60th

hip hip hooray.
lizzie has been on the throne for 60 years.

my dad once told me a story (which means it was probably a bare faced lie) that when he was wooing my mum he took her for a walk along the mall. a romantic jaunt by one of london's nicest park heading towards buckingham palace. as they reached the queen victoria memorial a large state car drove by them and the queen waved at my mum and dad. what made it special for my dad was that it was just him and my mum on the road. obviously it must have made mum feel special as she went on marry the old man.

like many angst ridden and angry working class teens i had my long moment of being a republican. i have no idea what swung my opinion back to being a closet royalist (i suspect it was middle-aged during which conservatism (with a small 'c') kicks in. it might also have been a belief that certain institutions have a part to play in order to bring social cohesion.
doesn't really matter what it was these days i quite like the royal family.

the cost of the royal family is around £40 million a year (or 20 leaders of royal bank of scotland, or less than tevez), it is less than a £1 a year per person.

yet there is a way of making the royal family self-sufficient and clean up politics at once. no more pressure on politicians to award honours. this function gets given to the windsor firm (keeping ferie away from the cash box)and let them sell peerages.
at a stroke the royal family can be cash rich and no longer dependent on the state and the political class has one less thing to sully its name.

i have solved two problems with one fantastic idea.
it makes sense. you know it. i know it.
vote me for mayor of london.

(yeah it came as a surprise to me too, as i have thrown my hat into the london mayoral race.)

so lizzie, congratulations for making it to 60 years as queen.
a doff of the cap.
and a rousing round of hip hip hooray!hip hip hooray!