Platinum Jubilee and the Queen’s health
Prince Charles delivered the Queen’s speech last week, giving the world a glimpse of the future king. Joe Little, editor of Majesty Magazine, says the Queen’s increasingly infrequent appearances have a ‘huge inevitability’ about them given her age; in the future we will only occasionally see her. Rushed to hospital in October, struck down with Covid in February and increasingly frail, her appearances are now rare. Just three weeks from an unprecedented four-day weekend to celebrate her Platinum Jubilee, we can pray that her strength and stamina grows in that time. Buckingham Palace speaks of the Queen’s ‘episodic mobility issues’, but she is still sharp and conducting her duties from the comfort of Windsor Castle. On her good days, she needs a walking aid; on bad days she is immobile. In June the Queen will not use the gold state coach in the Platinum Pageant procession. She will travel by car to an easier entrance than the Great West Door of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Civil service job cuts
Cabinet secretary Simon Case has said in a letter to civil servants that the Government wants to cut up to 91,000 jobs within three years to save money. The civil service has grown a lot since 2016. Major changes like Brexit and the response to the pandemic created jobs which are not needed now. No 10 insists its approach is about ‘good housekeeping’, and more efficiency and automation will mean no cut in services. But where the numbers will be reduced is not clear. What would cuts to a big department like works and pensions or defence mean in practice? Although the civil service is often associated with Whitehall and the machinery of government, tens of thousands of people work on things like delivering benefits and keeping the courts running.
NI protocol and Brexit changes
Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, has warned Boris Johnson against any move to change the Northern Ireland protocol. He said, ‘What we can’t do is accept that the British government would act unilaterally, they would pass legislation to effectively breach international law, to set aside elements of a treaty that this prime minister designed and put in place. That would cause more problems than it would solve.’ Foreign minister Liz Truss, announcing a new law to change the post-Brexit trade deal for Northern Ireland, insisted it would be legal under international law. She said the proposed legislation would make changes to the deal - rather than scrapping it - to resolve ‘the grave situation in Northern Ireland’. But in response, the EU said it would ‘need to respond with all measures at its disposal’ if the UK went ahead with the legislation. Pray that all decisions will be according to God’s plans.
Petrol firms accused of 'fleecing' customers
Rishi Sunak implemented a 5p per litre cut in fuel duty in March, but retailers are taking profits of 2p per litre more than before the cut. The RAC said it seems some of the cut is being swallowed up by increased profits. Tory MP Robert Halfon, who has campaigned for fuel duty cuts, demanded action from his party’s leadership, saying these companies are fleecing motorists; nobody else is doing well out of the war in Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis. The chancellor’s 5p cut has not been reflected at the pumps: ‘Time and time again we see global prices go up and overnight they’re reflected in pump prices. When it’s the other way round, it takes much longer.'
