Tag: coronation

British PM Sunak to read from biblical book at King Charles III’s Coronation

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London: Rishi Sunak will read from the biblical book of Colossians at the Coronation of King Charles III in keeping with the recent tradition of British Prime Ministers giving readings at State occasions, the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury revealed as part of the official Liturgy for the religious ceremony at Westminster Abbey here on May 6.
Sunak, Britain’s first Prime Minister of Indian heritage and a practicing Hindu, reading from a biblical book will resonate with the multi-faith theme being struck for the Christian ceremony.
Lambeth Palace, the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury Reverend Justin Welby, said that members of other faith traditions will play an active role in the service for the first time.

“The Archbishop of Canterbury has selected a new Epistle for this Coronation, which will be Colossians 1:9-17. This passage has been chosen to reflect the theme of service to others, and the loving rule of Christ over all people and all things, which runs through this Coronation Liturgy,” Lambeth Palace said.
“Following recent tradition of British Prime Ministers giving readings at State occasions as Head of the host Nation’s government this will be read by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak,” it said.
By longstanding tradition, the Archbishop of Canterbury authorises a new Liturgy or the form according to which a public religious worship takes place for every Coronation. The three oaths by the King at the heart of the service remain unchanged, including the promise to maintain “the Protestant Reformed Religion”.
The overall theme of the Liturgy is “Called to Serve”, which is intended to reflect the commitment that the King will make to serve God and the people of the United Kingdom.
“I am delighted that the service will recognise and celebrate tradition, speaking to the great history of our nation, our customs, and those who came before us. At the same time, the service contains new elements that reflect the diversity of our contemporary society,” said Welby.

His office said the service has been designed to reflect the changes in the UK since Charles’ mother Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation in 1953, the character of Britain as it is today, and the Church of England’s role in contemporary society. As one of the newer elements, the 74-year-old monarch will pray aloud in the Abbey using words specially written for the occasion that reflect the “duty and privilege of the Sovereign to serve all communities”.
Lambeth Palace confirmed that the Presentation of the Regalia will be made by Members of the House of Lords and for the first time, some of the items which have no Christian meaning or symbolism will be presented by peers who belong to different faith traditions: Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Sikhism.
Buckingham Palace had previously confirmed that Lord Narendra Babubhai Patel, 84, will represent the Hindu faith and hand over the Sovereign’s Ring to Charles. While Lord Indrajit Singh, 90, will represent the Sikh faith and present the Coronation Glove, Lord Syed Kamall, 56, of Indo-Guyanese heritage, will represent the Muslim faith and present the Armills or a pair of bracelets.
“At the end of the procession at the close of the service, before His Majesty proceeds to the Gold State Coach, the King will receive and acknowledge a spoken greeting delivered in unison by Representatives from Jewish, Hindu, Sikh, Muslim and Buddhist communities,” Lambeth Palace said.
The thousands congregated at the Abbey and millions expected to be watching on screens as the ceremony is telecast live will be invited to say the words: “I swear that I will pay true allegiance to Your Majesty, and to your heirs and successors according to law so help me God”.
The five elements of the historic “English Coronation Rite” will take place in their traditional order: The Recognition; The Oath; The Anointing; The Investiture and Crowning; and The Enthronement and Homage.
These elements will take place within the traditional structure of a service of Holy Communion, including prayers and Bible readings, and King Charles and Queen Camilla will receive Holy Communion during the service.
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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 30, 2023
Sonam Kapoor to deliver a spoken word piece at King Charles’ Coronation Concert

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Mumbai: Bollywood actress Sonam Kapoor is all set to share stage with icons such as Lionel Richie, Katy Perry and Tom Cruise at King Charles’ Coronation Concert on May 7.
She has been invited to deliver an exclusive spoken word piece at the highly-anticipated King Charles III’s Coronation Concert where she will be introducing Steve Winwood and the exclusive Commonwealth virtual choir on May 7, at the Windsor Castle, United Kingdom.
On May 6, the Coronation of His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen Consort will be held at Westminster Abbey, followed by a celebratory concert on May 7 at Windsor Castle.

