, lies a fundamental conundrum about the role of a Member of Parliament in Britain’s constitutional system.  Under the constituency model, the MP is charged with representing the views of his or her specific constituents in Parliament.  The local MP is the person can people turn to if they are having a problem dealing with their local authorities.  A question asked in the Commons, or an MP's letter to a Minister, may influence a local planning decision.  Viewed simply at the constituency level, the existing system probably does make sense - or at least the argument for change is not so compelling as to offset its undoubted simplicity.  But when voters cast their vote for a parliamentary candidate they are also indirectly voting for a Prime Minister, a Cabinet, and the policies they bring with them.  And therein lies the problem with first-past-the-post.  On a national, as opposed to constituency, level, the fact that MPs can be elected merely with a plurality of the vote results in the effective disenfranchisement of a large section of the populace who do not vote for either of the two major parties.  The situation is actually even worse than the raw figures indicate, because many people end up voting for the Labour or Conservative candidate simply because they believe a vote for the LibDems or some other party would be "wasted".  Adoption of AV wouldn't solve this problem, but it would help, and it would better balance the merits of true proportional representation against the benefits of Britain's traditional constituency system.  (A further step forward would be to replace the existing House of Lords, currently crammed - literally -to overflowing with aging party grandees and political cronies, with an elected chamber utilizing larger multi-member constituencies and a system of proportional representation.)

I believe AV would have some ancillary benefits too.  Asking voters to rank candidates rather than pick out a single name could encourage voters to examine the policies of all parties more critically and could foster informed debate.  Candidates themselves would have a greater incentive to reach out to all voters, not merely the party faithful.

Cameron argues that it would be "unfair" if the first choice candidate isn't elected, but that supposed "unfairness" has to be weighed against the fact that two thirds of sitting MPs were elected with less than 50% of the vote.  Is that "fair"? And at a time when public cynicism of politics is the order of the day, voters are increasingly likely to cast votes strategically and vote against the candidate they don't like, rather than in favor of the one they do.  In other words, first choice may not really mean first choice.  I think AV clearly wins the fairness test.  And as a Labour MP pointed out in the Commons last week, if David Cameron believes it is unfair if the candidate with the highest number of first choices isn't elected, he should resign his post in favor of  David Davis, who beat him in the first round of balloting for leadership of the Conservative party.  It took three rounds of voting for Cameron to "pass the post" and secure a majority of votes.  If AV is good enough to elect the Tory leader (and his Labour counterpart), can it really be that "unfair"?

The argument that AV would allow some people to vote more than once is downright silly.  Everyone's vote is counted in each round; those who support the first-round front runner still have their votes counted if a second round is required.  And the suggestion that AV would favor extremist parties is groundless scare-mongering.  In fact the odious British National Party has joined Cameron is opposing a change in the current system.  It is telling that when all's said and done the best argument Cameron can muster in favor of first-past-the-post is its "simplicity".

Whatever the outcome, the future of the coalition looks less than rosy.  The debate over AV has taken on a decidedly nasty tone and the once cosy relationship between "Dave and Nick" (so cosy, in fact, that their first joint news conferece in the garden of Number 10 was likened to a gay marriage) now looks decidedly frosty.  Senior LibDem figures have appealed to Labour supporters to join them in defeating the "forces of reaction" - i.e., the very people with whom they have chosen to join in government.  These comments won't quickly be forgotten quickly, whatever the outcome. Let's be clear. I have no sympathy with the current LibDem leadership, who fought the last election with arguably the most progressive agenda of all three parties, yet sacrificed most of it in a second in return for a handful of seats at Cameron's Cabinet table.  It's easy to understand why many in the Labour party would like to see Nick Clegg humbled.  But the principle is too important to allow the outcome of the vote to turn on short-term political advantage.  Let's hope Clegg & Co. win this one.

Born in the USA

Say what you will about Barack Obama's performance as President of the United States, you have to give him credit for a masterful performance this week in his handling of the "birth certificate" issue.

Memo to Trump - Be Careful What You Wish For

After years of demanding release of Obama's "long form" birth certificate, Republicans finally got what they wanted - or, rather, didn't want.  Tea Party members and the other assorted right wing nut jobs, who seem to comprise an increasingly large portion of the Republican Party these days, have for months been arguing that the "short form" certificate that Obama released two years ago was - for reasons never explained - invalid, even though as a legal matter it constitutes proof of birth in the U.S.  The conspiracy theorists who maintained that Obama was actually born in Kenya, Indonesia or wherever, pointed to the non-disclosure of the long-form certificate as proof of their case.  With a few notable exceptions - Mitt Romney among them - Republican leaders who could have put a stop to the nonsense long ago, didn't have the guts to risk alienating the fringe. They parsed their words carefully.  They conceded when pressed that they "took the President at his word" but suggested in the same breath that others were justified in questioning it.

