The Funeral

On Monday September 19^th 2022, Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest serving Monarch, was laid to rest in a spectacular State Funeral watched by more than half the Earth’s population. It has been so long since the last State Funeral in Britain (Sir Winston Churchill, January 1965) that most people had forgotten what an awe-inspiring and deeply moving spectacle they can be. The Funeral was organised by the hereditary Earl Marshal of England, His Grace the Duke of Norfolk, England’s Premier Duke.

This meant that the Funeral was properly organised. Had the Cabinet Secretary organised it, no offense intended, Her Majesty would probably have been cremated in Slough Crematorium. Simon Case of course has yet to explain his extraordinary delay in informing the Prime Minister of the Queen’s death. (I am not buying the 1510 timing in Her death certificate – that’s probably when Her death was formally pronounced.)

The sight and sound of the massed pipes and drums in the procession from Westminster Hall to Westminster Abbey stirred the soul and probably just about finished off the SNP. This was the first State Funeral of a Monarch at the Abbey since King George II, the last British Monarch to lead His army into battle (Dettingen, 1743).

The naval gun carriage party were most impressive, as were the Bearer Party, the Gurkhas and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Funeral itself was both moving and magnificent, with some of Her Majesty’s favorite hymns being played. (The Cabinet Secretary would probably have chosen something by Meatloaf.)

Then came the stately procession to Wellington Arch, before Her Majesty’s casket, made of the stoutest English oak and draped in the Royal Standard, was transferred to the State Hearse for the long journey to Windsor Castle. The procession up the Long Walk at Windsor, with thousands lining the route, was simply spectacular.

Her Majesty’s beloved corgis, Muick and Sandy, were there to greet Her on Her last journey. I think at least one of them realised that they would never see the Queen again. Her Majesty’s favorite pony, Emma, was also there, also looking sad. Her Majesty loved animals and Her animals loved Her.

The Committal

In many ways the Committal Service, held in St George’s Chapel (I can think of at least one smaller cathedral!) was more moving than the Funeral. The music once again was beautifully chosen and the placing of the Imperial State Crown, Orb and Sceptre upon the High Altar an almost unbearably poignant moment.

As at the Funeral a lone piper played a haunting lament, the sound of the pipes receding gradually as the piper marched away. Her Majesty was not only Queen of England but Queen of Scots as well, a direct descendant of Robert the Bruce.

Her Majesty’s duty done, She was laid to rest alongside Her beloved Prince Philip and Her wonderful parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. George VI would have been proud of His daughter.

Republican anguish

Republicans have been blowing gaskets and stroking out left, right and center. The Queen’s evident love of Scotland and her decision to spend Her last days at Balmoral Castle reinforced the Union in a final gift to Her country.

Media talk of Commonwealth realms becoming republics is so much hot air. For starters King Charles III is likely to be a great King. There has been enormous support for Him since He ascended the Throne. If I may say so He is the epitome of elegance. Widely admired for His sensible views on architecture and town planning it is unlikely that the uglification of Britain will continue under His reign. Queen Camilla is likely to prove a wonderful support and Her popularity is likely to increase.

Quite aside from the popularity of our new King and Queen moves towards republics in the Commonwealth would deprive the Prince of Wales, son of the murdered Princess Diana, and his son Prince George of their inheritance. That was always going to be the case, but the death of Queen Elizabeth II has accelerated their position. Prince William is now the Heir Apparent and Prince George is second in line to the Throne.

Rocked by the huge numbers attending the Queen’s Lying in State London Mayor Sadiq Khan has been frantically trying to pretend that only 250,000 people queued to see Her. Excuse me? At times the queue reached back ten miles from Westminster Hall. Hopefully someone will do a serious computer analysis. Surely, there were enough overheads of the huge queues for a credible estimate to be obtained.

The Fourth Plinth

Khan is against honoring Queen Elizabeth by mounting a statue of Her on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, a prime location. Rather than pay a tribute to his late Sovereign he has chosen to honor a traitor, John Chilembwe. Desperate to help the Germans in their East African campaign in World War 1 Chilembwe, a pastor, organised a bloody revolt in Nyasaland, in January 1915. Aside from being anti-British and pro-German (he wanted our community partner the Hun to take over Nyasaland) Chilembwe had a bee in his bonnet over the locals being offered valuable employment opportunities in our colonial forces as porters.