The concert will feature global music icons and contemporary stars celebrating the historic occasion.
On the occasion, Sonam mentioned: “I am honoured to join the Commonwealth virtual choir for this ceremony, celebrating His Majesty’s love for music and art. It’s a momentous occasion that signifies a commitment to a positive, inclusive, and optimistic future for the United Kingdom, with the Choir’s music paying tribute to the royal legacy and promoting unity, peace, and joy.”
Introducing them, Sonam will be the only Indian celebrity to be present and participate in this historic event.
Hosted by Hugh Bonneville, the concert will celebrate the Coronation of Their Majesties The King and The Queen in front of 20,000 members of the public and invited guests, as well as millions watching around the world.
It will feature artists such as Katy Perry, Lionel Richie, Andrea Bocelli, Sir Bryn Terfel, Freya Ridings, Alexis Ffrench and a collaboration of five Royal patronages amongst others, whilst stars including Tom Cruise, Dame Joan Collins and Sir Tom Jones will appear via video message.

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( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 30, 2023
Anointing screen to be used in King Charles coronation revealed

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The king and the queen consort will be anointed behind a specially created screen of fine embroidery, held by poles hewn from an ancient windblown Windsor oak and mounted with eagles cast in bronze and gilded in gold leaf, Buckingham Palace has announced.
The anointing screen has been blessed at a special service at the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace, and will be used at what historically has been viewed as the most sacred moment of the coronation.
The anointing is traditionally regarded as a moment between the sovereign and God, and the screen is to be used to give sanctity to this moment. Traditionally, the moment is not photographed or televised.
At Elizabeth II’s coronation, an opulent canopy of rich gold fabric was held aloft over the monarch’s head.
Charles’s screen will allow greater privacy as the archbishop of Canterbury pours the chrism, or holy oil, which has been specially blessed in Jerusalem, from a golden ampulla into the 12th-century coronation spoon. The archbishop will then anoint the king by making a cross on the hands, breast and head, and perform the same on Camilla.
The tradition of anointing dates back to the Old Testament, which describes the anointing of Solomon by Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet, and was one of the medieval holy sacraments emphasising the spiritual status of the sovereign.
Commonwealth countries’ names stitched on to the screen. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA
The anointing screen, including its four oak wooden poles, is 2.6 metres tall and 2.2 metres wide. The wooden framework, designed and created by Nick Gutfreund of the Worshipful Company of Carpenters, is made from a windblown tree from the Windsor estate originally planted in 1765. The poles have been limed and waxed, and at the top of each are mounted two eagles cast in bronze and gilded in gold leaf.
Detail of an eagle on top a pole of the screen. Photograph: Victoria Jones/PA
The form of an eagle has longstanding associations with coronations. Eagles have appeared on previous coronation canopies, including that used by Elizabeth II in 1953. The ampulla used for anointing is eagle-shaped.

Embroidered by the Royal School of Needlework and by Digitek Embroidery, and donated by the City of London Corporation and participating livery companies, the screen is three-sided, with the open side to face the high altar in Westminster Abbey.
Designed by the iconographer Aidan Hart, the central design takes the form of a tree, which includes the names of the 56 Commonwealth nations, with the king’s cypher at the base, and is inspired by the stained-glass sanctuary window in the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace, designed for the late queen’s golden jubilee.
Two sides feature a simple cross in maroon gold, blue and red, inspired by the colours and patterning of the Cosmati pavement at Westminster Abbey where the anointing will take place. The cloth is made of wool from Australia and New Zealand, woven and finished in UK mills.
Hart said: “The inspiration of the Chapel Royal stained-glass window was personally requested by his majesty the king. Each and every element of the design has been specifically chosen to symbolise aspects of this historic coronation and the Commonwealth, from the birds that symbolise the joy and interaction among members of a community living in harmony, to the rejoicing angels and the dove that represents the Holy Spirit.”
Embroiders at work on part of the screen at the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace in March. Photograph: Kirsty O’Connor/PA
The screen will be held by service personnel from regiments of the Household Division, replacing the knights that usually held the canopy. In bygone days, being selected to bear the canopy was seen as a sign of being in royal favour.
At Charles II’s coronation in 1661, there was an unseemly squabble between the barons of the Cinque Ports, charged with holding the silk canopy above the king’s head, and the king’s footmen. One of the job’s perks, according to the barons, was that they got to chop up the banner and each keep a piece. But they were challenged by the footmen, who also wanted the canopy, and a fight broke out, which the barons won.
On Friday, the Stone of Destiny, the ancient symbol of Scotland’s monarchy, left Edinburgh Castle for the first time since its return to Scotland in 1996 to embark on its journey to Westminster Abbey.
The 125kg stone was piped out during a ceremonial send-off, and will be placed beneath the coronation chair, which was specially built in the 14th century with the stone underneath. Getting it back in will be a challenge.
“It’s extremely tight. In fact it will not go in straight. It’s got bare millimetres to spare,” said Colin Muir, a senior stone conservator at Historic Environment Scotland, who has the task of helping to ensure it is installed.
Officials stand by the Stone of Destiny at Edinburgh Castle on Friday. Photograph: Russell Cheyne/AFP/Getty Images
Also known as the Stone of Scone, it was used for centuries in the coronations of monarchs and the inauguration of Scottish kings, but in 1296 after his invasion into Scotland during the wars of independence, England’s King Edward I removed the stone from Scotland. In about 1300 he had a chair built to hold the stone and installed it at Westminster Abbey.
For 700 years the stone was housed in the abbey, although in 1950 it was taken in a daring raid by four Scottish students, only to be found eventually at Arbroath Abbey.
It was officially returned to Scotland in 1996 and usually sits next to the crown jewels of Scotland in Edinburgh Castle’s Crown Room.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 29, 2023
‘I’ll be reading a book’: Nottingham public indifferent to King Charles coronation

