Latest Moan From You and Me 2024

Why?
The science is fascinating. Oxygen produced on the deep ocean floor leads to a new range of possibilities for the evolution of life on this planet and opens the possibility that life could cope with the toxic effects of oxygen before the development of photosynthesis.
It is also another argument against the further development of scraping/hoovering the seabed for metal nodules and thus wrecking poorly understood ecosystems.

 

The Crown has always had rights to the foreshore and the seabed out to 12 nautical miles; these days it's administered by the Crown Estates. It's why the monarch has the right to stranded whales and there is a Receiver of Wrecks to administer salvage from ships wrecked on the coast.

 

He should have been helping in Orkney recently then @NigelJ ....

 

I accept that many are in that position because they have the good fortune to have ancestors who made right decisions at the right time.
We are all born into one or another family. Good luck, or tough luck? But the inherited Lords get their experience where someone like myself, does not. And I do not want Britain to go down the same road as the US - with two elected houses. Look where it's got them! Almost civil war where Trump is concerned!!
I met one of the 80 year old inherited Lords recently. Yes, he spoke plumily (is there such a word?), but he can't help his accent anymore than I can help mine. He WAS however, extremely knowledgeable, and very much backing farmers and what we consider "ordinary people".
I accept that he may be in the minority, but he was easy to speak to, and is using his position to help those in need - something I couldn't do, because I don't have his experience or clout.
Strangely enough, he wants to retire - back to his small farm. Titled doesn't necessarily mean rich. He's one of those whose experience and attitude, this country needs.

 

@Loofah . That's what I was going to say. The immediate thought after a new discovery is not how can I protect it but how can I make money out of it

 

Fine idea in theory @ViewAhead but anyone with the intelligence and experience to make a good contribution in the Lords is unlikely to be sufficiently available to sit there, especially before 65.

 

Ah, I see. So the change I was reading about (some time ago now) must have been that prior to wind farms, there was no product and therefore no levy, but once energy started to be produced, the advisors stepped in and demanded the levy for allowing the foreshore to be used in this way.

Either way, it doesn't sit well with the mantra that the Royals have a life of service to the people. On the contrary, it is exploitation of ordinary folk, squeezing out money at a time when energy costs are already crippling. Not really cricket, in my view.

 

Fair point. Though my max 10 yr term need not also be the minimum. Maybe some could sit for 2 yrs, or for a period covering the interrogation of legislation on their area of expertise. A consultant role, if you like.

Plus, it is not, and need not be, a full-time role. One day a week ... or 3 consecutive days a month, would do. No need to have hundreds and hundreds of them wafting around and eating the subsidised food 24/7!

 

Indeed. That's the job.

 

But the royals DO have a life of service. Admittedly, they are richer than most, but then, so are many in industry, who retire on a good pension, at 60, or maybe 65.
How old is the King? Or Princess Anne?
How old was QEII?
It wasn't fun. They can't, or couldn't, just go to any beach, or go into town to shop.
The king HAS to meet each prime minister, smile, and be on camera. He was born to be in the limelight - no choice.
I can be grumpy, and don't have my ugly mug printed in so many places. If I'm unwell, I don't have the media reporting my condition every day.

 

Yes, @RowlandsCastle some royals are worth their weight in gold whilst others are best kept hidden away and unfunded by the public purse.

@ViewAhead It's more than just sitting in the Lords, or Commons for that matter, listening to and contributing to the debate. There are hours or research and discussion and consultation with experts before any of them can be deemed to be competent to decide anything. Therein lies many of the shortcomings of legislation which hasn't been thought thru properly - eg dangerous dogs act - it should have been dangerous owners act. So many more like that.

 

Never will be either.