The butler says he didn't do it

In a tale that has all the elements of a mystery that only Agatha Christie's Miss Marple could solve the former royal butler Paul Burrell has rejected claims that he boasted about having sex with Princess Diana.

The Australian newspaper reports Mr Burrell said he was "sad and hurt" by claims made by his brother-in-law Ron Cosgrove, who told a British newspaper that the former butler confided to him 15 years ago about his intimate relationship with the princess.

The former butler also denied Mr Cosgrove's claims that Mr Burrell had told him he had seen the Queen naked at Buckingham Palace.

Mr Burrell said there was "not one shred of truth" to what Mr Cosgrove had told the News of the World tabloid and that his brother-in-law could have decided to "invent" the claims because he had refused to lend him money.

"Myself and my wife Maria feel tremendously sad and hurt that he has resorted to such vengeance by way of response," Mr Burrell said.

"Anyone who knows me, who knew the princess, and who understands the boundaries and decencies of royal service, as well as the integrity and trust which existed within our working relationship at Kensington Palace, will know just how fanciful, distasteful and malicious these claims truly are."

In a lengthy interview published yesterday, Mr Cosgrove said Mr Burrell had told him during a conversation in a pub in 1993 about he and Diana "did it in the bedroom, the bath, everywhere".

Mr Cosgrove said Mr Burrell had also claimed to have seen the Queen naked after chasing a royal corgi into her bedroom at Buckingham Palace.

Show and tell in Federal Parliament?

Will the flood gates open in Australia's Federal Parliament today when Belinda Neal, the Member for Robertson, is expected to be in Parliament for the first time since the Iguanas nightclub incident?

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a spokesman for Federal Opposition leader Brendan Nelson said, "We expect Mr Rudd to call on Belinda Neal to go into the chamber and explain what happened."

According to the Herald, Nelson is set to exploit the MP-behaving-badly issue and press Mr Rudd to require Ms Neal to explain to Parliament her side of the story over the fracas with staff at the Gosford nightclub.

Comment:
MPs behaving badly? Brendan Nelson should be very careful. His side of the House has more than its fair share of MPs whose unacceptable behaviour could be highlighted.

Fight for the right of your community to have a say in local development - go to www.keepitlocal.org.au and have your say

It's time to step up and support the push for a NSW Upper House inquiry into Frank Sartor's draconian, pro-developer changes to the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act.

Go to www.keepitlocal.org.au and follow the links to its email page.

To make it easy the Local Government and Shires Association has produced a template email letter.

The need for an inquiry into the 200 pages of changes to planning laws will be debated in the Upper House tomorrow, Tuesday 17 June 2008.

 

Click here for the LGSA Preliminary response to the changes. 

Click here to see how your community will be affected.

 

ABC News reports:

 

A parliamentary committee has raised serious concerns about the proposed New South Wales planning laws.

The cross-party committee, which included four Labor politicians, found 20 problems with the new bills, including that they could provide Planning Minister Frank Sartor and the planning commissions with oppressive power.

It also found the laws could compromise people's rights and liberties, and remove procedural fairness.

Local Government Association president Genia McCaffrey says the findings vindicate her call for an Upper House inquiry into the bills.

"We've been saying this is going to remove the rights of people to protect their homes," she said.

"The parliamentary inquiry is confirming exactly what we're saying when it says they're concerned that the rights of local residents will be seriously under threat."

 

More on the subject from The Northern Rivers Echo here and The Byron Shire Echo here.

US08: political attitude in the race for the White House

Bumper stickers available online from what appears to be a pro-McCain website Fredstates.com .

Moving from the bitter to the politically sugar-laden. Click onto Cats for Obama

An ongoing difficulty for a less than rational world

Jonathon Mahler in Week in Review examines "Why This Court Keeps Rebuking This President".

“The most important thing we do is not doing,” Justice Louis D. Brandeis once said of the Supreme Court’s abiding humility, its overwhelming preference to allow the people, through their elected representatives, to govern themselves.---
And never is the court more reluctant to act than when faced with a challenge to the president during wartime.---
So it is extraordinary that during the Bush administration’s seven years, nearly all of them a time of war that began on Sept. 11, 2001, the court has been prompted to push back four times. Last week’s decision in Boumediene v. Bush, in which the court ruled that prisoners at Guantánamo Bay have a right to challenge their detentions in the federal courts, marks only the most recent rebuke."

This presents a somewhat reassuring view of America and seems to support the pious hope of justice prevailing.
However, for the international community which has watched George Dubbya circumvent the US Courts time and time again, the difference in response from both presidential candidates leaves an uncomfortable notion that the fate of human rights in America is still very much up in the air.

"Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama have both long advocated closing the Guantánamo detention center but have disagreed on the rights of prisoners there.
Mr. McCain said here Thursday morning that he had not had time to read the decision but that “it obviously concerns me,” adding, “These are unlawful combatants; they’re not American citizens.”
Mr. McCain said he thought “we should pay attention” to the dissent by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., which argued that the steps established by the administration and Congress in creating review tribunals run by the military were more than sufficiently generous as a way for detainees to challenge their status.
Still, the senator said, “it is a decision the Supreme Court has made, and now we need to move forward.”
Mr. Obama issued a statement calling the decision “a rejection of the Bush administration’s attempt to create a legal black hole at Guantánamo” that he said was “yet another failed policy supported by John McCain.”
“This is an important step,” he said of the ruling, “toward re-establishing our credibility as a nation committed to the rule of law, and rejecting a false choice between fighting terrorism and respecting habeas corpus. Our courts have employed habeas corpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy.”