THE country will, after all, be able to watch the 100th birthday pageant in July
for Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother on television after ITV decided to
broadcast the event live and in its entirety.
Sir Trevor McDonald will present the 75-minute programme, which fills the
gap left by the BBC. Despite a substantial public outcry and Prime Ministerial
support for live coverage of the event yesterday, the BBC refused to reverse
its decision not to broadcast the event on either BBC1 or BBC2.
The Corporation stood by its decision and, as it endured further public
criticism, event organisers were relieved that the event will now be seen by
millions more than the 12,400 people with tickets to the parade at Horse
Guards, central London, on July 19.
The tickets will be free and no public money will be involved after two private
individuals came forward to meet the costs. The organisers announced
yesterday that Sir Donald Gosling and Ronald Hobson, founders of the NCP
group, agreed to pay the £450,000 bill for the parade, thus allowing all
corporate hospitality proceeds to go to charity.
Maj Evelyn Webb-Carter, chairman of the organising committee, said: "We
are delighted that, thanks to ITV, this tribute will now be seen by so many
people around the country."
A Clarence House spokesman declined to comment although private delight
in royal circles was not hard to detect. The news followed urgent discussions
between ITV executives and the event's producer, Maj Michael Parker, who
had approached them after the BBC's withdrawal.
It was decided that ITN would produce the event for the ITV network with
Sir Trevor to the fore, assisted by John Suchet and Kirsty Young. David
Liddiment, ITV's director of programmes, said: "The organisers want this
event to be seen by as many people as possible and asked ITV if it could
help."
Sir Trevor said: "The pageant will be a celebration of the life of a great lady
whose grace, charm and courage have enchanted us all. Such an event should
not pass unmarked." The BBC reiterated its belief that it was providing ample
coverage, with live broadcasts of a service of thanksgiving for the Queen
Mother and of the celebrations on Aug 4, her 100th birthday.
~*~
Prince's potshot misses the target(BBC News)
Prince Charles's latest diatribe against
genetically-modified food seeks to put
scientists in their place.
In a contribution to the Reith Lectures,
broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday night,
he decries humanity's "inability or refusal to
accept the existence of a guiding hand."
And he warns his listeners against "treating our
entire world as some 'great laboratory of life',
with potentially disastrous long-term
consequences."
The implication seems clear: science is a
double-edged tool, but religion has the only
answers that matter.
Perhaps that is unfair to the prince. He does
speak of the need for "a balance between the
heartfelt reason of instinctive wisdom and the
rational insghts of scientific analysis."
Zealots challenged
But much of what he says makes it sound as if
he believes that science and religion are
implacably opposed.
There are both scientific and religious zealots
who are convinced that they are right, and
they alone.
But a surprising number
of people manage to
keep a foot in both
camps, and to retain
their integrity while
doing so.
You no longer have to
be a flat-earther in
order to call yourself a
Christian, nor an
atheist if you want to
win respect in any
number of scientific
disciplines.
The edges are blurred, and if anything they are
becoming less distinct, not more.
Dr Maureen Palmer taught physiology for 16
years at the university of London. Now she is
an Anglican priest, sub-dean of Guildford
cathedral in Surrey.
She belongs to the Society of Ordained
Scientists, more than 80 clergy in the church
of England and other churches, all of whom
were working scientists before ordination.
Dr Palmer told BBC News Online she was
bemused by Prince Charles' broadside.
"I worry about it because it seems to me just
so simplistic. He appears to be totally unaware
that we've been modifying plants and animals
since the dawn of time.
Strange advice
"Some of what he says is good. We do need to
rediscover a reverence for the natural world,
seeing ourselves as part of it, not controlling
it.
"That would be fine if we had all the population
controls we needed, if life expectancy were
still 30 years, and most children died in
infancy.
"But the real world is
not like that. The
prince seems so out of
date. I don't know who
he mixes with.
"And the gap between
the Christian faith and
science is nothing like
as big as people think
it is."
In championing the role
of the unseen creator
he invokes, and telling scientists they must not
seek to change nature, the prince runs real
risks.
Tilting at windmills
He may encourage the religious
fundamentalists, the people convinced that
the biblical account of creation is literally true
and that Darwinism is a delusion.
He may antagonise the very many scientists
who will find it hard to recognise themselves in
his outburst.
And he will not make life any easier for the
Maureen Palmers, the people who try to keep
two disciplines informing and enriching each
other.
For some people, Prince Charles is a hero, the
man on the white charger who challenges the
conventional wisdom.
The danger is that he will turn out to be a
modern Don Quixote, riding out on his donkey
to do battle with an enemy of his own
imagining.
~*~
Princess opens £81m embassy(Electronic Telegraph)
By Marcus Warren in Moscow
BRITAIN'S new embassy in Moscow, the most sensitive construction project
undertaken by the government abroad, was opened yesterday after decades
of tough Cold War negotiations over its location.
A showcase for modern British art and architecture on a bend in the Moscow
river, the complex has been designed to emphasise openness, access and
light. In contrast to the grand Tsarist era art nouveau mansion where Britain's
diplomats worked until recently, the new £81 million building is filled with
specially commissioned modern paintings, sculpture and furniture.
Inside the new office block, guests can sink back into gracefully modernist
sofas. Poems by Milton, Blake, Auden and others ring the outside of the
building. The Princess Royal, speaking before officially opening the embassy,
said: "There is no virtual reality here. It is very physical and all about physical
contact, so important for diplomats."
Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, contrasted the new site and its airy
openness with the heavily protected compounds of the past, built as though
surrounded by enemy territory. He said: "This is not the fortress embassy we
might have built in the days of the Cold War. Look around you and you will
see that it is light and open. We want it to be part of Russia, not apart from
Russia."
Despite the rhetoric of openness, much of the cost of the building was spent
on securing it from Russian bugging devices. During construction only British
workers were allowed into the area of the political department.
A Russian bagpiper played for the guests as they arrived for yesterday's
ceremony. A brass quintet, one of its trumpeters the British vice-consul in
Yekaterinburg, played selections from Purcell and Handel inside.
Cold War tension between Britain and the Soviet Union condemned the
project to almost 30 years of bad tempered disputes. One of the few
examples of post-modern architecture in the Russian capital, the embassy has
yet to win over Muscovites. But British diplomats appear happy with their
new home, which includes flats and a swimming pool.
The old embassy was built by a sugar merchant for his mistress. The sight of
its Union flag, easily visible from the Kremlin opposite, was said to enrage
Stalin. Stripped of offices, it will continue as the ambassador's residence and
will now house other diplomats' families too.
President Putin's candidate for Prime Minister, Mikhail Kasyanov, was
approved by the Russian parliament by an overwhelming majority yesterday
and started forming a government.