#UK inheritance law

[willsandtrusts]

When planning for the future, it’s crucial to understand the legal instruments available to help manage your estate. Two common tools are wills and trusts. While both serve important roles in estate planning, they function differently and cater to unique needs. This article clarifies the differences between a will and a trust, helping you make informed decisions for your estate planning needs in the UK.

[dr3amfyr-e]

brat. - j.v. ( w. 4.5k )

꒰ in which the boy you see every summer enrolls in the same university as you. ꒱ — modern!jacaerys velayron x reader

୨ ⎯ i cannot stress enough, football means ⚽️ not 🏈. childhood-friends-to-lovers, but you have to get through my 2000 word psychoanalysis and backstory first. light angst. mention of the death of a parent. lots and lots of talk about the velaryon-targaryen-hightower family dynamic. light make out action. reader's family is implied to be wealthy enough to have a summer home. almost everyone lives au. set in the uk, not westeros. omitted daemon rhaenyra marriage because there’s no way to to make it even semi-normal. realizing now i omitted daemon entirely erm sorry. pushing the laenor agenda bc he’s my favorite character. this is abhorently long. extreme overuse of the em-dash. uhh the perspective is wonky in a few places. part two. ⎯ ୧

i had to write this twice. i'm offering this to you with shaking hands, like a peasent child begging for coins. i may write a part two because i have more to say, but i don't want to figure it out rn.

On the cold January morning that Jacaerys Velaryon-Targaryen was born, the media went into a frenzy. 

The Targaryens were old money, their fortune rooted a century back in good investments. Historically adept at finding their way into things, the empire had a string to pull in every industry. From art and law to technology and shipping, if business prospects looked good there would be a Targaryen investment.

And then there were the dogs — regal greyhounds, with long, thin bodies and sleek coats. The Targaryens bred them as far back as bloodline records went. The pups were never for sale; sometimes they were used as show dogs, and successful show dogs they were, but more often they were pets. It was a status symbol, to nonchalantly own such a coveted creature. 

The Targaryens were idolized in the public eye. They were all stunning, with sharp features and silver hair, and each member of the family seemed to possess a Midas touch. But, where Valyrian blood ran hot, so did the press. It was no surprise when magazines started to turn a profit from silver heads plastered across their glossy covers. It was the price that came with God-like aristocracy.

From editorials to gossip columns, people devoured the insider life of the untouchables. When Aemma Targaryen died, there was a four-page spread in nearly every magazine; complete with pictures and quotes. Business papers filled with opinion pieces about Rhaenyra’s inheritance claim to her family’s empire; magazines exploded with the announcement of her engagement to Laenor Velaryon, and subsequently Viserys’ marriage to Alicent Hightower, the daughter of his lawyer. 

When Jacaerys was born, reporters lined up outside of the hospital doors. There were cameras and microphones and crew trucks, and Rhaenyra hated it. It wasn’t the way she wished to welcome her child into the world — swarmed by people who didn’t know nor care for him.

Laenor had always been good at navigating the attention, and Rhaenyra was constantly grateful. So, when he pulled his gaze from the babe and steeled himself to deal with the onslaught of reporters outside, tears pricked at her eyes. Appreciation, exhaustion, adoration? She couldn’t be sure. 

Looking down at her son, she thought, he’s perfect. He had a smattering of dark hair, and he was quiet but not concerningly so. Wispy lashes fell upon his cherub cheeks, and when he eventually blinked up at her his eyes were dark. He looked nothing like her — she didn’t care. 

She refused to talk to anyone outside of her family, and had the curtains in her private room drawn. To expose her son, her heart, to the prying eyes of the bored masses with nary a care for his well-being was a nightmare. She wouldn’t have him exploited. 

At the time of Jacaerys’ birth, she and Laenor had been married for a little over a year. Laenor’s father, Corlys, managed the bulk of the import and export for Viserys’ company. Corlys was a good man, he hadn’t dreamed of marrying his son off. But Laenor and Rhaenyra were both in the same impossible situation: the wiles of youth mixed with the ever critical public. 

They had both fallen into scandalous relationships, both preyed on by paparazzi. If they married one another, it would save face for both of their families. Plus — both being the eldest and heir, this would clear the expectation of a dignified marriage. They agreed to leave each other to whatever youthful fun they wanted to have, as long as everything was discreet. 

Both the Velaryons and the Targaryens kept a summer home in Dragonstone, a private community in coastal Wales. It was the perfect place for Rhaenyra and Laenor to begin their life — far from her father, close to his parents, and out of the line of sight for any nosy journalist. 

The public eye had looked to other things by the time Lucerys was born, two years later. Again, Laenor dealt with the small gathering of reporters with the utmost grace, and Rhaenyra submitted a written statement. 

Alicent divorced Viserys that same year. 

As she watched her boys grow up, full of energy and life, Rhaenyra thought, there was no one better to parent with than her best friend — a title Laenor had rightfully earned. They hadn’t had much choice in knowing each other, and they certainly would never have chosen to be married, but he made a bearable roommate. They had things in common; they liked the same music, and the same men. They drank the same wine and frequented the same restaurants. And, they both loved their boys. 

As Jace and Luke grew up, they found the best company in each other — the school in Dragonstone was so small, though, that there were very few other options. They both played on the school’s small football team, and Jace took piano lessons while Luke learned to fence. Where Jace was driven by emotion, Luke was level-headed; where Luke was cautiously quiet, Jace spoke his mind. It was an ideal childhood, the Welsh coast was an idyllic backdrop to grow up upon, with the sea in their backyard. 

They were ten and eight when Joffrey was born, both excited for their new brother. Their mother brought him home, bundled in a soft red blanket. The boys sat on the couch beside Rhaenys and stared at him for upwards of an hour. 

Hardly a week had passed when Harwin Strong died. He was a family friend, a frequent presence in their home and life — Jace and Luke had been upset by this, of course. 

In time they came to understand the situation fully. Jacaerys first, fitting the pieces together with the evidence he found in the mirror. Neither Rhaenyra nor Laenor had dark hair, like he and his brothers. 

His matriline was uncontestable though, as he grew into himself. He possessed the same nose, jaw, brow, and high cheekbones that Rhaenyra wore. The comparisons between the two became more frequent as he grew older, and he found himself to be quite proud to look like her. 

Her attitude lived in him as well, the temperament she had been so notorious for as a girl festered in her eldest son. She had once been christened ‘The Princess of Dragonstone’ after flipping off a reporter at their summer home. Jacearys earned it for himself when he was fifteen, after loudly berating a reporter. He had been defending Luke, but no one seemed to care when they deigned him ‘The Prince of Dragonstone’. He took it with grace, claiming that he couldn’t help but be his mother’s child.

It instilled a sense of public propriety he strove to uphold. 

Rhaenyra remarried the same year — to Alicent Hightower — and moved her children from Wales to London. It took a while to adjust to the new life — Jace liked his new school, but he detested his step-brothers. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t come around to the idea of living with Aemond and Aegon, who took so much pleasure in making he and his brothers miserable. 

After the first month, Jacaerys fell in brilliantly. He performed well in school, quickly being enrolled in the advanced literature and history courses. He got on well with his peers, and made a number of friends. He joined the football team and spent his Sunday afternoons learning piano concertos. 

Living in London made him a more publicly prominent figure in his family's legacy. He knew how to play his role as heir; he carried himself perfectly — confident and charming and elegant. He didn’t particularly like being in the public eye, but there was a certain sense of satisfaction when he did something to receive positive public attention. 

King’s Landing, much like where he had grown up, was a community reserved for the upper echelon. Situated in Northwest London, and surrounded by wrought iron gates, it was regal and dignified. The house had high, vaulted ceilings, large stained glass windows, and more than enough bedrooms. It rained more, Jacaerys noticed in the first month. When it had rained in Dragonstone he would watch the droplets bounce off the sea, where it lapped at the sandy bay. Here the rain splattered unceremoniously upon the pavement. 

For as wonderful as life in London had turned out, Jacaerys found himself longing for what was left behind in Dragonstone. Laenor lived there still, and while he called often and visited as much as he could, it wasn’t the same. Jace’s childhood bedroom remained, along with all of the memories in the house he grew up in. And his friends. There was an assortment of people he only saw between late May and early September; the children of the other seasonal residents. The number had dwindled in years past, with fewer of them returning for break — favouring more interesting places, like Ibiza or Rome, as they got older. 

