THE Queen's Golden Jubilee will be a people's celebration, with the public offered the opportunity to contribute their own ideas.
Some may even find that invitations to the Queen to attend their street party are accepted, as her itinerary will have the emphasis on meeting as many people as possible. Plans for the jubilee were announced yesterday by Tony Blair in a written parliamentary answer.
He said: "This significant national anniversary of 50 years of the Queen's reign will offer people of all ages and cultures and from all walks of life the opportunity for celebration, and the events surrounding the jubilee will provide numerous opportunities for voluntary and community service.
"It should be a time for looking forward as well as back - including the great changes that have taken place in the nation's life during Her Majesty's reign." A website, a jubilee emblem and a punishing three-month nationwide tour by the Queen and Prince Philip have all been approved by Buckingham Palace.
The tour, which begins on May 1 next year and ends on Aug 5, takes in vast swathes of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and also includes a tri-service military review at Portsmouth, and the opening and closing of the Commonwealth Games in Manchester. But the emphasis will be on low-key, community-based events.
Palace officials acknowledge it will be a punishing schedule, given that the Queen will be 76 and Prince Philip 81. But the Queen has made it clear she wishes to meet as many people as possible. She has also made it clear there should be "no undue expenditure from public funds". So there will be no statues, and no new buildings to mark the occasion.
The only exception will be the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace, currently being revamped and due to open next year, which will display a jubilee frieze and a new bronze bust of the Queen.
The focal point of celebrations will be a four-day weekend, from June 1 to June 4, during which the Queen will attend a National Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral in London.
The service will be followed by a Golden Jubilee lunch at Guildhall, in the City of London, with full ceremonial procession. June 4 will be the main day of celebrations, and local communities planning street parties are being encouraged to have them on this Bank Holiday.
The Queen also prefers there to be no central Golden Jubilee charity fund, nominating instead organisations of which she is patron and which are close to her heart.
The five Golden Jubilee charities are: Barnardo's; CRUSE Bereavement Services; I CAN (national education charity of children with speech and language difficulties); the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution; and the Soldiers, Sailors and Air Force Association.
The website is to be launched soon to co-ordinate events, and organisers say all ideas will be welcome. Lottery funding will be available, and voluntary organisations can apply for grants of £500-£5,000 for projects benefiting good causes.
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Court throws out challenge to monarchy(Electronic Telegraph)
By Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Editor
AN attempt to challenge an ancient law which makes it an offence to call for the abolition of the British monarchy was thrown out by the High Court yesterday.
The first challenge of its kind under the Human Rights Act was brought by the Guardian, which published an article last December calling for a republic. In it, Polly Toynbee said the monarchy was "not the ornamental cherry but the rotten core of Britain's decrepit democracy".
The paper's editor, Alan Rusbridger, asked Lord Williams of Mostyn, then Attorney General, whether he would face prosecution for publishing the article. Under the Treason Felony Act of 1848, it is an offence punishable with life imprisonment to "compass, imagine, invent, devise or intend to deprive or depose our most gracious Lady the Queen . . . from the style, honour, or royal name of the imperial crown of the United Kingdom".
The courts have said the Act applies to anyone who expresses in writing an intention to abolish the monarchy by peaceful means. When Lord Williams did not rise to the bait, Mr Rusbridger took him to court. He argued that the 1848 Act was incompatible with the right to freedom of expression granted when the Human Rights Act came into force last year. Geoffrey Robertson, QC, for the editor, argued that the Attorney General's comments had left the newspaper in a state of uncertainty.
However, Lord Justice Rose, sitting with Mr Justice Silber, ruled that there could be no free-standing challenge under the Human Rights Act - or application for judicial review - because Lord Williams had not taken a decision on whether to prosecute the newspaper.
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Canadians happy to stick with the Queen(Electronic Telegraph)
By Ben Fenton
THE Queen is not at all popular in Queensville, according to Joan Goodhead. The postmistress of this sleepy little village, with its grid pattern of modest bungalows tucked into the heart of Ontario's rolling farmland, is embarrassed to admit it but there you are.