Then enter stage (far) right Donald Trump, the self-promoting real estate developer and TV reality show performer, who is supposedly flirting with a run for the Presidency.  Trump is a buffoon and has no serious policy proposals to offer, but he knows the "birther" issue plays well to a lot of the people who vote in Republican primaries, not to mention Fox News. Traipsing back and forth across the country with the media in tow, Trump elevated the issue of Obama's place of birth to front page headlines.  He claimed to have hired investigators to go to Hawaii to poke around.  He suggested darkly they had uncovered an lot of interesting information that Trump would reveal "in due course".  In response to a question as to whether he would disclose his tax returns (many observers question whether Trump has anywhere near the "several billions" he claims and the tax returns would throw some light on this) he promised to do so if Obama disclosed his long form birth certificate.  On Wednesday, as Trump prepared to give a press conference in New Hampshire, at which he would no doubt have beaten the "birther" drum yet again, the White House suddenly released the long form certificate and Barack Obama convened a news conference of his own.

The news media carried two sharply contrasting images that night.  The first was Trump, who leads some Republican opinion polls, pontificating in front of a battery of microphones about how he deserved credit for accomplishing something that nobody else had been able to do - securing release of the birth certificate. But without missing a beat he segued immediately into his next conspiracy theory:  how did Obama, who he had "heard" didn't get good grades at school, end up going to Columbia University and Harvard Law School.  The racial sub-text, namely that Obama may have been an undeserving beneficiary of affirmative action, is obvious and repugnant.

The second image was of Obama, behind his Presidential podium, jacket off and sleeves rolled up, earnestly vowing that he won't allow debate over the nations's pressing economic problems to be be sidetracked by "sideshows and carnival barkers".  He didn't mention Trump by name, but he didn't have to.  The reference was dismissive, almost contemptuous, and deservedly so.

Political pundits continue to debate why the White House chose to release the document when it did.  Some say they shouldn't have done it, that it showed weakness and will open the door to yet more demands - for academic transcripts, for example.  Others point to polls showing that a quarter of the electorate doubted whether Obama was born in the U.S.  Some said he should have released it earlier.

But I think Obama handled the release of the birth certificate to perfection.  He allowed Trump and his acolytes at Fox News just enough time to renew the phony debate over the birth certificate issue to remind independent voters how extreme and out of touch with reality the Republican party has become.  The Republicans duly obliged, and Obama cut them off at the knees.  He made them look foolish.  They compounded that appearance by the absurd charge that the White House only made public the long-form birth certificate public in order to distract attention from the nation's economic problems.  And wi

Rather than concede defeat, some on the right (aided, of course, by Fox News) are now questioning the authenticity of the birth certificate or, like Trump, questioning the President's academic credentials.    They apparently haven't heard the old adage that when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging.

Another Royal Pain

Wedding guest lists can cause controversy in the best of families, but leave it to the bungling Windsor clan to create a right royal screw-up over theirs.  As belt-tightening Britons prepare to endure the tasteless display of wealth, privilege and social-climbing also know as the Royal Wedding, release of the guest list caused many of them to wonder about the kind of people the groom’s family apparently counts among its friends.  

Invited - King Mswati III

Amidst the usual clutter of B List celebrities, sports figures, and "socialites" (whatever they may be) is an assortment of autocratic despots such as the Crown Prince of Bahrain (who sent his regrets) and the King of Swaziland (presumably with all of his 13 wives).  Zimbabwe’s ambassador to the UK, who represents a regime currently subject to EU sanctions, will also be in attendance.  Meanwhile, President Barack Obama was overlooked – so much for the “special relationship”.  Former Tory Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and John Major made the cut, but their Labour counterparts Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did not.

Snubbed - Pres. Obama

In the face of the predictable public outcry over the welcome being extended to unsavory foreign rulers and the omission of the likes of Obama and Blair, the Palace’s spin doctors stressed that the wedding is a private rather than state function and that the guest list had been largely drawn up by the couple themselves.  Hence the exclusion of Obama.  Really?  That almost makes matters worse.  If the guest list was indeed a function of personal choice rather than diplomatic protocol, inclusion of leaders from places like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Swaziland is a damning indictment of the Mountbatten-Windsors' choice in friends.  But as usual the maladroit monarchy can’t get its story straight even on this issue.  For example, the inclusion of Thatcher and Major, and the exclusion of Blair and Brown, was officially attributed to the technicality that the former two hold the anachronistic title of "Knight of the Garter", whereas the latter two do not.  But neither do the likes of Elton John, David Beckam, or the assorted former girlfriends and wealthy foreign “businessmen” that comprise Charles’ personal invitees.  But above all, if this is indeed a “private” function, why is the hard-pressed British taxpayer yet again being stuck with the tab – estimated to reach $45 million – to provide policing and security for the personal guests of one of the richest families in England?

Dotty - Father of the Groom

The standard line among supporters of the monarchy is that these royal events are worth every penny because they add a little color and excitement to the otherwise drab and dreary existences of the hoi poloi who actually end up paying for them.  Such condescension adds insult to injury, especially during a period in which unemployment remains high and public services are being slashed.  David Cameron has sweetened the pot this time around by proclaiming a national public holiday in honour of the nuptials, but according to the latest polls the majority of Britons won’t be spending it watching the overblown event on television.  The government recently announced plans to review the archaic rules regarding the law of royal succession, which date back to 1701. That review long overdue, but why not go a step further and announce a referendum on whether the British people want ANY form of royal succession?