Far too few of his childhood friends he kept in contact with, especially after the move to London. You were the exception. 

He was grateful, on days when it stormed in London, to receive a silly text or too-long voice note. It made things feel less dull — you had a way of doing that. 

He took to reading theory around the time he turned seventeen. It’s queer theory, at the suggestion of his cousin Baela, who lent him his first Judith Butler book. He finished it that weekend. 

His aunt Laena and her two daughters lived in London, and Jace found a close comrade in Baela. She played competitive tennis and listened to riot grrrl, she was much cooler than him and he knew it. Her bedroom held two massive bookshelves, and she let him pillage her collection for De Bouvier and Didion and Gay. Hours were spent lying across the floor in Laena’s house, studying, or reading, or talking. He enjoyed Baela’s company more than any of his school friends, favouring anything with her over anything with the boys from his football team. 

His youngest sister, Visenya, turned one around the same time. Baela, staying with Jacaerys while he babysat one night, inducted him into the eldest daughter club. 

“You’re so keen on driving your siblings around, and taking care of them. Plus, aren’t you your mother’s closest confidant?” She asked. 

True, Jace supposed. He was the oldest of Rhaenyra’s children, and the most responsible of his brothers and step-siblings. His mums both worked full time, they were busy but as involved as possible. Jace just did the menial things. He made Joffrey breakfast, picked Luke up after school, and watched Visenya when necessary. He didn’t mind.

Baela argued that he should mind. 

He had been a sensitive child, more so than his brothers, but it made him incredibly emotionally adept as he aged. So many boys his age prided themselves on stoicism, but that was never something Jace felt connected to. He always felt things too deeply to bottle them up — it accounted for the occasional temper that flared up when he was upset, but also how empathetic and kind he was. 

Jacearys was set to graduate with honours in the first week of May. It was three months before when college acceptance letters began to appear in the mail. He had applied to a number of places, and been accepted everywhere. The University of the Vale was where his hopes hinged though. 

Just after Valentine's Day, it showed up. The envelope was wide and stuffed full, and sealed with a wax stamp. His acceptance letter was on the very top of the stack of papers — the thick paper heavy in his hands, as he admired the blue printed border and silver flocking. 

Rhaenrya sorted through the informational packets while Jace reread the letter. Part of him couldn’t believe it was real.

He sends you a picture of the letter, and you respond in kind with one of an identical nature. 

You hadn’t planned to go to the same university, but it certainly was a happy coincidence. 

After graduation, he was beyond excited for the reprieve that Dragonstone granted. The promise of early morning hikes, and evenings spent on the beach — the once empty house, full of life and bustling with bodies. 

You were the first thing Jacaerys thought to look for when he set his bags down in the summer home. 

It was late May, and you were guaranteed to be out of school. I’ll text after I unpack, he thought, pulling clothes and books from his suitcase. 

His room in Dragonstone had once been his childhood bedroom. The walls were a warm tone of white, and the small bed was still covered with his blue and white checkered duvet. Piano scales and pictures of his brothers and friends adorn the walls. There was a soccer trophy on the back edge of his desk, something he had won when he was eleven. It was stuffy from nine months of stagnance, but familiar all the same. 

He pushed the curtains back from the window to let sunlight filter into the dusty room, gazing down at the beach, when he spotted your figure. He was quick to rush downstairs, out the backdoor, and across the stone path that leads from the patio to the beach. He greets you with a call of your name and a tight hug, sunglasses perched atop his head and linen shirt half buttoned. 

It had been a year since he’d last seen you. You had kept in touch during the school year; Jace favoured Snapchat and FaceTime, delighted with the pleasure of seeing the mundane things you were up to. There was a nearly constant text thread, and voice memos passed back and forth. But, it all paled in comparison to physical company. 

He abandoned his housekeeping duties, keen to sit on the beach and talk. And you did so for hours, about everything and nothing. He tells you about his last year of school and listens as you do the same. When the sun dipped past the treeline, he leaned back on his elbows, watching the water crest on the sand. He felt more at ease than he had in a while, enraptured by the ease of your presence. The conversation flowed, there were no awkward lulls and no pressure to talk about something dignified. It was comforting to be so close to someone who didn’t see much of his life in London — you knew the best version of him. 

Your friendship had always felt like that, from a young age. On days that smelled of sunscreen and sea salt in his mind, you would meet in the mornings and depart past dark and then do it again the next day, never tiring of each other. Your parents knew his, so you had always been welcome in his home — invited or not. You had shared a bed during sleepovers, drunk from the same cup, and fallen asleep on the couch during movie nights countless times. Quick glances and imperceptible expressions were a language you communicated in, reading each other without words. In your presence, Jace was the most comfortable.

The summer slipped away as it always did, taking long nights and leaving memories of sand and sunshine. The days were ambled away in the water, on rocky hiking paths, or in the meadow that sat a mile away from all of the homes. 

Jace had started The Hobbit before school ended — most days he found himself sprawled out in the park or on the beach, reading. He had also taken to running with his dog, Vermax, in the mornings. He relied on the serotonin boost to start the day, and with no football to play a jog was a decent alternative. 

When the summer drew to a close, the typical melancholy that befell the return to the real world wasn’t present in Jace’s mind. He presumed it had everything to do with the fact that he would see you every day now

You have one college class together — a nine a.m. medieval literature discussion. 

Clinging to familiarity in the new environment, he glued himself to your side for the first week of classes. He memorized the way to your dorm, meeting you outside every morning to walk together to your first lessons. The meandering conversation was a good start to the day, and he silently relished in your tired eyes and quiet voice, not yet used to the early schedule. 

On Friday he all but begged you to come back to his dorm after the discussion; it was your only class that day so you had given in. You hadn’t seen his living quarters yet, and he wanted to spend time with you, worried for when your schedules would fill up and you would lose room for each other. 

The discussion had been mind-numbing. You reviewed the same syllabus as the lecture, and went over the same rules and policies as every other class. With the thirty-five minutes remaining, the teaching assistant made everyone watch an incredibly monotone video about the history of medieval England. 

Jace linked his arm into yours in the hallway after class, pulling you to the doors. The cool morning air was refreshing, waking you up more as you walked across campus. His dorm building was new and modern, seventeen floors with grey siding and big windows. It was private housing, clearly expensive. 

He had a single room with an adjoining bathroom and a small common space. The walls were typical dorm white, with laminate wood flooring. Joffrey’s school photo is hung on one wall, the frame clearly decorated by the child with glitter and string. Scattered across the other walls were photographs in thin silver frames, a large world map, a clock, and a cross-stitch of a rainbow stag beetle.

Sitting on the couch, you observed the unframed photos that lay across the coffee table, inspecting a leggy grey dog as you plucked it from the pile, “Who is this?”

Jace leaned into your side, gazing at the photo, “My mum’s dog, Syrax,” He reached over you to tap the picture, “Syrax is my dog’s mum.” 

He slipped his hand into yours as you walked with him to his second class of the day.

In the third week of school, Jace asks you to attend a mixer for a pre-law society with him. He doesn't know anyone, and doesn't want to be alone at the party. You meet at his dorm at a quarter-to-six so you can walk to the event together. 

The dress-code is emi-formal, and when he opens the door to you his hair is slicked back with water and he smells like his cologne — musk, sandalwood, and amber. 

“Are your clothes pressed?” You ask, grinning at his freshly ironed slacks and the three buttons undone on his shirt. 

He rolls his eyes, locking the door behind him as he escorts you down the hallway. The walls of the elevator in his dorm are mirrored, and you laugh at him when you catch him taking pictures of himself. He makes you take one with him, and sets it as his lock screen. 

The mixer was in the dean of law’s massive house, buzzing with young people in smart outfits. Jace abandons you about fifteen minutes in, spotting a group of poli sci majors from his social psychology class. 

From his childhood spent between galas and his mother’s business meetings, Jace was good at navigating these situations. He was charming, leveling the professors with charismatic smiles and confident posture. He was good at holding an intelligent conversation, discussing theory and strategy. 

You were on the patio, watching the stars, when he found you an hour later.

His arms brushed yours as he leaned against the railing, “Sorry for leaving you,” His voice was quiet, and he stared at your profile, watching the way the moonlight illuminated your skin. 

You wave his apology off and make him buy you coffee in recompense on the way home. 