The fact is that nobody wants the Queen; everyone prefers the Maple Leaf, symbol of an independent Canada. Mrs Goodhead confides: "The trouble with the Queen is that she is still lick-and-stick and nowadays the only stamps people want are peel-and-stick."
She is talking about stamps, not about the decline of royalist fervour in Canada or a republican revolution in Her Majesty's northern dominions. In particular, Mrs Goodhead is discussing the 47 cent stamp, of which there are two versions - one with and one without the Queen; one with gum, the other pre-gummed, showing an image of the Canadian flag.
But, when it comes to constitutional matters, Mrs Goodhead and her fellow Ontarians are quite happy with the Queen. The jolly postmistress smiles at the large 1977 portrait photograph of the Queen in a floral paisley dress that still hangs in the tiny post office.
"We would never get rid of her as Queen of Canada because, after all, how much power does she have? Besides, most people are like me - we love the pomp when she comes to visit." This adherence to the Crown, repeated in dozens of conversations with people in Ontario, Canada's most populous province, might seem surprising in light of recent headlines.
Last month, John Manley, the Canadian Foreign Minister, suggested that the monarchy was an anachronism - "something we have grown out of". Last week, Jean Chretien, the Prime Minister, reacted with surprising fury to the award of knighthoods in the Queen's Birthday Honours to two men, both of whom are Canadian by birth but have been living in Britain for decades, calling it an affront to Canada's principles.
But any suggestion of a substantial build-up of republican sentiment, as happened in Australia, is almost wholly absent in the rolling pastures and cropfields of Ontario. The latest polls show less than half of Canadians wanting to replace the Queen as head of state, with support for her growing among those under 25.
Some 50 miles to the south of Mrs Goodhead's post office and several cultural layers separate from Queensville, similar emotions prevail in the metropolis of Toronto. "I don't think the monarch really figures in anyone's life," says Jesse Wente, a 27-year-old radio producer, whose mother is a full-blooded Ojibwa Indian from northern Ontario.
"But, by the same logic, there doesn't seem to be any good reason to change the system. My people would vote to get rid of her if they thought it would do them some good but there is no doubt that it is a big deal if she comes to the reserve."
Royal visits, which in Canada are called "homecomings", help to rejuvenate the underlying appeal of the monarchy, according to John Aimers, the head of the 17,000-member Monarchist League of Canada.
He says: "A lot of people joining us now are younger people who say, 'We were not taught about this aspect of Canada's history in school and it helps define us in the face of the overwhelming influence of America'." Such views reflect the often expressed Canadian fear that the United States is swamping the country's identity.
With accents that most Europeans find impossible to distinguish from American, Canadians cling to anything that distinguishes them in the eyes of the world from their gigantic and pervasive neighbour to the south. Toronto is claimed to be the most ethnically diverse city on earth, reflecting the mosaic nature of Canadian society that may benefit the Royal Family.
Bramwell Pemberton, a black Canadian whose English parents emigrated from Chatterton, Lancs, in the 1960s, said: "Perhaps people who have come as refugees from places with unstable governments gain a sense of security from the fact that the Queen is part of a 1,000-year-old tradition of stability."
There is no republican movement in Canada. Mr Manley's outburst was quickly slapped down by the deputy prime minister and five other cabinet colleagues, although Mr Chretien, despite claiming to be a monarchist, retained his customary silence on the issue.
Replacing the Queen with a president would require changing the Canadian constitution, and that needs the consent of all 10 provinces. Several would resist, with French-speaking Quebec ironically the hardest to persuade. The fiercely separatist majority of politicians there would implacably oppose any alternative that vested more power in the hated Ottawa government.
John Aimers says that even the eventual death of the Queen is unlikely to bring about revolution against her heir. The Prince of Wales is more popular in Canada than at home, he says.
Unlike Australians, who still nurse bitterness towards the "Mother Country" over the brutal foundation of their society and the perceived use of their menfolk as cannon fodder in various wars, Canadians have a something to kick against closer to home - the US, he points out.