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Chris Booth spent much of Tuesday morning supervising the installation of a crown 4.2 metres wide on the stone columns at the front of Nottingham’s Council House.
The crown had been brought out of a council depot (where it is stored alongside a vast goose that appears annually for the Nottingham goose fair), repainted and had had its plastic pearls retrofitted with LED bulbs so they can be lit up at night.
For a while, the team of six men using scaffolding and a cherrypicker lift struggled to reattach the cross and orb to the top of the crown, but by 2pm it was in place and firmly secured with six ratchet straps. “It’s a very nervous time. A lot of stuff can go wrong,” said Booth, an operations manager with John E Wright & Co, a signage company.
In the Old Market Square in front of the building, a few people took out their phones to take pictures but most people walked by, indifferent to the council’s coronation preparations.
Polling suggests the Midlands is the area of Britain where people are least moved by the coronation. When asked in a recent YouGov survey “how much do you care about the forthcoming coronation of King Charles”, 41% of people in the Midlands said they cared “not very much”. In Scotland, 45% of those polled said they cared “not at all”, but attitudes in the Midlands revealed widespread ambivalence.
The city’s muted excitement levels are reflected in the number of applications for street closures so that coronation parties can be held. Nottingham city council has received applications for 10 street parties, about half the number of requests made before the queen’s jubilee last year.
Balloon seller Billy Davy in Nottingham city centre. Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
Billy Davy, who has been selling novelty balloons all over the country on and off for 30 years, sold about 200 during last year’s jubilee celebrations but does not expect to shift so many next week. “I’m not sure this one will be as good – I don’t think it’s as big an event,” he said.
Eddie Hall, busking with his guitar in the square as the crown was installed, said he had little interest in the coronation. “I might have a little glimpse of it but I’m not mad on them,” he said. “I don’t think people should have privilege from their birth – it’s what you do, not your birth, that should matter. I wouldn’t protest about it, but I don’t agree with it, it’s outdated.”

