First thing this morning (Saturday 6th November) an Australian friend called
me from Tanawha in Queensland to tell me with some glee that Australia had
just rejected the republic. "Strange to think that we in Oz have just
voted to keep the Queen when you’ve just ditched the House of Lords" he
remarked.

Even stranger, I think, that such a momentous change to the British
constitution could have transpired without the need for a referendum as in
Australia. When will Britons awake to irreparable damage Blair is
causing to our constitution? This week’s Economist’s MORI poll confirmed
the growing fragmentation of the United Kingdom. This, combined with his
dangerous fixation with the European Union, could now so easily lead to
Scotland seeking independence within the E.U. after the next Scottish
Parliamentary elections.

It is as if our nation is sleep walking into an unknown future lulled by
temporary economic stability and the hypnotic words of spin. Even though
the MORI poll reveals that 82% of the public know that the Government sets
out to mislead, no alarm bells yet ring.

Yet headteachers, general practitioners, chief constables and other
professionals in public service are now all suffering as Labour shifts power
away from the experts in situ to bureaucracies who certainly do not know
better. The Government’s power of patronage has kept many professionals
silent though some brave and responsible individuals have spoken up. In
so many areas now, the hopeful song "Things can only get better" has shown
itself to be just wishful thinking. In 30 months they have got worse.

For whatever reasons modern Australia chose to keep the monarchy, we in
Britain should learn the valuable lesson: change isn’t always for the
better.