A race relations adviser to London Mayor-elect
Ken Livingstone has branded the Duke of
Edinburgh "an unreconstructed racist".
Kumar Murshid - who
along with veteran
black activist Lee
Jasper will advise Mr
Livingstone on race
issues - signalled his
intention to play an
outspoken role in an
interview with The
Sunday Telegraph.
Mr Murshid, a Tower Hamlets councillor and
chairman of the National Assembly Against
Racism, told the paper: "Prince Philip is a
waste of time. I have never heard him say
anything particularly useful on any subject.
"And he says things which indicate that he is,
frankly, an unreconstructed racist.
"He gives the image of being very arrogant and
also fairly ignorant, which is worrying if you are
talking about the father, or perhaps
grandfather, of the future king."
The Duke attracted
criticism last year when
he joked during a visit
to an electronics
company that an
unsophisticated
fusebox looked as if it
had been "put in by an
Indian".
He has made a string
of similar gaffes before,
notoriously in 1986
when he told British
students in China: "If you stay here much
longer you'll all be slitty-eyed."
Mr Murshid also questioned the Royal Family's
right to reign.
He added: "Nobody has any God-given right,
no birthright, to rule. And this is true of the
Royal Family. Just because you happen to be
born in a family is not sufficient qualification by
anyone's standards."
Buckingham Palace declined to comment on Mr
Murshid's observations.
The remarks come as Mr Livingstone bids to
mend fences with the Labour Party.
A spokesman for Mr Livingstone confirmed that
both Mr Murshid and Mr Jasper would be
advisers to the Mayor on race relations issues
but that their titles had not yet been decided,
she added.
~*~
Royal rent-a-train trade runs into the buffers (UK Times)
Eben Black, Chief Political Correspondent
ATTEMPTS by the government to slash the cost of running the royal train by renting it out to private companies have been a spectacular failure, ministers have been forced to admit.
The plan was hatched last year by John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, in a move to offset the cost of the royal perk, estimated to cost £7m a year. Running costs alone last year amounted to £800,000. The average cost of fuel and staff for every trip by the royals, who use it mainly to travel to their Balmoral estate in Scotland, was put at £16,000.
Under the plan, private companies and government departments were to be able to hire the train, which has been used only 24 times by the royal family in the past 12 months, despite the enormous cost.
Keith Hill, the transport minister, told the Commons last week, however, that so far no outside concern had asked to hire it. The only non-royal user was the Foreign Office.
The train is a favourite of the Prince of Wales, who was criticised last year for using it to travel to Edinburgh to open a centre for the homeless. It is also used by the Queen to travel to Balmoral overnight for her regular stays there.
Ministers decided as far back as 1997 that the royal train should be opened up to other users, at a price, while the royal family agreed that the number of carriages should be cut from 14 to eight in an attempt to reduce costs.
Admitting the failure of the scheme, Hill told MPs: "Government departments were duly advised that the train, when not being used for official royal travel, was available for use on a reimbursable basis. To date, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is the only government department to have used the train. Both the department and the royal household have received preliminary inquiries from several organisations about using the train but none of these has yet put forward any firm proposals."
In the past year, the train was used eight times by the Queen, accompanied by Prince Philip, 14 times by Prince Charles and twice by the Princess Royal.
~*~
Anarchist rioters target the Queen(UK Times)
Maurice Chittenden and Nicholas Rufford
ANARCHISTS who were at the forefront of the attacks on police during the May Day riots in London have targeted the Queen and Queen Mother as their next victims.
The Movement Against the Monarchy (MAM) is planning a demonstration against the royal family outside Buckingham Palace on Saturday, June 3, with at least 2,000 people expected to take part. Organisers are predicting another clash with police.
The same organisation is planning a second protest at Clarence House on August 4, when the Queen Mother celebrates her 100th birthday.
One man expected to take part is Michael Fagan, who once broke into the palace, sat on the Queen's bed and chatted to her. He is holed up at an anarchist squat in north London after being released from prison, where he served a sentence for dealing in heroin.
Detective Chief Inspector Jim Dickie, who heads a 40-strong squad assigned to track down the May Day rioters, said the police were taking the threats seriously.
MAM was formed by former members of Class War in 1997. It has forged links with Comodo, a group of anarchists in Amsterdam opposed to the Dutch royal family, and is part of an international "black block" that the anarchist movement plans to unveil, in synchronised attacks across Europe, to mark a meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Prague in September.
Steve Edwards, an MAM leader who has been arrested 33 times, said: "June 3 will our biggest action yet. If the police get nasty, we will defend ourselves.
"We applaud the actions that took place on May 1. We are not apologetic. Unfortunately, there was only one copper put in hospital, but we had bottles glancing off others."
MAM, which uses a guillotine as its symbol, is also planning a demonstration at the opening of the new Bankside arts centre in London this Thursday.
Edwards, who also took part in the riots at the World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle last November, said: "What we are talking about now is a generation of kids who are out there trashing McDonald's, even if some of them did go to Eton. It is going to grow and grow."
One of those involved in the talks to plan the demonstration was Lorenzo Ervin, a former member of the Black Panther movement in America, who was once jailed for hijacking an aircraft to Cuba.
An investigation by The Sunday Times has discovered that revolutionaries from at least 12 countries, many of them asylum-seekers, were involved in last week's May Day riots. Home Office sources said those convicted of serious offences would be deported.
One Spanish anarchist who was arrested has been blamed for looting a stationer's, vandalising 25 cars and attacking police. Four Italians were also among the 98 people arrested.
At least four different Turkish organisations, all outlawed in their own country, were among the rioters. The statue of Winston Churchill was defaced with red paint by members of the TIKB, the Turkish Revolutionary Communist Union, which had up to 100 supporters at the demonstration.
A Kurdish-born teenager who was charged with violent disorder said he was the victim of British racism. Ibrahim Avcil, 19, who was granted asylum, along with his family, when they arrived from Turkish-controlled Kurdistan in 1989, and is on benefits, said: "I went there to celebrate May Day, not to cause violence. I am anti-racist, anti-capitalist, and wanted to make my voice heard."