Busker Eddie Hall: ‘I don’t think people should have privilege from their birth.’ Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
Over the decades, the royal family have visited Nottingham dozens of times. The queen came here on at least 10 occasions. Princess Anne reopened the Theatre Royal after a refurbishment in 1978. On a rainy day in 1985, Charles visited with Diana, waved from the Council House balcony – just below where the fibreglass crown is now hanging – and had a seafood buffet lunch inside. He received a fire officer helmet from the Nottinghamshire fire brigade before returning to London in a plane he flew himself.
In 2009, Charles was in Nottingham again to unveil a plaque at the headquarters of Boots the chemist “to commemorate his visit during our 160th anniversary year”. These trips do not seem to have left an indelible impression, and most people struggle to say what precisely the royal family has done that has had a positive impact on the city.
Joanne Roe, who works for HMRC in customer insights, was walking through the flattened site of the former Broadmarsh shopping centre, a gloomy area of the city where many department stores have closed and a number of homeless people had gathered, some with sleeping bags slung over their shoulders. Black-and-white images of Nottingham from the queen’s 1953 coronation tour show a more vibrant, less desolate city centre. Roe was not sure that the coronation celebrations would act as much of a boost to the local economy. “Will the coronation bring money into the country? If it does, that money won’t come to Nottingham,” she said.
Joanne Roe: ‘I might have it on in the background.’ Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
She was uncertain about when the coronation was due to take place. “Is it on Saturday? If I’m at home, I might have it on in the background. I’m slightly monarchist, but not massively. I don’t have any negative feelings towards them. They are not a meaningful part of my life,” she said.
The only royal visit that seems to have stuck in people’s minds was the trip made by Prince Harry and Meghan in 2017, their first official appearance after announcing their engagement. Sam Harrison, a visitor services supervisor at Nottingham Contemporary gallery, was working that morning. “People in the streets outside were electrified, craning their necks. It’s not surprising – they were superstars on a global level,” he said.
He was unsure whether the coronation would provoke similar levels of excitement. “My mum really wants to watch it. If I’m off work, I’ll ask her to come over and watch it with me. I am a republican, in principle, but I wouldn’t say the monarchy is a burning issue for me.”
Sam Harrison: ‘I wouldn’t say the monarchy is a burning issue for me.’ Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
Gauging opinions on the monarchy, as pollsters know, requires the question to be carefully worded. When asked if she supported the monarchy, Samiha Zahin, 20, a microbiology student at Leicester University, said yes. “I think it’s cool to have princes and princesses, but I wish William was going to be king, he’s younger,” she said.
Asked if the cost of the coronation was excessive and if the royal family represented value for money, she, like most people questioned, became more negative in her responses. “£100m? They should just spend £1,000 and have a nice small family gathering, and say: OK, now you are king,” she said.
Samiha Zahin, centre right, in front of the Council House. Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
The council has organised a temporary reopening of Nottingham Castle over the coronation weekend and is selling 1,500 tickets at £1 each so that people can watch the event on a big screen. William Catherall, 78, a retired engineer, said he had no desire to attend.
“I watched the last coronation, I was about five, at a friend’s house. About 20 people, mainly ladies, were all jammed into this front room in front of a tiny television,” he said. “I won’t be watching this time. I was brought up to respect the royal family, but I have lost that respect – all the scandals, particularly Andrew. I’ll be reading a book in the garden, I won’t be glued to the television.”
At a politics class at Bilborough sixth-form college, on the western fringes of the city, student attitudes to the monarchy initially echoed this ambivalence. Of the 20 students there at the start of the class, no one wanted to describe themselves as a monarchist but only two identified themselves as firm republicans. Ten raised their hands to the suggestion that they felt neutral (the remaining seven did not want to commit even to indifference).
Student Axl Nicholls: ‘We’re paying a lot of money for a coronation.’ Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
But as the conversation progressed (and a few more firmly anti-monarchy pupils turned up late), more students expressed firm opposition to the crown, in line with polling showing that support for the monarchy is lowest among 18- to 24-year-olds.
Axl Nicholls was troubled by the royal family’s ties to a history of colonising other countries, thinly hidden beneath the veneer of the Commonwealth. “I also think with the state of the economy, the fact that people are using food banks and workers are feeling they have to go on strike, we’re paying a lot of money for a coronation. In the last year we’ve had a jubilee celebration, a funeral and now a coronation. There’s a lot of bad media around the family, particularly Prince Andrew. I just feel like it’s not necessary – what’s the point of it?”
Oliver Brown: ‘He’s quite old to be becoming king now.’ Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian
Another student, Oliver Brown, said: “I hate to say it, but the elephant in the room is that he’s quite old to be becoming king now. I can’t say he represents me; I struggle with his age.”
Three-quarters of the A-level students said they would not be watching the coronation, and not all of the four people who said they were going to coronation parties were motivated by patriotism. One student said she would be helping at a Salvation Army street party, which was “more of a celebration of community than the monarchy”.
Rachel Vernon was looking forward to attending a “Fuck the King” anti-monarchy party on the Friday before the coronation. “Some people are doing things with British flags, Vivienne Westwood-style; I’m going to go as the Tiger King, Joe Exotic,” she said.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 28, 2023
Cinemas will show King Charles’s coronation. Is this their crowning glory, or a servile sop?