You’re stood talking together on the quadrangle a few weeks later, a cup of hot chocolate warming your mitten-less hands, when you realise just how cold it’s gotten. It's just too cold for the thin jacket that you try to sink further into, hiding from the wind that bites at your delicate skin.

Jace watches you shiver, observing your lack of appropriate attire. 

“Are you cold?” He asks, reaching out to run his hands up and down your arms, half to warm you, half to gauge how thick your jacket is. Not very. 

You nod, “I didn’t check the weather this morning.” 

He sighs with exaggerated exasperation and slides his arms around you, careful of the paper cup you held. Of course, he’s worn the right coat, and you feel the downy material of his hood against your cheek as he rubs your back to generate some warmth. You smell the cologne on his collar and the expensive shampoo he uses; he grumbled something about taking better care of yourself. 

Then, one particularly cold Friday morning he has forgotten his coat. Dressed in a hoodie, he mirrors your excuse from the week prior, smiling sheepishly — face flushed from the chilly air, dark curls blowing around his head like a halo. You take pity on him, slipping your scarf off. You loop it around his neck, tucking the ends down into the collar of his sweater, and leave him with a fond peck on the cheek; his skin is cold. 

He's appreciative, though the scarf does little against the cold wind cutting through his sweater. Still, he doesn't give the scarf back. 

With the cold, comes midterms. You’re the first person Jace asks to study. 

Your dorm room is closer to the central part of campus, and thus a shorter walk in the bitter cold. Jace brushes snow out of his hair as you unlock your door, ushering him inside. It's small. Two twin-sized beds, one on each wall, with nary enough room for two bodies between them; a desk is crammed into the small space between your bed and the window. You let him take the desk, spreading your books and notes out across your bed.

Your dorm is old, and the room has very little ventilation. Despite the frigidity outside, the room is stuffy and almost hot with both of your bodies inside. An hour into studying Jace shrugs off his heavy, knit sweater and pushes his glasses up into his hair. 

“What are you working on?” You ask, leaning forward. You’re bored, working on the same power point you started yesterday. You want to talk to him, though he doesn’t seem keen on the idea

He doesn’t look up from typing as he speaks, “Analysing The Art of War.” 

You shut your laptop, bent on distracting him, “The book?” 

He nods but doesn’t give a verbal response. 

“Who's that by?” You ask, fighting to suppress a grin

This time he does look up, glaring at you over his glasses, “Sun Tzu.” 

His tone is short, but it's amusing to annoy him so you grin, suppressing a giggle, “Sounds very interesting.” 

“What do you want?” He asks after a beat, still holding your gaze. 

You shrug, “Nothing. I’m bored,” 

The next time you study is even less productive, school work discarded on his floor in a matter of minutes. 

“We can’t be trusted to work together,” He tells you, watching as you calculate his astrological chart, geometry homework forgotten. 

You attend your first college party together in November. When you arrive at his dorm, he’s dressed much more casually than normal. 

You reach out to tug at the thin silver chain peeking out from his shirt collar, “This is fun,” You tease, giggling, “Aiming to impress tonight?”

He rolls his eyes in mock-offence, turning you around by the shoulders to shove you out of the doorframe. 

The lights in the house are dim, and they strobe slowly through different colours. It’s too dark and too bright all at once. The music is almost unbearably loud and people are packed in like sardines, it’s all incredibly overstimulating. 

When he senses your unease, Jace takes your hand, pulling you tight against your side to lead you through the throng of bodies. He’s looking for someone, but you’re unsure who, and he canvases the whole space before giving up on finding them.

The backyard of the house is quieter, but the ground still vibrates from the bass of the music. People are scattered about, smoking cigarettes and sipping from bottles of cheap beer. 

You both learn what Jell-O shots are, and make out in the bathroom back at his dorm. It’s not the first time you’d kissed each other, trying it a few times in your adolescence just to see what it was like. But this is different, tipsy and sloppy, as you giggle into his mouth. 

It's forgotten in the morning, when you wake up in his bed still dressed in your going-out clothes, head pounding.

But then it happens again, the week before finals.

You had stayed at the library far too late studying, leaving the pair of you to walk back to his dorm in the dark. It's positively frigid, cold December air whipping snow into your face. 

There are still snowflakes in your hair as you shed the thick coat you’re wearing, pulling off your gloves and hat. 

There's a bottle of wine in Jace’s freezer, left by Aegon the weekend before. It's expensive and rich and red, and Aegon would likely skin you if he found out you were drinking it — but, that's part of the fun. There's a baking show on the small television, and you’re curled into Jace’s side to steal some of the warmth from his body.

When the program lulls he brings his hand to your hair, combing through the tangled strands. You pay it little mind, leaning into his touch as you watch a contestant on-screen whip macaron batter. His fingers slide down to your jaw, turning your head so your eyes meet his. He’s studying your face, cheeks flushed from the wine or the cold. 

The attention is odd, and you giggle nervously under his gaze. His hands come to cradle your jaw as he leans towards you, nose brushing yours. The air is charged with an unusual tension, his mouth a breath away from yours. 

When he kisses you, he’s slow and gentle, his whole body angled into yours. Everything feels warm, a welcome contrast to the weather outside, and you chalk it up to the glasses of wine coursing through your bloodstream. 

It's pleasant, different from times past; this certainly doesn’t feel like an innocent, experimental kiss. It's heated, tinged with passion. He uses the placement of his hand to ease your jaw open, tongue sliding slowly into your mouth. 

There's a vibe, something you hadn’t felt before with him. It's communicated through the gentle touch of his hands, and how his breath hitches when you kiss him back with the same sort of force. 

The moment is broken by the announcement of a winner on the television. His hands slide down, resting on your shoulders, pulling your frame into his. 

You don’t talk about it afterwards. 

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

I feel like this topic has been discussed to death, but it is still quite confusing to me. Do you think if, for example, the Oprah interview didn’t happen, would the BRF have allowed Harry and Meghan’s kids to have the prince and princess titles after Charles became king?

Correct me if my understanding/speculation is wrong, but it seems to me that the BRF intended Harry and Meghan to go the Edward and Sophie route (regarding their kids’ titles) even after the Queen’s death. And that’s what didn’t sit right with Harry and Meghan.

Do you think the brf should’ve carefully considered that a new mixed race member of the royal family (Archie) would’ve needed a different kind of support and protection? And imo, the BRF failed to a certain extent in handling the situation. I think their response was to treat Archie as they would’ve treated him if he was white (i.e. without special treatment as if he was just one of Edward and Sophie’s kids), but actually maybe they needed to be more sensitive. I think they failed to grasp the significance of a mixed race member of the royal family, and in that sense perhaps there is a hint of racism. Because obviously the situation blew up. It means there still cannot be mixed race members of the family without there being issues, which reflects a bit badly on the institution. I don’t mean they were obviously racist and discriminatory, but it’s their lack of action that makes them guilty. The issue of race will always be complicated, and the BRF failed to handle the situation with sensitivity.

Archie and Lili were always automatically entitled to HRH Prince/Princess titles. They just had to be grandchildren of the monarch first. That's guaranteed by the 1917 Letters Patent (LP), and there was never any indication by anyone anywhere that it wouldn't happen. The kids were always going to get the titles on Charles's ascension, no matter what, regardless of the Oprah interview.

It was suggested - by the Sussexes themselves in their own announcement of Archie's name when they said he would be known as Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor instead of Earl of Dumbarton - that when the time came, they would decline the HRH Prince/Princess on the kids' behalves much like Edward and Sophie did.

Whether the kids had the title or not, whether they used them or not, isn't the controversy. The controversy is the 2012 LP, which solved a problem the 2011 Perth Agreement created with the 1917 LP.

First, the 1917 LP: Issued by George V, it restricts use of HRH Prince/Princess to the grandchildren of the reigning monarch and the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales.

Second, the 2011 Perth Agreement: Made during the 2011 CHOGM in Perth, Australia (hence the name), this is an agreement between all the countries of the Commonwealth that they would issue laws abolishing male primogeniture (men inherit before women; this is why Anne is #18 and behind Andrew and Edward despite being the second child) inheritance of the throne with absolute primogeniture (firstborn child inherits regardless of gender). In the UK, the 2011 Perth Agreement led to the 2013 Succession to the Crown Act which is the British law officially replacing male primogeniture with absolute primogeniture.

