A lot of Lefties at the Guardian getting their knickers in a twist over nothing. LOL
Firstly, the yacht has been in the pipeline for many months, I have seen several reports about it. It was ALWAYS the intention that it would be privately funded, ie no money from the tax payer, we all know the country can't afford it.
The yacht will not just be for pleasure cruises, it will be used as a training vessel for sailors and naval cadets, it will have other training facilities including research labs, etc, etc.
Though its intention is to be a "Royal Yacht", it won't be used for the Queen to go off and have private parties in the Caribbean for months on end, my understanding is that it will still "belong" to the country. And its primary function from a royal perspective is to sell Britain. We are meant to be one of the best countries in the world, and certainly have a culture and heritage that we should be proud of. That's why thousands of tourists from all over the world, mainly the USA and China come here and visit places like Buck Palace and Windsor, so we should exploit that by selling ourselves to these countries, helping our industries win contracts.
Labour know the way to win over big business is to suck up to them and these countries, thats why Mandelson took on the role of Queen, (literally
) and went sleazing up to them on expensive yachts, but it should be done transparently with a real Queen, and when dealing with the likes of China, Russia, India etc, they look up to our monarchy much more than any republican president like Obama and Sarkowsi.
When Blair sold off Britannia it was mean penny pinching just to buy a bit of support from the Left.
We should now correct his mistake and if that can be done at no cost to the tax payer, who cares.
Secondly, if you actually read the letter from Michael Gove, what he actually said, (in his role as Education Minister), was in the context of the talk about the yacht and jubilee celebrations, couldn't we look at a way of publicly funding some small gift such as a coin or mug, for all school children in the country......so not quite the outrageous suggestion made by others. This sort of memorabilia thing has happened before, so it was fair of him to raise the question, even if we can't afford it, but he wasn't suggesting that the yacht be publicly funded.
Michael Gove, if he's the one I think he is, was abandoned as a child, then adopted and raised in Scotland, having quite a tough up-bringing, and has had to work extremely hard to get where is is from the "outside", he's not one of the Bullingham Club. He's reported as being very determined, bound by his principles and not someone who cares for spin / media soundbites. He is also known as someone who won't let people get in his way if he believes he is doing the right thing, such as unions or civil servants. For all of these reasons, he is being compared to Mrs Thatcher, and it is thought he could be the one who succeeds Cameron as he would be popular with the party. Whatever his policies are, he has the characteristics that I like, better than most of our MPs, and certainly better than Chris Hunne, the weasley Lib Dem, who it is being reported, leaked the letter. This is the low life who stitched up his wife to take his speeding points, before dumping her for someone else...(allegedly of course).