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For some, the cinema will be a sanctuary from the onslaught of the coronation. It will be a dark, warm, safe space to visit for anyone who wants to seal themselves away from the flag-waving inanity of the rest of the country next Saturday lunchtime. It sounds incredibly inviting. I haven’t ruled out doing it myself.
That said, anyone who plans to use their local cinema as a coronation escape hatch might want to check ahead a little bit first. If, for example, their plan was to visit the Showcase Cinema de Lux in the Bluewater shopping centre, then I am afraid they are doomed to be thwarted. This is because, according to a press release, the cinema will be showing the coronation free of charge.
More than that, in fact. The cinema has chosen to rename its bar area The King’s Gallery. The drinks it serves have been renamed things like Corgi Cosmo and Monarch Mojito. A new portrait of King Charles will be hung there, painted by the cinema’s vice president of global marketing. Showcase even hired a King Charles lookalike to sort of wander around for a photoshoot. “King Charles seemed extremely impressed with the refurbishment”, said the press release of a man they hired specifically to look extremely impressed with the refurbishment.
Now, the big question is whether this is a good idea or not. Should cinemas be showing the coronation? I have to admit, I’m a little on the fence about it. My first instinct was that it instantly devalues the concept of cinema. To go and see a film is to witness a vast, expensive vision of imagination that has been specifically designed to be seen in that precise environment. The image will have been calibrated for maximum spectacle. The sound will burst forth overwhelmingly. Cinemas are engineered to be full-body – sometimes even out-of-body – experiences.
It isn’t something you necessarily equate with live BBC television footage of a carriage slowly trundling past a branch of Pret. Indeed, had the film pioneers of a century ago realised that one day their defining contribution to global culture would be used to show Huw Edwards listlessly filling for time while thousands of elderly dignitaries edge their way into Westminster Abbey, there’s a good chance they might not have bothered with it.
That said, this is far too precious an attitude to take. Cinemas, as we all know, are in trouble. People are only too happy to avoid seeing new releases theatrically now, because they know that they’ll just turn up for free on Disney+ in a few weeks. When a film does even reasonably well these days, it’s an anomaly. The death of the theatrical experience is real, and cinemas need to change or die.
Viewed through this lens, showing the coronation seems like a no-brainer. People will turn up. Seats will be filled. They might cry, like you did during Titanic. They might laugh, like they did during Home Alone. They might drunkenly vomit, like one guy did at the end of The Dark Knight when I went to see it 15 years ago. The actual content of the coronation might be dull and staid, but the feeling it will engender inside the cinema has the potential to be absolutely joyous.
And who knows, simply being in a cinema might remind the coronation-watchers why they used to love cinemas. They might become flooded with nostalgia. They might clutch each other’s hands over the armrests like they did when they were teenagers. They might see a poster for a new release, and decide to take a chance on it, and fall in love and start going to the cinema regularly again. There is a chance – a small one, but a chance – that putting the coronation on in cinemas will save cinema as we know it.

So, on reflection, I think I am all for this turn of events. The coronation should be shown in cinemas. In fact it should only be shown in cinemas, because that way all the people who actually like that rubbish will all be in one place and I’ll be able to go about my day unimpeded.
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#Cinemas #show #King #Charless #coronation #crowning #glory #servile #sop
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 27, 2023
Wandering goslings and a coronation capsule: Tuesday’s best photos

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The Guardian’s picture editors select photo highlights from around the world
Continue reading…

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#Wandering #goslings #coronation #capsule #Tuesdays #photos
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 25, 2023
The only Australian with a role in King Charles’ coronation is from Wangaratta – where most people don’t know him

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The only Australian to play an official role in the coronation of King Charles III lives in the small Victorian town of Wangaratta – but most in the town have never heard of him.
Simon Abney-Hastings, the 15th Earl of Loudon, is one of 13 people appointed to play a ceremonial role at the 6 May ceremony.
In a statement provided to some media outlets, his private secretary, Terence Guthridge, said Abney-Hastings was “delighted” to have been invited to be the bearer of the great golden spurs, a part of the ceremony dating back to the coronation of Richard I (Richard the Lionheart), in 1189.
The mayor of the Rural City of Wangaratta, Dean Rees, learned of Abney-Hastings only recently, from media reports. Journalists from Melbourne have been scouting around the town trying to catch a glimpse of the royal, and his face was on the front page of the local independent newspaper, the Wangaratta Chronicle, on Friday.
“We certainly did not know that we had an earl – what is he, the 15th Earl of Loudon?” Rees told Guardian Australia. “He keeps a very low profile.”
Wangaratta, famously described as a ‘horrible town’ by Nick Cave Photograph: Stuart Walmsley/The Guardian
Wangaratta is not the easiest town in which to keep a low profile: it has just under 30,000 residents and only three supermarkets. Shoppers trying to navigate the grocery aisles at Woolworths on Saturday morning have to dodge around clusters of people who have stopped for a chat.
The north-east Victorian town had one of the highest growth rates in the state in 2021, due in part to mass regional migration during Melbourne’s extended Covid lockdowns. In the past decade it has undergone a rebranding from an industrial town, powered by employers such as Bruck Textiles, which collapsed in 2014, to a gateway to the Milawa and King Valley wine and food regions.
Rees said Abney-Hastings clearly valued his privacy “and we have got to respect his wishes”.

