Over the period of official mourning when the mainstream media had almost been universally focused upon the death of our late sovereign, Doctor Richard North has continued to plough his lonely furrow bogging about important world shaking issues.
His blog-post today (https://www.turbulenttimes.co.uk/news/front-page/ukraine-escalation/) reflecting Mr Putin’s latest threats is ominous.
British Gazette comment: Greed & Fear. These could be the things that decide matters. As most readers (you are an informed bunch) will know, commodity, currency and stock markets are driven by these. Were Putin to use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy the two gas storage facilities mentioned in the above blog-post, then the political fallout will far exceed the radiological. The reaction would be very severe; but even more so would be the economic/financial reaction. We would see stock markets tanking, currencies dropping like lead bricks and interest rates sky rocketing. Energy prices would of course be in a high Earth orbit!
These things would cause political crises in the western democracies.
Mrs O’Leary’s plan to fund the energy companies for limiting the price to business and domestic customers would become completely unaffordable. Power cuts would become a certainty. “Up the Creek” does not begin to describe the huge pile of sxxt that will fall upon us.
Of late and off topic, there has been discussion about appending the titular appendage “the Great” to our late Queen. I think not. This titular appendage was applied to military conquerors ans such like. I would apply the titular appendage, “Faithful” for Her Majesty in her more recent Christmas broadcasts spoke about her Christian faith and that she regarded Jesus Christ as her Saviour – and of course that of her subjects. As to her successor, His Majesty King Charles III, his adoption of his first given name as the regnal style was clearly influenced by the 1950’s controversy in Scotland in part about his late mother being the first of Scotland and not the second. It had previously been understood that he would take the name George becoming King George VII in honour of his grandfather. There would have been no issue about being George VII – all the previous Georges were Kings of the United Kingdom, i.e. both of England and Scotland, all of them having acceded the throne(s) after the Act of Union.
The reason why was that courtiers and the aristocracy generally felt that the regnal name “Charles” had an unfortunate history and furthermore, given the rise of Scottish nationalism the regnal name “George” hearkened back to the Hanoverians and the conflict culminating in Culloden and also of course “Butcher Cumberland”!
In addition for seventy-odd years the media has been talking about him as “Charles”, it would just have been rather odd to use “George”. It’s now a very different time compared to 120 years ago, when his great-great-grandfather succeeded as King Edward VII, having been called “Bertie” all his life.
Were I to apply titular appendages to the these three kings they would be:
“The Dictator” to Charles I, “The Philanderer” to Charles II and, given the circumstances, “The Unfortunate” to King Charles III!