The Perth Agreement conflicts with the 1917 LP. Remember that the 1917 LP says the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. With the Perth Agreement in place (and eventually the 2013 Succession to the Crown Act), this means that if William's first child is a daughter (aka the future queen) and his second child is a son, the younger brother will outrank the the future queen until Charles becomes King. Meaning for however long it takes for Charles to accede, #4 will outrank #3 and in a system organized by primogeniture-based hierarchy...that's a problem. A big problem. It's like saying the Vice President is more important than the President.

Leading to the 2012 LP: Issued by Elizabeth II, it gives HRH Prince/Princess to all children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. Meaning, only William's children get HRH Prince/Princess titles from birth and Harry's children have to wait until Charles becomes King. No one had a problem with that. Even the gossip/leaks from aristo circles hinted that Harry didn't have a problem with it.

Where the Oprah interview comes into play is that the Oprah interview was the first time it was confirmed and acknowledged that the Sussexes had a problem with the 1917 and 2012 LPs. As Meghan discussed, they felt that because The Queen issued the 2012 LP for William's children giving them HRH Prince/Princess from birth, The Queen should issue a new LP for Harry's children giving them HRH Prince/Princess from birth and justified it with racism-related safety/security concerns.

But here's the thing: First, HRH Prince/Princess titles is not what establishes the need for security. It's the threat to the person that establishes the need for security. Second, minor children inherit their parents' status. Meaning that even though the-future-child-now-known-as-Archie didn't have titles, he still had security through Harry's and Meghan's risk assessments and Harry's and Meghan's risk assessments would have been properly re-evaluated with Archie part of their family.

So when you say the BRF failed to handle this, are you then saying that you think The Queen should have issued a new LP to #7 in the Line of Succession granting that child the right to be titled HRH Prince/Princess from birth? Even though that child has a very insignificantly tiny chance of ever inheriting the throne? Even though the only justification for #7 to have those titles from birth is because he's of mixed racial status? Even though he was getting the titles anyway?

The only special treatment the BRF needed to provide was consideration for his personal security. Which they did. By following the parents' wishes to protect his privacy and limit and control the public's access to him. Are you saying the BRF should have overruled Harry and Meghan's wishes? And in what ways would overruling their wishes provide more security to Archie?

Because frankly, when you say "they failed to grasp the significance of a mixed race member of the royal family," it sounds like you expect the BRF to be parading Archie around to show him off. And that actually is kind of racist, because now they're treating him like the token person of color who's shoved to the front of every photograph to prove they're diverse and they can't be racist. Which actually is racist too.

So...what's the BRF supposed to do? They're racist if they treat Archie differently. They're racist if they treat Archie the same. What should they have done?

For me personally, speaking only for myself and no one else since you asked me what I think -- I think the BRF should strive for inclusion. Which is treating everyone fairly and equally. Meaning Archie doesn't get special treatment. He's afforded the same things everyone else got:

Titles upon becoming the grandchild of the reigning monarch,

Press releases and palace announcements of his birth,

Defense when the media was viciously cruel,

Security and status inherited from his parents,

A private, secure, and securely-protected home, and

His parents' wishes followed for how public or private he should be.

And that's what the BRF provided.

The only special treatment provided here was special treatment for William's family. That's because the succession to the crown was involved. Which is part of the problem with monarchy; the first gets everything at everyone else's expense. Harry, for the longest time, has been lumped in as part of the first even though he's actually part of the 'everyone else.' And IMO, that's the real mistake here: Harry should have been recategorized to 'everyone else' years before he actually was, like when he finished Sandhurst in 2005 or when he turned 25 (2009), not when he was 33 and getting engaged in 2017. Because had Harry been rightfully 'everyone else'-d for a decade-plus without having been part of the Cambridge unit and before he married or had a child, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation today.

[argumate]

I’m an American, I saw this guy Chris Minn say "Australians don't have the same freedom of speech laws that they have in the United States, and the reason for that is that we want to hold together a multicultural community..."

Is that true? I didn’t know Australia didn’t have freedom of speech like America

Australia doesn't have the same free speech laws as the US, but I'd say that's because the UK doesn't have the same laws, and we inherited that legal environment.

in practice of course the US banned the communist party and Australia didn't, so free speech and free association being protected by the constitution will only get you so far.

(and in practice of course the US ban didn't do much and the lack of ban in Australia didn't do much either).

[centrally-unplanned]

I find myself interested in how ineffective integration was for Ireland vis a vis the UK in the 19th century. Certainly after 1832 voting reforms and the 1829 repeal of the ban on Catholics serving in parliament (UK-wide but ofc hitting Ireland the hardest), the Irish were at more-or-less equal footing as the English or Scots when it came to voting rights and the legal system (I think most people don't know this! They think the Irish couldn't vote in the 19th century!) And it wasn't even an "on paper" deal for voting rights, Irish were active in government (they even had Irish PMs, though ofc Protestant), by the latter half of the 19th century economic regulations were equalized, and they got within a hair's breadth of Home Rule before some munitinous unionists and WW1 got in the way. Despite the rep a lot of countries have gigantic ethnic minorities, and liberalism/equal franchise is actually pretty decent solution to that problem. Why didn't ~100 years of representation in the House of Commons, in the era when "nation building" was at its peak, not work?

From what I can tell, timing is of course part of it. At a simple level, World War One was such a nationalist godsend; it created the "radicalism cascade", a weakened center and domino revolutions inspiring everyone with a cause with a sort of temporal Schelling Point. Without it, would the 1912 Home Rule have just been implemented in due time, and Ireland would be like Scotland today? At a more structural level, the timing was particularly rough because WW1 was the tail end of the age of religion in Europe. So much of the conflict was over Protestant vs Catholic, and after WW2 if Ireland was united under one home rule government in the UK it's hard to imagine the secularizing age powering so much conflict. Had they "held on" a few more decades you could see it calming down.

I think those are true enough but you do gotta dig down to another level. "Protestant" wasn't really just a religion in Ireland - it was the Protestant Ascendancy, a ruling class of combined English settlers and converted Irish who, during the imperial era before the 19th century, built an entirely separate ruling class in Ireland. And it was a deep ruling class - Catholics were barred from voting in even the Dublin local parliament, they were banned from being judges or lawyers, inheritance law was rigged to privilege Protestant sons while converting away from the Anglican church came with property confiscations. Depending on what counts, at its peak in the 18th century up to 30% of the country had opportunistically converted, in a system rigged top to bottom against the Catholics.

Imagine for a second India was given representation in the House of Commons and given self-rule. Just ignore the distance and demography issues for now, this obviously wouldn't actually work, instead think about what that transition would look like. The British "Indian Civil Service" would have to be dismantled...which was like 10k brits vs over 100k Indians. Actual british military officers in the country in the 19th century was less than 100k - and it was a rotating duty, they didn't all live there. Dismantling that really isn't that hard! Those people just go home. The core that ruled was deeply integrated into the country, but it was tiny - the vast majority of India was ruled by Indians, in the name of the Crown. They would just...keep going but now be in parliament.

That was impossible in Ireland. Britain had actually launched one of the most intensive cultural conversion programs of a foreign nation around in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was nowhere close to the "light imperial touch" of elsewhere. But it never...worked. Instead it just built this gigantic ruling class, deeply enmeshed in both Ireland and England, completely dependent on that superiority economically, but seen as outsiders by the Catholic Irish majority. "Protestant & Catholic" is at least half a gigantic class war. And in the 19th century the UK brought "laissez faire liberalism" to Ireland and was like "look, we are equal now!" after two+ centuries of rigging the system. It was literally the "kicking out the ladder after climbing up" equality meme.

This was why Home Rule was so bitterly contested, why Protestant Anglo-Irish officers threatened to mutiny in 1912 if it was implemented. They understood that the first acts of Home Rule were going to be, essentially, reparations. Which the Irish almost surely deserved. But Imperial, Liberal, 19th Century UK was not going to give reparations to the fucking Irish, it was not ready to dismantle its dejure and defacto aristocrats in that way - or at least not until it was too late, some land reform for example did begin in 1903. Scotland didn't need it, Wales was too weak to fight it, but Ireland was in the sweet spot of being weak enough to be oppressed but strong enough to oppose it and fight back once the culture changed.

Or at least that is my current read, this is a low-confidence post. Curious to learn more!