“He is a resident of Wangaratta and we are very proud to have him,” he said. “I hope he doesn’t have too many issues from the media as to his privacy.”
Abney-Hastings’ desire for privacy does not extend to Facebook, where he regularly updates his 991 followers about the Melbourne Highland Games and Celtic Festival, of of which he is a patron.
He also posted that he was “delighted and sincerely honoured to accept the invitation by the Crown to perform the Bearer of the Great Golden Spurs”.
The gold spurs feature a Tudor rose and a red velvet covered strap, and symbolise knighthood. The set currently in circulation was made in 1661 for Charles II. They were traditionally fastened to the sovereign’s feet but are now just held up to their ankles, then placed on the altar.
The 48-year-old is a direct descendent of George Plantagenet, the brother of Edward IV and Richard III, through his grandmother, Barbara Huddleston Abney-Hastings. Some historians have claimed that Edward was illegitimate and that George, as the eldest legitimate son, should have inherited. In 2004, a Channel 4 documentary entitled Britain’s Real Monarch asserted that Michael Abney-Hastings, the current earl’s father, was, as George Plantagenet’s eldest heir, the rightful king of England.
The Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, visits a winery near his home town during last year’s Victorian election campaign. Photograph: Luis Ascui/AAP
In a statement to Nine Newspapers, Guthridge acknowledged the claim, saying that “as a direct descendant of George Plantagenet, Simon Abney-Hastings has a right to inherit the throne of England”. But he added that the earl was a loyal supporter of the late Queen and her eldest son and had no intention of asserting himself.
“Indeed, they exchange birthday or Christmas cards each year,” the statement said.
But a claim to the English throne is not enough to make him one of Wangaratta’s most famous residents. That honour, says Rees, is a three-way tie between Nick Cave, who was expelled from Wangaratta high school at the age of 13 and later described it as a “horrible town” that inspired his bleak artistic vision; the Olympic cyclist Dean Woods, who won gold in the team pursuit at Los Angeles in 1984 and whose name and achievements adorn signs welcoming visitors to the town; and the current Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews.
Rex Hartwig, a two-time Wimbledon doubles champion who retired to a property on the outskirts of town, and the bushranger Ned Kelly, who did not even live in Wangaratta but hid out in the Warby Ranges and was arrested in the nearby village of Glenrowan, also rank before Abney-Hastings in a list of Wangaratta royalty.
A ceremonial role in the coronation is not likely to bump him up the list, Rees said.
“He might get some photos over there with the king that might make it into the paper, and it will all slow down from there,” he said.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

April 25, 2023
Republican donor retreat suggests Donald Trump is far from a coronation

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Without mentioning Trump’s name, Kemp pinned blame on the former president’s election loss grievances and warned that “not a single swing voter” will vote for a GOP nominee making such claims, calling 2020 “ancient history.”
Kemp, who found himself the object of Trump’s ire after declining to intervene to reverse his Georgia loss in 2020, represents a wing of the Republican Party that has sought to resist Trump’s grasp. So does New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu. So does former Vice President Mike Pence. Here — while Trump held his own private meetings out of sight — all three were given prime speaking slots.
That the Republican committee invited dissenters of Trump, even prospective challengers in next year’s presidential primary, points to the fact that even though Trump has first place in the polls, there are still many months of fighting ahead of him. His potential nomination is unlikely to come as a coronation.
The party’s donors are still weighing whether there is a viable alternative to Trump, though there is still no clear consensus on the matter, several said in interviews this weekend.
Standing in the lobby of the Four Seasons on Saturday, Sununu talked about Trump like this: “I don’t think he can win in 2024,” the governor said in an interview. “You don’t have to be angry about it. You don’t have to be negative about it. I think you just have to be willing to talk about it and bring real solutions to the table.”
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung referenced a POLITICO report of Trump’s robust first-quarter fundraising and said, “Poll after poll [shows] President Trump crushing the competition, there is no doubt whoever stands in his way will get eviscerated.”
Over breakfast, according to a person in the room and a copy of his speech obtained by POLITICO, Kemp told the donors the Republican nominee “must” be able to win Georgia’s 16 electoral college votes in order to win the White House.
“We have to be able to win a general election,” Kemp said. His comments could apply not only to Trump, but also to the defeat this fall of Trump-backed and scandal-plagued candidates like Herschel Walker, who lost his race even as Kemp defeated a well-funded Democratic challenger by nearly 8 points.