Thankfully he was shot by a patrol of loyal Ascaris and the revolt was crushed, with the ringleaders being very properly hanged. Why this renegade is being honored in London over a century later is a mystery. Why not go the whole hog and put up a statue to the Kaiser?

The answer of course is to abolish the post of Mayor of London, which has been a failure and led to confusion with the Lord Mayor of London, a serious figure, who played a key role in the Accession ceremony in the City for King Charles III. We should bring back the old London County Council, with the same boundaries as the Greater London Council, which my old friend Margaret Thatcher sensibly abolished after a bunch of left-wing loonies took over. (They were actually quite nice loonies and one of them – Ken Livingstone – even stood me a drink in the Member’s Bar in County Hall. They were loonies nonetheless, indeed some of them even believed in the EU!)

Sadly there are no loyal Ascaris around when you need them and there is no prospect of Sadiq Khan being shot, more’s the pity. A statue of Her Majesty, riding Her favorite mare, the brave Burmese, a gift from the Mounties, would look splendid in Trafalgar Square. The Chilembwe statute could usefully be melted down, or offered to Malawi as a Christmas present, or given to the Royal Marines for target practice.

I express no concluded view, but I question the legality of erecting a statue in England of a traitor to the Crown, who gave aid and comfort to the King’s enemies in time of war. Arguably the Mayor has made himself an accessory after the fact to Chilembwe’s crimes.

Prosecution of the Earl Marshal

In an extraordinary development it turns out that the Cabinet Office, which controls criminal prosecutions in England, ordered the prosecution of His Grace the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl Marshal of England. Sensibly this is a hereditary appointment, and has been since 1672.

On April 7^th this year His Grace had occasion to make use of a mobile telephone whilst driving his motor car in London. He also needed to drive through a red traffic light, which activity was observed by a couple of police officers, who may or may not have been following the Duke.

The officers should have offered to escort the Duke, who was clearly in a hurry, to his next engagement. He is a busy man, after all, with heavy official responsibilities. Not only did they fail to offer an escort, but there is a rumor going around that they failed either to salute him or address him as ‘Your Grace’. Very frankly, the impertinence of these rozzers knows no bounds.

To compound the officers’ impertinence a bench of lay magistrates has now disqualified His Grace from driving. The whole discreditable affair has reignited the controversy over whether dukes should be subject to the road traffic laws at all. One possible reform would be to exempt Earls Marshal from disqualification, or deprive Magistrates’ Courts of the power to try them, requiring any prosecution to be brought in the House of Lords.

Ironically the last peer to be tried by the House, Lord Clifford, was charged in a motoring case, in that case motor manslaughter. His Lordship did not mean to run the poor chap down and he was very properly acquitted. (I later befriended one of the peers who tried him, the late Canadian peer Lord Shaughnessy.)

The current Duke of Norfolk is the 18^th Duke. The 16^th Duke was a wonderful character, who was President of MCC in 1956/7. Very sensibly he was appointed as a manager of the MCC tour to Australia in 1962/3 (Ted Dexter’s tour). Fred Trueman, the great fast bowler, queried the appointment on the basis that His Grace had no qualifications, which was absurd. He was a duke! His Grace was such a success that it was a surprise that the post of managing tours to Australia was not made hereditary, like that of Earl Marshal.

The new Italian government

Congratulations to Giorgia Meloni on winning the Italian general election. She is expected to take over from Mario Draghi, the pro-German puppet, no offense intended, later this month. The MSM have castigated her as ‘extreme right’, which is a nonsense. Left wing papers like the Guardian have even drawn offensive comparisons with Benito Mussolini, although Giorgia’s opposed to the EU, a concept which Mussolini strongly supported.

Giorgia is marginally to the right of center, that’s all. With the Germans still controlling Italy’s state bureaucracy, currency and intelligence services she won’t actually be able to achieve that much, but she’s a breath of fresh air. I wish her good luck. She’ll need it!

The mini budget

The reaction of the markets and the media to Kwasi Kwarteng’s sensible mini budget on September 23^rd was a case study in mass hysteria. Britain’s top tax rate of 45 per cent is way too high. Under the Laffer Curve reducing the rate would most likely increase the total tax take.