[the-empress-7]

Harry is not getting an "inheritance" per se. Everything goes to Will to avoid the heavy UK inheritance tax. Harry gets an annuity his papa set up for him years ago. It was announced at the time. Harry might even already be benefitting from annuity payments. That might be how Charles financially helps him.

I am not talking about the Duchies and private Royal Estates like Sandringham, we all know that all will go to William per inheritance laws.

Charles has a lot of personal wealth, just as the late Queen did. That is what I am referring to. I do know anything about the annuity you referred to.

[darkmaga-returns]

The UK government has announced plans to offer cash incentives to the relatives of elderly citizens who opt to be euthanized.

According to a disturbing report in the Telegraph, “terminally ill pensioners could end their lives earlier to spare loved ones six-figure tax bills under assisted dying legislation, experts have warned.” Under the current rules, pensions “are passed on free of income tax if the person dies before 75 years old.” 

Infowars.com reports: Rob White wrote: “If assisted dying becomes legal, however, it could leave someone close to that age with an agonizing choice between prolonging their life or saving their family hundreds of thousands of pounds. Pensions specialist, Andrew Tully, said that the potential law change presented an additional consideration in what was already a ‘cliff-edge situation.’”  

That is, someone who is 65 and ill could decide – or be pressured to decide – that opting for a lethal injection might be better for those who would thus inherit quite a bit more money, considering that if someone dies after age 75, “their beneficiaries have to pay income tax on what they receive, which could be up to 45pc.” 

The Telegraph helpfully broke down the math: 

For example, if someone died aged 75 with £500,000 in their pension pot, the person inheriting it could pay £225,000 in income tax if they took it as a lump sum. However, if the deceased had passed away any time before their 75th birthday, this tax bill would be reduced to zero. Andrew Tully, of Nucleus Financial, said it was “yet another consideration” for people at the end of their lives.  He said: “With pensions, there’s a cut-off age where death before age 75 is treated more generously tax-wise compared to deaths on or after age 75. This is a cliff-edge situation and a few days either way could have a significant financial impact. In some cases, it can be hundreds of thousands of pounds. When someone is terminally ill, consideration of tax and what money is passed on already adds extra stress, especially where complex family dynamics are involved. They’re at the end of their life, but at the same time are worried about providing for those they’ll leave behind.” 

[fannedandflawless]

The Rise of Severus Snape: Finances, Strategy & Survival

📌 This post links together four interconnected pieces I've written about Severus Snape’s financial life and evolution—starting from the emotional collapse that reshaped him, to the house he kept as a fortress, not a ruin.

It began with a simple question: how did Severus Snape survive?

Not emotionally, not magically—but practically. In a world where students came from gold-lined vaults and dinner tables of legacy, how did he, a boy from Spinner’s End, carve out a place powerful enough to defy both sides of a war?

As I traced that question backwards, it became more than a numbers game. It was a study of who he became when no one was looking.

Below are the four posts in sequence. Each one builds on the last—so whether you start from Part I or skip to the property tax breakdown in Part IV, it’s all part of the same thread:

🔥 Part I – The Rise of Severus Snape: Resentment Was the Flame, Not Rage

This isn’t about rage. It’s about resentment—the slow, simmering kind that sharpens rather than explodes. The moment Lily left, something shattered. And from those pieces rose a different boy—one who learned that brilliance wasn’t enough to be loved, and that silence could be weaponised.

→ Read Part I here.

🚪 Part II – The Rise of Severus Snape: The Door Wasn’t Opened—It Was Unlocked Quietly

The boy didn’t stumble into darkness—he was led, watched, and quietly assessed. He didn’t chase belonging. He chased leverage. And Slytherin offered exactly that—if he was clever enough to seize it.

→ Read Part II here.

🕰️ Part III – The Rise of Severus Snape: The Years Unspoken; Finances & Survival

The war ended. He returned to Hogwarts. But how? On what means? With what support? This is a breakdown of how Severus may have survived financially—through strategy, craft, inheritance, or all three.

→ Read Part II here.

🏚️ Spinner’s End Wasn’t Poverty—It Was Privacy

He wasn’t poor. He was precise. This is a speculative breakdown of property tax, inheritance law, and UK council costs in the 1980s/1990s. You’ll never see that crooked little house the same way again.

→ Read Spinner's End post here.

[mariacallous]

Prince Harry wanted a completely new life and he has got one. He is no longer a working royal, but a rich person. His Rich Highness. This involves a change of mindset in a mind that is somewhat hard to describe as quick on the uptake.

Being rich is all well and good, of course, and the duke certainly moaned enough about money when he was still within the confines of royal duty, to hear insiders tell it. But the reason you don’t see Beyoncé out there on the talkshow circuit whining about how much money she has to spend on security – easily eight figures a year – is that she, a very rich person, seems to understand that regrettably it goes with the territory, and that you have to pay for it out of your riches.

Next week, Kim Kardashian is expected to take the stand in the Paris trial of the robbers who tied her up and subjected her to a truly horrific ordeal when she was staying in the city in 2016. At no point during her examination is she expected to say that François Hollande, who was president at the time, should have intervened via the workings of the state to provide security. (Or to stop her bodyguard going out to a nightclub with Kourtney and Kendall, let’s face it.)

As well as being biologically unable to sweat, Prince Andrew had this weird condition where he couldn’t have a listen to himself, and you do worry Prince Harry has inherited the same gene. On Friday, in the wake of losing his legal challenge over taxpayer-funded police security when in the UK, Harry gave an interview to the BBC. It took place in another one of those random spare Montecito mansions he and Meghan seem to borrow when they want to demand foreign taxpayer cash/make televised pasta for an obsequiously grateful hairstylist.

Alas, in its attempts to make his own behavioural choices seem like victimhood, this interview was almost Trumpian – although without that master communicator’s ability to stick the landing. Alleging “establishment” conspiracy, playing the victim of his own decisions, saying the quiet bit out loud about how the law of the land should just do what his family wants … If you were playing bullshit bingo you’d have got a full house in seconds.

Perhaps one of his many very rich friends could give him a primer on what being a very rich person involves? Rich people who have earned their own money understand that publicly gnashing their teeth about the cost of security is the quickest route to ridicule and contempt from a public that has infinitely less than them. Doing it for broadcast in a country the day after local elections where the most toxic issue on the doorstep was means-testing the winter fuel allowance … well, have a listen to yourself, Harry Antoinette.

Or indeed a read of the comments below the video in the various media outlets in which it has since been shared. As an enthusiastic adopter and scatterer of labels and pop psychology in recent years, Harry may be confused to find the same now being applied to him. You can’t move for people saying “this is what narcissistic injury looks like”, or accusing him of “victim blaming” his family, or calling him a “nepo baby”. Weirdly, nepo baby is not one he heard when he was in the royal family – quite amusingly, given that’s literally the entire point. See also “entitled” and “privileged”. He seems not to have clocked on to the fact people have had enough of the holier-than-thou act. Perhaps he needs unconscious pious training.

Either way, Harry’s a rich person now, and the rules are different. Again, could someone get him up to speed? That said, if they do, it will come too late to have headed off some of his more eye-popping etiquette breaches in the society he has chosen. As far back as the Oprah interview, Harry was already pissing on his new employers, explaining of his mega-money deals with Netflix ($100m) and Spotify ($20m): “That was suggested by somebody else by the point of where my family literally cut me off financially, and I had to afford security for us.”

Oof. I bet Netflix and Spotify executives loved that explanation from the talent. This is like burning your bridge, then someone building you a new $120m bridge, and you deciding to burn that one down too because you’re too stupid and rude to understand how to behave. Again, you don’t see a whole load of rich celebrities kicking back on the talkshow sofas and honking: “I literally did this movie because my agent told me I had to do it to pay for my dinosaur bones acquisition habit.” (Even though I suspect that has actually been the case for a number of Nicolas Cage projects.) Perhaps this is why Spotify’s head of podcast innovation and monetisation came to describe Harry and Meghan as “grifters” after their deal came to an end, with the Sussexes having served up precisely 12 episodes of a single podcast series that was not even in the same zip code as a hit, whatever Spotify’s kindly in-house charts might have suggested.

Arguably the most bizarre irony of all is Harry’s ongoing insistence on melting down in the media. If he detests the media so much, he could always stop making them money by conducting his private business in public, driving traffic and engagement for those he considers his sworn enemies. Unless provoking another row that could be lucratively explored in documentary form is covertly the whole point? In which case, perhaps he’s cottoning on to a life in business after all.