So far, a solution to stopping Trump has proved elusive to donors and operatives who have claimed for years they were trying to do just that.
Other likely primary opponents of Trump, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), were also invited to the RNC gathering, but declined due to scheduling conflicts. Former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate Asa Hutchinson, who called for Trump to drop out of the race post-indictment, and a sunglasses-clad Perry Johnson, a Michigan businessman running for president, also received invitations. Hutchinson and Johnson buzzed around the retreat, but did not have speaking slots.
“They’re sorting through it,” Hutchinson said, referring to how donors here and party activists elsewhere have responded to officials like Kemp, Sununu, himself and others who say the party must avoid a repeat of the 2020 general election. “But they’ve got to hear that message, and it’s like realism is coming to the party. And it takes people actually having the courage to say it before people will face that reality.”
Sheltered from the party-tractors circling a honky-tonk district just beyond the doors, some of the GOP’s deepest pocketed supporters gathered inside the luxury hotel Friday and Saturday. There, they hoped to be reassured of the party’s upcoming electoral prospects after a bruising midterm cycle and as an uncertain presidential election looms. Donors sipping white wine in the lobby lounge gawked at the pink-cowgirl-hat-clad bachelorette parties on the sidewalk outside. Inside the hotel Friday afternoon, a couple in town for a country music concert squealed at the sight of Kellyanne Conway, who was among the panelists at the weekend-long donor summit.
Ahead of the get-together and throughout the weekend, a slate of Republican 2024 hopefuls jetted up and down the East Coast and across the Midwest, the mad dash of candidates marking the busiest campaign week to date in the nascent presidential race. And that primary contest, of course, is a fight for what appears to be an increasingly difficult shot at dethroning Trump.
“How in God’s name could Donald Trump be portrayed as a victim? But it’s being done,” said one Republican donor at the event referencing Trump’s indictment, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, like others there who discussed with POLITICO the unfolding presidential primary.
The donor charged that Trump as the 2024 nominee “would lose even against Biden, which is tragic in its own sense,” but raised doubts about whether the candidates he did like — Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo — had the charisma or ability to push through.
Just minutes after the donor floated Pompeo’s name as a candidate of interest, the former secretary of state announced Friday evening he wouldn’t seek the nomination after all. Pompeo’s decision came after the GOP primary field has gradually swollen — and as Trump has surged in public polling.
But it didn’t stop Trump’s detractors from taking a swing in front of the audience of donors.
In his Friday night address and as donors dined on filet mignon and mashed potatoes, Pence decried “the politics of personality” and “lure of populism unmoored to timeless conservative values,” according to a copy of his prepared remarks. And Trump’s former running-mate described the presidential primary as not just a contest between the candidates involved, but a “conflict of visions” with existential implications.
Pence went after Trump directly on a number of policy areas, from defense and intervention in Ukraine to a ballooning national debt and Trump’s opposition to reforming entitlement programs, referring to him as “our former president.” He criticized Republicans’ waning interest in waging war against marriage equality, and the reticence some now appear to have about further restricting abortion rights — two areas where he finds himself at odds with his former boss.
The uncertain political atmosphere this weekend is much different from the RNC’s donor retreat a year ago, when an optimistic set of top party benefactors in New Orleans were expecting to see a red wave in the 2022 midterm elections. President Joe Biden and Democratic incumbents had approval numbers in the tank, and the GOP had just given Virginia Democrats an unexpected shellacking months earlier.
But the anticipated Republican Senate takeover this fall never materialized — in fact, the party lost a seat in the chamber — and the GOP only narrowly took over House control (or, as Kemp put it Saturday, “barely won the House majority back.”). Republicans lost gubernatorial races in Arizona and Pennsylvania that were widely believed to be winnable, if not for nominating candidates who espoused Trump’s stolen-election claims and other conspiracy theories that proved unpopular with the general electorate.
As the party elite gathered this time, any sense of optimism about Republicans’ electoral prospects was much less palpable.
Another donor, who said he was no diehard Trump fan, questioned not just DeSantis’ ability to break through in the primary but whether he could win in a general election. Calling the recent indictment against Trump “jet fuel” in the primary, the donor — like others here — said he was nearly resolved to the fact that Trump will be the party’s 2024 nominee.
Kemp in his speech outlined the policies he ran on to cruise to reelection as governor, a race he won against one of the Democratic Party’s top stars. Rather than moving to the middle on policy, Kemp in his campaign still touted deeply conservative measures like a six-week abortion ban, approving the permitless carry of handguns and banning certain lessons in schools about racism.
But throughout his speech, Kemp chided Republicans who have become “distracted” by claims about stolen elections and, more recently, Trump’s current and pending legal cases in New York and Georgia, asserting that such conversations only help Democrats.
Johnson, the Michigan candidate not currently registering in presidential polls, carried a stack of his book, “Two Cents to Save America,” around the hotel lobby restaurant on Saturday. He laughed recounting his takeaways from conversations with donors this weekend, as well as from a panel of RNC advisory council members Friday evening.
“Obviously, they know Trump lost,” Johnson said. “Even though we may have had an irregular situation in elections, they’re saying right on stage, it hasn’t changed. We’re going to continue to have mass mail ballots. And if the Republicans want to win, they have to live under the new reality.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 15, 2023
Invites issued for King Charles’ coronation on May 6