However a bunch of crazies in the MSM, the Labour Party, the LibDems, the SNP and assorted left wing think tanks like the Institute for Fiscal Studies persuaded a majority of the British people that you cannot have ‘unfunded’ tax cuts and that the effect of the mini budget, which was not that radical, would be to drive up interest rates to unsustainable levels. According to these idiots tax is linear.

So if the Chancellor were to double the top rate of tax to 90 per cent he would raise double the tax! Likewise, if he were to halve the top rate of tax to 22.5 per cent he would only raise half the revenue. That’s ridiculous, but that’s what the crazies had people believing. It’s a bit like global warming. In years to come academics will study both the linear tax theory and the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis as prime examples of Joseph Goebbels’ Big Lie propaganda technique. Since Goebbels’ boys went into the Propaganda Section of the DVD and the DVD have been busily propagating both myths it’s no surprise to see the Big Lie technique alive and well in the 21^st century.

Of course the problem with Big Lie propaganda is that it doesn’t make the lies true. The world isn’t warming and even if it were human activity can’t affect planetary temperature. The biggest influence on our climate remains the Sun. If President Biden is reading this, it’s that big yellow thing in the sky, Mr President.

The row nearly derailed Liz Truss’s new government. Unfortunately, although she offloaded Sir Tom Scholar, the linear tax nutter, no offense intended, in charge at the Treasury, whose linear tax theory obsession has held Britain back for over a century and saw tens of thousands of lives thrown away needlessly in World War II as our servicemen and women were forced to fight with cheap, shoddy or makeshift equipment, she didn’t offload the Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, or the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey. Both Case and Bailey are Remainers, who want to see the government fail.

This has led to the absurd situation whereby the government are trying to boost the economy and the Bank are trying to strangle it, in the hope of a Labour government committed to taking Britain back into the EU’s single market. The Bank not only believes that tax cuts have to be ‘funded’, it also believes that raising interest rates is the best way to fight inflation.

Inflation is caused by an increase in the money supply. As with all Western countries UK money supply and in turn the rate of inflation is controlled by the DVD’s Economics Section in Frankfurt, which supervises offshore high yield trading. The DVD cranked up the participation of UK banks and high net worth individuals after Brexit in order to destabilise the British economy. So far they’re succeeding, since no one has briefed in Kwasi Kwarteng (who with respect has a surprising degree of economic literacy for a Chancellor of the Exchequer) on the programs.

Liz and Kwasi have big decisions to make. At the moment they are committed to keeping Case and Bailey in post, that is to say they have reconciled themselves to both economic and political failure. However it’s early days yet. I actually think, admittedly against the weight of the evidence, that each wants the government to succeed.

Hurricane Ian

Ian is a silly name for a hurricane. Hurricanes should have girls’ names – everybody knows that. This was very obviously another boosted storm. Nothing to do with global warming, White House please note! It’s not entirely clear who the DVD were aiming at, but their target appears to have Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Even Sky News, whose middle name ought to be ‘naivety’, no offense intended, were puzzled that these super storms always seem to hit America.

Quite why a naturally occurring storm should decide to hit a state with a pro-Trump Republican governor no one in the MSM has yet been able to explain. Storms are like Democrats – they don’t have brains, no offense intended.

It’s more than past time that we stopped sacrificing lives and property to the Germans in this way. Storms can’t be created by the DVD’s weather weapons, only boosted and directed, so we’re unlikely to see a Category 5 hurricane off the coast of Dorset. However the fact that the Federal Republic of Germany, a member of NATO, has just launched an armed attack on the United States ought to be cause for concern for the British government.

I should explain that although the DVD is covert, and controls the German federal government, not the other way round (ironically the only German government which tried to control German Intelligence was the Nazi government from 1933 to 1945), each time it attacks a Western state it incurs state responsibility for Germany.

It’s a bit like the CIA’s attack on the Nord Stream pipelines – the US is the responsible government even though its head with every respect is not compos mentis, sadly. The US carries the can even though the White House may not have known what the CIA were up to, let alone approved of it. The Russian Federation would have been entitled under public international law to declare and wage conventional war upon the United States, not that I am suggesting that a declaration of war would have made strategic sense.

German involvement in Hurricane Ian raises important ethical and intelligence questions for GCHQ. Weather weapons work by bouncing huge amounts of electromagnetic energy, within fairly narrow wavelengths, off the ionosphere.