[yukiwhitetm]

What's your writing pet peeve?

My pet peeve is when writers mix up step-family, adopted family and foster family. So often I see a writer say step-family when they mean adopted family or foster family. I think it's my their, there, they're!

Explanation of step-family vs adopted family vs foster family below:

Step-family

A step-family (step-mother, step-father, step-sister, step-brother, etc) is when a single parent from one family a marries a single parent from another family, making them into a new family. Anyone in the newly married family that one isn't biologically related to is now their step-family.

Example:

Cinderella! After Cinderella's mother dies, her father is left as a single widower. He then marries a single woman with two daughters. This makes them Cinderella's step-family - her step-mother and step-sisters. Cinderella is not related to her step-family in any way! They are only a family legally through the marriage of their parents.

Adopted family

An adopted family (adopted mother, adopted father, adopted sister, adopted brother, etc) is when someone(s), known as the the adoptee, is are legally adopted into a family, known as the adopter, without marriage, making them into their adopted family. It is usually children being adopted into families, however adults can be adopted as well, depending on the laws of your country (i.e. you can't adopt adults in the UK but you can in the USA). It is also typical that the adoptee is being adopted as the adopter's child not their sibling, however it is possible that sibling adoption exists somewhere too. When someone is adopted into a family, that makes them fully legally a part of that family and they are treated by the law as if they were born to that family, including inheritance and debts.

Example:

Roald Dahl's Matilda. Matilda is famous for her intelligence, bookishness and wits (as well as her telekinesis powers!). She survives great adversity through her abusive head teacher Miss Trunchball and her neglectful birth family. As anyone who has watched the film knows, by the end of the story, Matilda's parents give up their parental rights to her and so allow her teacher Miss Honey to adopt her as her adopted daughter. After this, Matilda and Miss Honey are a happy adopted family.

Another example is Anne Shirley of Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery who is adopted by brother and sister, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. She is brought up as a beloved adopted daughter by them.

Foster family

A foster family (foster mother, foster father, foster sister, foster brother, etc) is when an adult(s) fosters a child as their ward. Legally speaking, they are not family. Not by law. The adult is simply the child's caregiver, their guardian. Now, that doesn't mean that any foster parents don't see their foster children as their children and treat them as such, that does happen and is common. However, since the children are still legally part of the foster system and not lawfully the adult's children through birth or adoption, they do not have full rights to them. Foster children tend not to inherit, unless outright specified by the adult's Will amd Testament. Foster parents are given money by the government to care for the children because they are not legally their children. Think of it as a system connected to orphanages. Plenty of foster parents, however, do choose to adopt their foster children, however there are many factors effecting whether they choose to do that or not.

Example:

Wei Wuxian from The Untamed/The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation | Mo Dao Zu Shi by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. Wei Wuxian's parents die when he is five-years-old, he then ends up living on the streets until he's found and taken in by Jiang Fengmian at about nine or ten years old. However, he is not just taken into the Jiang martial sect as a disciple, he is taken into the Jiang family as a son and brother... but not legally adopted into the family. Meaning, although they don't have the terminilogy in the setting of the story, the Jiang are Wei Wuxian's new foster family.

Now, the fact that he is not legally adopted creates many problems throughout the story. Societally, it puts him in a weaker position than he might have been if adopted, he's seen as the son of a servant not the brother to the Jiang siblings Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli. And it means he can't inherit anything outside of the most extenuating of circumstances. If he were adopted he would be in a much more safe and secure position politically and socially speaking but he isn't, leaving his place in question. Sometimes, he is treated as a son of a servant and, sometimes, as the brother of the Jiang siblings, whichever is most convenient to the speaker.

Of course, his lack of adoption is likely a very purposeful choice on the part of the Jiang parents Jiang Fengmian and Madam Yu, as Jiang Fengmian is grooming Wei Wuxian to be his son's perfect right hand man (no matter what he might want for himself) and sacrifical lamb, and Madam Yu sees Wei Wuxian as a threat to Jiang Cheng's inheritance being that Wei Wuxian is five days older and more talented. (Exacerbated by the rumours that Wei Wuxian is Jiang Fengmian's illegitimate son - he isn't.)

Unfortunately, they are not a good foster family to him, as Madam Yu abuses Wei Wuxian and Jiang Fengmian is complicit by not doing anything about the abuse and grooming him. Whilst Wei Wuxian's relationship with his foster siblings is complicated, sometimes strained and often toxic because of their parents' abuse (psychological towards the Jiang siblings), they do see him as their brother. Jiang Yanli outright calls Wei Wuxian her didi (little brother) in public and sacrifices her life to save him. And Jiang Cheng chooses to sacrifice his golden core (the source of his magic) to save Wei Wuxian. Unfortunately, due to manipulation by outside forces, by the end of the story, Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian as the last remaining Jiangs have a distant relationship. They will always love each other but have to let each other go. They are both close uncles to Jiang Yanli's son Jin Ling, however.

A not-example of foster family is Morgana from BBC Merlin. Early on, Morgana is presented as King Uther's ward, in other words King Uther's foster daughter, and Prince Arthur's foster sister. However, it is later revealed that she is actually King Uther's daughter! Meaning that she is Prince Arthur's half-sister (they have different mothers) and has a right to inheritance of the throne of Camelot.

See how step-family, adopted family and foster family are totally different! And should not be mixed up!

[eretzyisrael]

‘There was no security, by design, for the Jews’

In the wake of the Amsterdam ‘pogrom’ against fans of the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv when the police were absent or ineffectual, John Podhoretz in Commentary claims that the classic characteristic of a pogrom is police inaction or complicity. This is what happened in the Hebron pogrom of 1929. He could also have been describing the Constantine pogrom of 1934 (the forces of law and order did not arrive until hours later), the Farhud of 1941 (policemen were complicit and the British army stood by), or the Aden riots of 1947 (British-armed Arabs shot 87 Jews).

A Jewish home in Hebron plundered by the rioters

What must be stressed is the fact that the Jewish people had never been safe from official complicity in pogroms until the state of Israel’s founding. This is what pogroms looked like in the Land of Israel too, until the establishment of Jewish sovereignty and a Jewish army.

Although it’s trendy to believe (or pretend to believe) that the Jews were a colonial power in Palestine, the exact opposite is true. When the British Mandate for Palestine was established, UK authorities had simply inherited the existing structure of the Ottoman police force, which was mostly Arab. In the mid-1920s, the police force was reformed and split between a British section and a much larger Palestinian section. Arabs made up 75 percent of the officer corps of the Palestinian section and 80 percent of all other ranks. This imbalance was even more pronounced in some cities.

As the 1929 Palestine pogrom spread to Hebron, the chief rabbi’s son, Eliezer Slonim was told by the town’s police chief and district governor that the Jews would be safe so long as they stayed inside. Journalist Yardena Schwartz describes the scene: “Eliezer went from house to Jewish house, joined by the city’s lone Jewish policeman, Chanoch Brozinsky, and Feivel Epstein, son of the head of the yeshiva, Rabbi Epstein. None of them were armed. Brozinsky’s rifle had been confiscated that day, presumably because [police chief] Cafferata feared he might shoot the rioters. The 32 other policemen on Cafferata’s force were Arabs. Their guns had not been taken. Slonim, the only other Jew with a gun in Hebron, had never used it before.”

Thirty-three police officers: 32 Arabs and one Jew. The Jew was disarmed because there was a pogrom about to happen. Arab policemen watched the slaughter, with some joining in. Over in Jerusalem, Jewish self-defense units were kept out or arrested by the British authorities while the rioters and police let loose.

The institutional colonial regime was Arab and British, and so—as in Amsterdam yesterday—there was no security, by design, for the Jews.

Read article in full

More about  the Hebron massacre

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Spiked

Published: Sept 16, 2024

The new UK Labour government has declared war on free speech. Within weeks of gaining power, it scrapped a law upholding free speech in universities. In early August, following rioting across England, it announced plans to tighten the regulations on online speech. Perhaps most troubling of all, Keir Starmer is also considering writing a broad definition of ‘Islamophobia’ into law, which would make it almost impossible to criticise Islam and even Islamic extremism.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali – writer, activist and author of Prey: Immigration, Islam and the Erosion of Women’s Rights – returned to The Brendan O’Neill Show last week to discuss the importance of free speech in the battle against Islamist extremism. What follows is an edited extract from the conversation. You can listen to the full thing here.