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London: Invites for the May 6 coronation of the UK’s King Charles III have been issued by the Buckingham Palace.
Along with the ornately illustrated invitation from “King Charles III and Queen Camilla”, a new photograph of the royals which was taken last month in the Blue Drawing Room at the Buckingham Palace was also released on Tuesday.
The invite, printed on recycled paper, shows the coronation will mark a change in how Camilla is titled — from Queen Consort to Queen.

In a statement, the Palace said the invitation will be issued in due course to over 2,000 guests who will form the congregation in Westminster Abbey.
At the coronation service, Camilla will be crowned alongside the King, 18 years after the couple married.
The invitation has been designed by Andrew Jamieson, a heraldic artist and manuscript illuminator whose work is inspired by the chivalric themes of Arthurian legend.
The original artwork for the invitation was hand-painted in watercolour and gouache, and the design will be reproduced and printed on recycled card, with gold foil detailing.
Central to the design is the motif of the Green Man, an ancient figure from British folklore, symbolic of spring and rebirth, to celebrate the new reign.

The shape of the Green Man, crowned in natural foliage, is formed of leaves of oak, ivy and hawthorn, and the emblematic flowers of the UK.
The British wildflower meadow bordering the invitation features lily of the valley, cornflowers, wild strawberries, dog roses, bluebells, and a sprig of rosemary for remembrance, together with wildlife including a bee, a butterfly, a ladybird, a wren and a robin.
Flowers appear in groupings of three, signifying The King becoming the third monarch of his name, said the statement.
A lion, unicorn and a boar — taken from the coats of arms of the Monarch — can be seen amongst the flowers.
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#Invites #issued #King #Charles #coronation
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 5, 2023
Club for Growth moves to stop Jim Justice for Senate coronation

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The current incumbent, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin, has not said whether or not he will seek reelection and doesn’t plan to make an announcement until the end of the year. Should he run again, he faces an uphill battle, running in a presidential year in a state that Donald Trump won by 39 points in 2020.
The Club supported Mooney, a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, in his 2022 run against GOP Rep. David McKinley for the seat he currently holds. But the group’s president, David McIntosh, had expressed support for both Mooney and Morrisey and the Club held off on an endorsement while both considered a Senate bid.
“Rep. Mooney has proven in his time in Congress that he is a conservative champion who will fight for lower taxes, safer streets, school freedom, and parental rights for the people of West Virginia,” McIntosh said in a statement. “Mooney will be a great US Senator and we’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he’s elected.”
The Club’s involvement could create a messy primary in a key state for Republicans, who are looking to reclaim the Senate majority.
Justice enjoys high approval ratings and massive personal wealth. He has met with NRSC Chair Steve Daines, who encouraged him to enter the race, according to a person familiar with the committee’s plans. The Mitch McConnell-aligned Senate Leadership Fund also released a poll showing Justice as the only candidate who can beat Manchin.
McIntosh told reporters earlier this year that his group did not align with Justice, a former Democrat, but that it was interested in getting involved in the race.
“He would be in what we would call the moderate camp,” McIntosh said of Justice in February. “So we wouldn’t support him in the primary.”
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#Club #Growth #moves #stop #Jim #Justice #Senate #coronation
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 5, 2023