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The View from Westminster

Republican Quits Cabinet

The boastful republican who declared that the breakdown of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, and the Prince's hypocrisy about wildlife, disqualified him from succeeding to the British throne, Ronald Davies, has resigned his office as Secretary of State for Wales in the British Government.

His comments during an anti-monarchist diatribe, when he claimed that most of the British people agreed with his views, included the assertion that Prince Charles could not be king and "live in sin".

Mr Davies, a married man with one child, left the Government immediately following an incident in which a stranger engaged him in conversation on Clapham Common (by night a notorious haunt of homosexual prostitutes, drug dealers and muggers in South London), went for a drive with him, and subsequently stole his car and wallet.

Friends of Mr Davies first reported that although his "lapse of judgement" persuaded him to resign from the Cabinet, he considered his innocent actions not to have disqualified him from appointment as First Minister in the new Welsh Assembly, the devolved "parliament" scheduled to govern Welsh affairs from next year. However, after listening to the views of his colleagues in the Labour Party, he later announced that he would resign also from the leadership of his party in Wales.

Republicanism has a significant following on the Labour side of the House of Commons, as Mr Blair, the Prime Minister, is doubtless well aware*.

* The Prime Minister is doubtless aware also of the encouragement his recently announced reverence for President Allende will have given to the lunatic fringe of the Labour Party. Salvador Allende, President Pinochet's predecessor in Chile, achieved his eminence in the Socialist pantheon by the abolition of free speech, the closure of religious establishments, the destruction of a prosperous economy in a frenzy of nationalisation, and by eliminating his opponents as ruthlessly as his did his successor. His daughter Isabel, coincidentally in England at the time of Augusto Pinochet's arrest, reported that Mr Blair had told her, "We admire your father. The Labour Party always supported him at that time and his supporters afterwards." She added, during an interview with The Daily Telegraph, "He thought my father was a hero, a great man."

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		The View from Westminster
	Republican Quits Cabinet
	The boastful republican who declared that the breakdown of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, and the Prince's hypocrisy about wildlife, disqualified him from succeeding to the British throne, Ronald Davies, has resigned his office as Secretary of State for Wales in the British Government. His comments during an anti-monarchist diatribe, when he claimed that most of the British people agreed with his views, included the assertion that Prince Charles could not be king and "live in sin". Mr Davies, a married man with one child, left the Government immediately following an incident in which a stranger engaged him in conversation on Clapham Common (by night a notorious haunt of homosexual prostitutes, drug dealers and muggers in South London), went for a drive with him, and subsequently stole his car and wallet. Friends of Mr Davies first reported that although his "lapse of judgement" persuaded him to resign from the Cabinet, he considered his innocent actions not to have disqualified him from appointment as First Minister in the new Welsh Assembly, the devolved "parliament" scheduled to govern Welsh affairs from next year. However, after listening to the views of his colleagues in the Labour Party, he later announced that he would resign also from the leadership of his party in Wales. Republicanism has a significant following on the Labour side of the House of Commons, as Mr Blair, the Prime Minister, is doubtless well aware. The Prime Minister is doubtless aware also of the encouragement his recently announced reverence for President Allende will have given to the lunatic fringe of the Labour Party. Salvador Allende, President Pinochet's predecessor in Chile, achieved his eminence in the Socialist pantheon by the abolition of free speech, the closure of religious establishments, the destruction of a prosperous economy in a frenzy of nationalisation, and by eliminating his opponents as ruthlessly as his did his successor. His daughter Isabel, coincidentally in England at the time of Augusto Pinochet's arrest, reported that Mr Blair had told her, "We admire your father. The Labour Party always supported him at that time and his supporters afterwards." She added, during an interview with The Daily Telegraph, "He thought my father was a hero, a great man."




		A View from Westminster ~ and Lady Jay's views on the titles of life peers