These are tracked by the NSA, which in the past has taken countermeasures. (I assume that the Administration ordered them not to take countermeasures against Ian, as they wanted to embarrass Governor DeSantis and were happy to see Americans killed, just so long as they were in a Republican state.) This data is shared with GCHQ, who were therefore aware that Ian was a boosted storm. This intelligence was however suppressed from Number 10. At what point should you tell the head of an elected government that a nominal NATO ally (Germany) is carrying out an armed attack on a real ally (in other words America).

With every respect I think that GCHQ’s decision to suppress the intelligence about Hurricane Ian from both the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister was wrong. It showed not only poor judgment and a lack of professionalism, but a skewed moral compass. It was also unwise, since neither Liz Truss nor James Cleverly is actually stupid, with respect, even though they’re politicians.

GCHQ may not have done a cross-check of the Foreign Secretary’s resume with mine. James was actually a student at Thames Valley University (now the University of West London) when I was on the faculty there, teaching law, part time. The boys in Cheltenham might want to repair their admission (they could always say that they were watching England beat Pakistan in the T20 cricket series and were distracted) before I brief in the Foreign Secretary.

Incidentally the GRU, who are much more professional than GCHQ, no offense intended, didn’t make the same mistake. Before President Putin went public with Russia’s willingness to make peace I was sounded out and made a backchannel approach to the Foreign Secretary. Unfortunately both he and the PM are committed to seeing the war continue. (Presumably they are willing to sacrifice Kiev, since the strategic bombing of the enemy’s capital would be a logical step should Russia decide to escalate the war, which she is now likely to do, having been rebuffed.)

My involvement is not a secret by the way, since the approach came over an open line on a monitored channel. GCHQ and MI6 were fully aware of my involvement from the outset, although I don’t think they realised that I had the cellphone number of James’s constituency chairwoman, a very nice lady by the way.

Next column

As all y’all may be able to tell I have been rather busy. My workload goes up when there’s a war on, and when there’s a change of government and when the Sovereign dies. All sorts of people have to be briefed in and all sorts of decisions have to be taken. Although very few are willing to pay for it there are times when it seems like everyone wants my advice. It’s part of the penalty of having a brain I suppose, even though, as all y’all know, I like to hide my lights under a bushel and keep the fact that I have a brain under my hat, as it were, mixing metaphors if I may.

A big brain, by the way, does not necessarily mean a big head, which is a different thing altogether. (Joe Biden, for example, has a big head but a small brain, no offense intended.) There’s always someone smarter than you, if not in the same country. I keep reminding myself that I’m at least three points shy of Sir Isaac Newton’s IQ, and am unlikely to overtake him. (Curses!)

Periods of intense intellectual activity can be surprisingly tiring. You also chew through the calories. I keep getting attacks of the munchies! They can also play havoc with your day job, so do please keep the contributions coming. I’ve now set up an account with Square, who are much nicer people than PayPal, who are right scumbags, no offense intended, almost as bad as Wikipedia! The Square link is: https://square.link/u/9YVcHYbq.

I’m also setting up an account with Stripe, but I only have an IQ of 187 and couldn’t work out their procedures for setting up a link. If the pace of events permits I’m aiming to get back to weekly columns.

Tino von Struckmann

I’ve done a couple of interviews with that nice man Tino von Struckmann:

These interviews have apparently set alarm bells ringing in Dachau, as Tino lives just around the corner from one William Oliver Stone and I’ve agreed to do a three-way with Tino and Ollie, if he can be persuaded. Assuming that the poor man isn’t blown up or has his vehicle end up in oncoming traffic that should light a fuse under the 59 year old conspiracy of silence to keep the truth about the Kennedy Assassination from the American people.

Michael Shrimpton

Michael Shrimpton was a barrister from his call to the Bar in London in 1983 until being disbarred in 2019 over a fraudulently obtained conviction. He is a specialist in National Security and Constitutional Law, Strategic Intelligence and Counter-terrorism. He is a former Adjunct Professor of Intelligence Studies at the American Military University.

Read Articles from Michael Shrimpton;

• 2023-Present
• 2016-2022
• 2004-2015

Read Michael Shrimptons’ Full Complete Bio >>>