Brendan O’Neill: Why do you think politicians – even those who would define themselves as ‘liberal’ – are so willing to adopt a phrase like Islamophobia?

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: I think it has to do with guilt about the past. When it comes to the Jews, many European countries did not protect them from Nazi persecution, so there’s definitely a sense that we don’t want to do the same to our Muslim minorities. When I was living in the Netherlands, this was a very potent argument. The Dutch felt extremely guilty about the fact that, in proportion to the Dutch population, more Jews were removed from their homes and sent to concentration camps, than in any other country in Europe. So there’s definitely a sense of ‘let’s not repeat history’. But this is also what makes me so angry, because the Islamists – and to a certain extent, the leftists – will exploit this. They will exploit what is essentially the goodness of human beings, a desire to ‘do right this time round’, in order to do wrong.

While the Islamists want to use democracy as a tool to win power and then abolish democracy, I think the woke left also wants to do something similar. I think this is part of why the far left does rely on the Islamists to vote for them. This is then compounded by the fact that the white working class, which was traditionally the group of people the Labour Party relied on, has faded. So instead, these parties rely increasingly on migrants. This is their new demography. They think they can harness their vote to come to power. People talk about the ‘great replacement’, but it’s actually a ‘great realignment’. The parties which used to represent the working classes now no longer do so. Instead, they now just represent capital.

O’Neill: So what do you make of this idea of the ‘Muslim vote’ in the UK, particularly in relation to the new Labour government?

Ali: I see Keir Starmer as a front for the radical left. He needs the Muslim vote, and the Muslim vote can be relatively easily gained because Islamists can skillfully organise their communities to vote. But the question that Keir Starmer, and other leftist parties across Europe, should ask themselves is this: ‘What are they demanding in return?’ Because the Islamists do have many demands in return. First and foremost, they want censorship. They want ‘Islamophobia’ to be made illegal. And the way they define Islamophobia is any form of criticism of the political agenda of Islam.

If you talk about the radical views being preached in the mosques or the schools, that’s Islamophobia. If you question the fact that some imams are telling their congregations not to assimilate and to distance themselves from ‘the infidels’, that’s Islamophobia. If you talk about the recent examples of sexual abuse against women and girls, some perpetrated by Muslim immigrants, that’s Islamophobia. If you highlight that there is a kind of soft Sharia law in Britain – which is well established in many Muslim communities when it comes to marriages, divorces and inheritances – that’s Islamophobia. The same goes if you want to talk about the fact that there are Muslim women in Muslim households being beaten, curfewed, removed from school, forced to marry and then raped. If you want to expose any of this, you’re committing Islamophobia. And so, all of a sudden, you can’t fight sexual violence against women perpetrated by men.

That is what banning Islamophobia is going to ban, if you allow it. It will ban discussing these issues in the name of human rights and equality. If you question this and ask, ‘Do we really want this parallel society?’, you’ll be called Islamophobic.

These days, the Islamists are less and less secretive about their agenda. This can be seen recently in the blatant anti-Semitism in some Muslim communities. But if you bring this stuff up, and try to get politicians to discuss it, you’re again accused of Islamophobia. This is the question that we have to ask governments, particularly the leftist governments that are trying to outlaw Islamophobia. It is criticism of Islam that’s going to be banned. Journalists and newspapers will no longer be able to exercise their free-press rights to investigate crimes that are being committed.

O’Neill: The unwillingness of the woke left, even the moderate left, to ever criticise radical Islam is extraordinary. We really are in a difficult situation, aren’t we?

Ali: Absolutely. We’re emboldening them. The woke left is the enemy of civilisation, and they say so themselves. They’re deconstructing everything. On the other hand, the Islamists are also clearly an enemy of civilisation – our Western civilisation in particular. We’ve got to stand up to these two forces now. The silent majority has to stand up and stop this before they stop us. And the only way to do that is through freedom of speech, which is exactly what they want to take away from us.

As voters, we still have the capacity to organise, vote, find new leaders and reject what is being imposed on us. In the decay of the universities, alongside the censorship in schools, there’s definitely a concerted effort to silence us. Most worryingly of all, I think, is what we’ve seen after the riots and how the government has responded. Whereas previously you might be cancelled or piled-on online, now the elites are using the law. British prisons, which are effectively full, are clearing out convicted criminals, some of whom have done all sorts of horrible things, to put people in prison for putting words and images online. They’re using the awesome powers of the state to censor and to silence us. Soon we could be banned from saying things that are, in this very sinister phrase, ‘legal but harmful’. This should be met with the greatest opposition of all time. All of us need to go out into the streets and say, ‘stop right there’.

--

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was talking to Brendan O’Neill on The Brendan O’Neill Show. Listen to the full conversation here:

==

A modern Islamic insurgence is no longer conducted with swords on horseback, but with the aggressors using the language of victimhood.

[humanrightsupdates]

UK Foreign Secretary Has Opportunity to End Ongoing Colonial Crimes

David Lammy, a descendant of enslaved people, has taken office as United Kingdom Foreign Secretary and said he wants to rebuild the UK’s relations with the Global South.

He has an immediate opportunity to meaningfully address the legacies of UK imperial atrocities, starting with an ongoing colonial crime that he could end immediately – the UK’s forced displacement of the Chagossian people.

The Chagos islands, in the Indian Ocean, were governed under UK colonial rule from the island of Mauritius. The Chagossians, an Indigenous people, are the descendants of enslaved people and contract workers.

Over 50 years ago, when nearly all of Britain’s colonies in Africa were achieving independence, the UK and US governments conspired in secret for the UK to hold onto Chagos and to expel its entire population so the US could build a military base on the largest island, Diego Garcia.

As records show, the expulsion of the Chagossians was based on lies and racism, leaving them in extreme poverty. To this day, the UK government refuses to allow the Chagossians to return to their homeland. This forced displacement, racial persecution, and prevention of their return amount to crimes against humanity under international law. Human Rights Watch argued in February 2023 that individuals should be put on trial for the expulsion of Chagossians and that the UK should pay full and unconditional reparations to generations affected by its forcible displacement.

The new UK Government has inherited these ongoing colonial crimes, but could end them tomorrow. UK governments have repeatedly acknowledged for the last 20 years that the treatment of the Chagossians was “shameful and wrong”, but the same successive British Governments have continued to prevent their return.

Tony Blair’s government used the monarchy to issue an ‘Order-in-Council’, bypassing parliament to prevent the Chagossians from returning.

The UK has treated Chagos – now its only remaining colony in Africa – as a law-free zone, claiming international human rights law and international criminal law do not apply there. The racism is clear: the UK applies human rights law in other overseas territories like the Falklands and on Cyprus, where the inhabitants are of European origin and live freely close to military bases.

[celticcrossanon]

Take this with with salt, Celta, but a royal youtube commentator named River recently said he heard from his sources that William's plan in dealing with the Parkles is to remove the entire Parkles family from the Line of Succession and Counsellors of State. And over time, remove styles and try to render the Ducal title as non-heritable. That would be an interesting idea for a tarot reading, Celta: Does William plan to remove the entire Sussex family from the LoS and CoS when he becomes King?

Hi Nonny,

I've seen versions of this from other sources, usually focusing on the HRH styles and/or the Duke of Sussex title, so I think we can safely assume that Prince William is currently planning to do something about the situation when he has the power to do so. I think what exactly he does will depend very much on how things stand at that point in time.

A few comments on the rumour:

AFAIK, the styles 'HRH' and 'Prince" are removable by Letters Patent, so either the current King or King William could remove them quite easily by writing a Letters Patent to that effect. I'm not sure how broad sweeping it would be (just Harry? everyone except the heir/eldest child/eldest child of eldest child? Somewhere in between?), but it is definitely within the monarch's authority to do this.

The title of Duke is a bit trickier. I believe that it can not be changed to be non-inheritable as it is, i.e. to make the title non inheritable the current title would have to be removed, and then a new title re-issued that was not inherited by the children but has the same name.

AFAIK, there is a current game of 'pass the responsibility' being played by the royal household and Parliament, with the royal household saying that only Parliament can remove peerage titles, and Parliament saying yes, they have the power to remove ordinary peerage titles, but this is a royal title in the gift of the Monarch and as such it can only be removed by the Monarch. I have no idea who is correct in this situation.

The title will cease to be a royal title when it passes down to Archie's eldest son, and instead become an ordinary peerage title, as Archie's children will not be royal and will not have HRH Prince/Princess styles, as they are neither the children of a monarch or the children of a son of the monarch. I don't know if that is any consolation or not.

I read somewhere that said that removing Harry from the Counsellors of State is as simple as specifying that all CoS must be living (domiciled) in the UK and not just born in the UK (UK as domicile of origin, a legal term). If this is true, then any monarch could start the ball rolling by requesting the change in the meaning via Parliament.

Removing Harry from the Line of Succession is going to be difficult. The documents that cover that in the UK are very old and very precise about who is in the Line of Succession and why people can be removed from it. If the surrogacy is proved, then that is definitely grounds for removal, as that is interfering in the Line of Succession. If Harry is genetically not the son of The King, then he would be removed for that reason (and they can test Prince Andrew at the same time, given the rumours about his paternity). Otherwise, apart from writing a new law (which will take several years to be written, scrutinised, and approved in both the UK and in all the Commonwealth realms, as per how long it took The Perth Agreement to come into law - proposed in 2011, came into being as law in 2015), I'm not sure how this could be accomplished. The area of 'treason' is murky as the most recent removals for treason relate to Princes fighting on the side of Germany in WWII if I remember correctly.

I can definitely do a reading on this and see if Prince William is planning anything. It will be interesting to see what the cards say about it. ")

[writtenbygracewilliams]

Peerages & Titles: female inheritance

[Full list of disclaimers is in the master post but tl;dr is that sources for this information are not consistent, sources may be modern, and this may be edited/expanded at anytime as my research continues.]

I knew this was gonna be a messy one but I didn’t think it would lead to me reading a 40 pg UK parliamentary report 😭 strap in, but it’s fascinating and also lowkey relevant to the Featherington’s and Michaela Stirling.

Some baronies and earldoms in the peerage of England may be inherited by women/daughters.

Some old earldoms issued by letters patent are able to pass to heirs of the body, with no male preference, and follow the same rules of baronies by writ (see below).

In the early medieval period earldoms were passed to the son of the earl, or the brother of the earl if he had no children. If he had a single daughter, his son-in-law would inherit the lands and usually the peerage—but more complex cases may have been decided by the crown. [If passing to a son-in-law, it would presumably be abeyant until she married but I did not find this specifically mentioned.]

In the 13th century, the son-in-law would automatically inherit the peerage when inheriting the land.

In the 15th century, the earldom reverted to the crown—who would often regrant it to the eldest son-in-law.

In the 17th century, the earldom would revert to abeyance unless and until there was only one remaining daughter.

Women may inherit certain baronies in the peerage of England, if they were baronies by writ. From the late 14th century [1388 to be exact] most peers have been created by letters patent, however most baronies created before this time were by a writ of summons.

Having no letters patent, or remainder, baronies by writ are not limited to male heirs. A baron who left a sole daughter may have his daughter inherit the barony, and either be a baroness in her own right or her husband will inherit the barony. [I cannot confirm which for the life of me, but based on prior knowledge I lean toward the latter.] [Maybe it’s a choice? Highly unlikely.]

Where there is more than one daughter, the barony will fall into a state of abeyance between the co-heirs.

The co-heirs should reach an honourable agreement (without bribery or corruption) as to who will claim the title, the claimant then petitioning the crown to terminate the abeyance.

A claimant must represent at least one third of an abeyant title, and the title must not have been abeyant for more than 100 years.

If there is ever only one remaining co-heir, they do not have to petition the crown in order to assume the title.

The crown may intervene and terminate an abeyant title at any time.

The inheritance of Scottish peerages varies, but in many instances [and this applies to all Scottish peers] a daughter may inherit the title, and will do so over her younger sisters. Co-heirs and abeyance are avoided entirely in the peerage of Scotland. [I have plans to extend this point since the introduction of Michaela, bear with me, but as always feel free to drop q’s in my ask]

Many original limitations for succession in the peerage of Ireland are not known. Today, there is only one Irish viscountcy and one barony that may pass through the female line and they are both held by the same person. [Viscount Massereene and Ferrand].

Titles that cannot be inherited by daughters do not automatically go to daughter’s sons, a special remainder must be in place. [This is what Portia does/forges to say that her first grandson will inherit the Featherington estate, she creates (forges) a special remainder.]

For example, IF the Featherington Barony was created by writ [it clearly was not, but I think it would be cool if it was] then after the death of Lord Featherington the barony would have become abeyant. [Instead it becomes dormant]. Phillipa, Prudence and Penelope would have to agree amongst themselves who should inherit the title. Do I see that happening? No, they’re a trainwreck, but it would make good tv. Queen Charlotte [technically the Prince Regent] could intervene at any time to choose who will take the title/peerage/estate.

Kind of can’t believe I got through that, mad props if any of you did. Link to the master post here with all the peerage information, drop any questions in my ask :)

–GW xo

[mr-no-one-at-all]

International Women's Day

On this day in history - March 8

Today is International Women’s Day. The origins go back to the early 20th century when women in industrialized countries began fighting for better conditions. Factories were dangerous. Wages were low. Hours were long. In 1908, 15,000 women marched through New York City, demanding fair pay, shorter shifts, and the right to vote. Their efforts gained attention. The next year, the Socialist Party of America German activist Clara Zetkin proposed making it an international movement in 1910. The idea gained support, and in 1911, the first official celebrations took place in Germany, Austria, Denmark and Switzerland.

A defining moment came in 1917 during the Russian Revolution. On March 8th, women textile workers in Petrograd went on strike, calling for "bread and peace." Their protest grew. Within days, thousands joined, forcing Tsar Nicholas II to step down. The provisional government granted women the right to vote soon after. Recognizing their role in the revolution, the Soviet Union made March 8th a national holiday, and other socialist countries followed. At the same time the day lost momentum in the west. It wasn’t until the 1970s, with the rise of second-wave feminism, that it regained significance. In 1977, the United Nations officially recognized March 8th, encouraging all nations to support women’s rights and gender equality.

To understand why this day matters we need to look at the history of patriarchy. It was not always the dominant system. Early hunter-gatherer societies were largely egalitarian. Men and women both provided food, made decisions, and held influence. That balance changed around 10,000 BCE when the Agricultural Revolution introduced private property and inheritance. Control over land meant control over wealth. Over time, men took charge and ensured that their sons inherited property. Women’s independence eroded.

Ancient civilizations deepened patriarchal structures. In Babylon, the Code of Hammurabi (1754 BCE) gave men legal authority over women. In Greece, Aristotle claimed women were weaker by nature. Roman law placed women under the guardianship of their fathers or husbands. Religion strengthened these ideas. Christianity, Islam, and Confucianism all promoted male dominance in family and society. The Middle Ages continued this pattern. Most women were confined to domestic work, though some gained influence in monasteries, trade guilds, or royal courts. Thousands of women were also accused of witchcraft and executed between the 15th and 17th centuries. Independent women, especially those without male protection, were seen as threats.

The Enlightenment introduced the idea of equality, but mainly for men. Women were still treated as second-class. Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) was one of the first major challenges to this belief. It proposed that the differences between men's and women's roles in society were created by culture and not by nature.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the first-wave feminist movement fought for legal rights, education, and suffrage. Women demanded the vote. Suffragettes like the Pankhurst family in the UK and Alice Paul in the United States led protests, faced arrests, and endured violence. In the UK they even used terrorism like bombing campaigns. Their struggle paid off. In 1920, women won the right to vote in the United States. Britain followed in 1928, and many other countries soon did the same.

The second wave of feminism (1960s–1980s) fought for more than voting rights. Women demanded equal pay, reproductive freedom, and protection from discrimination. Books like Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex and Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique challenged gender roles. Activists pushed for change and forced the politicians to listen. Many laws that strengthened the status for women followed.

By the 1990s third-wave feminism introduced a broader view. Women’s struggles were not all the same. Race, class, and sexuality shaped experiences differently. The movement became more inclusive, recognizing the unique challenges different women faced. Movements like the later MeToo-campaig have exposed the deep roots of gender-based violence.

Today, International Women’s Day is both a celebration and a reminder. Progress has been made, but the fight is far from over. Women still face wage gaps, political underrepresentation, and violence. But history has proven one thing. Women will always be a force to be reckoned with in fights for equal rights.