Bizarre, International, Society

Report: Workers At Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Forced To Sleep Under London Bridge Under Medieval Conditions

The celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee was filled with traditions going back hundreds of years — including, it appears, the use of serfs. The Guardian is reporting that the government bused in dozens of unemployed citizens to work at the Jubilee from out of town and then directed them to sleep under the London Bridge without access to bathrooms or changing areas. It was a good ole fashioned Jubilee with a diamond-encrusted sovereign floating by in splendor with yeomen and “villeins” working in their menial existence. Some radicals (and suspected Jacobites) are questioning the conditions for the workers and calling for an investigation.

The unemployed workers were not paid of course to work on the river pageant. Other were on “apprentice wages” of £2.80 an hour. They were take by bus from from Bristol, Bath and Plymouth “as part of the government’s Work Programme.” They had to change into their uniforms in the open and many did not have access to restrooms for 24 hours. Others reported working a 14-hour shift in the pouring rain on the banks of the Thames.

Close Protection UK organized the event and confirmed that it was using up to 30 unpaid staff and 50 apprentices. Workers were told that they might get a shot at a job in the Olympics if they did a good job. There might even be the chance of a thrown hunk of mutton from one of the Royal barges if they keep a keen eye and pleasing appearance.

The bridge itself was cold and wet underneath and the concrete base made it impossible to pitch a tent. They were then herded into vans at 5:30am.

While I am a history nut, I have never understood the retention of the Royal family by England — a image of privilege and eugenics that the world has long abandoned.

The aptly named Molly Prince, managing director of Close Protection UK, insisted that the conditions were not optimal but acceptable — you can add a harumph for effect: “The staff travelling to the jubilee are completing their training and being assessed on the job for NVQ Level 2 in spectator safety . . . It is essential that they are assessed in a live work environment in order to complete their chosen qualifications. The nature of festival and event work is such that we often travel sleeping on coaches through the night with an early morning pre-event start – it is the nature of the business … It’s hard work and not for the faint-hearted.” Indeed, to quote the Bard, “Faint heart never won fair lady employment.”

The Royal family however did encounter two troubled makers working on the Diamond Jubilee — they are not expect to be allowed to work at the Olympic due to their radical views:

This appears to be the very type of faint-hearted, lazy, surly worker that Molly Prince had to weed out:

Man: Well I object to your…you automatically treat me like an inferior!
Arthur: Well I *am* king…
Man: Oh, king, eh, very nice. And ‘ow’d you get that, eh?
(he reaches his destination and stops, dropping the cart)
By exploiting the workers! By ‘angin’ on to outdated imperialist dogma
which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society.
If there’s ever going to be any progress,–
Woman: Dennis! There’s some lovely filth down ‘ere!
(noticing Arthur) Oh! ‘Ow’d’ja do?
Arthur: How do you do, good lady. I am Arthur, king of the Britons. Whose
castle is that?
Woman: King of the ‘oo?
Arthur: King of the Britons.
Woman: ‘Oo are the Britons?
Arthur: Well we all are! We are all Britons! And I am your king.
Woman: I didn’t know we ‘ad a king! I thought we were autonomous collective.
Man: (mad) You’re fooling yourself! We’re living in a dictatorship! A
self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes–

Source: Guardian

26 thoughts on “Report: Workers At Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Forced To Sleep Under London Bridge Under Medieval Conditions”

  1. Elaine M.
    1, June 5, 2012 at 9:26 am
    Gene,

    I guess the Brits feel the royal family is good for tourism.
    ========================================================

    ain’t nobody going for the food

  2. Geeze, you’d think they were American waitress and waiters.

    If the citizenry of Britain want to waste their tax dollars on a figurehead monarchy it’s not our business.

  3. ..
    Ask Jill, she always can.
    And how did JT miss that. He did not miss. People sleeping under bridges and working for no or underpay is standard Obama treatment—-I’m sure that is what he implied.
    He loves royalty. Did you see him kissing the Saudi king? Homo! Satisfied now. Can you hold it until jill arrives?

  5. Cinderella=Charles (same screech) She does not speak to Camilla. She will deign to say: “Tell your wife…..”
    “Such a plebian name! Camilla, usch. Snift!”

    Thanks for the inspiration.

  7. Dredd, thanks.

    Sovereign immunity is the PIN that holds government corruption together.

  8. Qiemoe = queenie
    Does anyone else have guidetext: bla bla. You are commenting etc across the middle of their text field obscuring it all? This way for months. Maddening.

  9. The Swedish royalty bought the throne at a fire sale.
    Poor as church mice, although the king has increased his worth from 4 million to 25 million crowns. Peanuts. Don’t know how he did it. Shilling for industry with state visits can’t pay that well.

    Qiemoe is super rich in comparison. Who did they rob?

  10. Freedom for Scotland & Wales! Enough of the notion of “Great Britain”. The “Royal Family” began as thugs and only progressed to being recipients of nepotism in order to distract people with foolish ritual denoting nothing.

  11. “The celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee was filled with traditions going back hundreds of years …”

    I did not notice if one of those old traditions is still hanging around:

    During that legendary era when royal fictions were being conceived and cherished, it is said that a court favorite returning from afar brought home to his Queen a highly decorative undergarment for the royal legs. Details leaked to the peasants, and the incident became the object of much idle speculation and some embellishment. Suspecting that the Queen’s carefully concealed legs had become the table topic of the realm, the court one day officially decreed: “The Queen has no legs“. So was another royal fiction born. Thanks to what might loosely be called keen judicial notice, this one was never a part of the common law. Even in American legal circles it has been generally conceded that the anatomy of a female sovereign differs neither in form nor substance from the standard of a reasonable woman. But other fictions of the resourceful and imaginative European courts have proved hardier, and some, like “the King can do no wrong“, survived transplanting to a completely foreign political climate to thrive as conspicuous anachronisms. The royal fiction of sovereign immunity has long been the despair of American legal writers. Legislatively, piecemeal attacks on it date from the mid-nineteenth century. But the doctrine has been jealously guarded in the courts, statutes purporting to waive immunity have been strictly construed, and the Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed sovereign immunity in tort claims. Against this backdrop, pressures for a federal statute ameliorating the harsh immunity doctrines being pursued in federal courts mounted steadily in the early decades of the twentieth century. </blockquote) (Sovereign Immunity …). Play pretend is not just for breakfast anymore.

  13. Gene – I think it keeps them from appearing on a reality show. “Real Monarchs of Windsor” so some such garbage.
    “Don’t call me Chuck, now I shall be known as The Situation”
    “Time to attache the feedbag to Camella”
    “Oh dear! Phil is loaded and shirtless, hugging the floor trying to eat a cheesburger – AGAIN!”

    Not having to see that would be of inestimable value to the UK

  16. And the other day I actually saw some Brit defending the royals as a useful institution! Ha!

  18. “While I am a history nut, I have never understood the retention of the Royal family by England — a image of privilege and eugenics that the world has long abandoned.”

    Yep.

    What strikes me as even stranger is those who romanticize the notion of monarchy.

  19. As you suggested the royals are nothing more than a figure head….. But they make out great from the payments of the royal treasury……really not much is different here…..practically speaking…..

    I love this “if they do good, they might get a chance at an Olympic job”…… Love it…….

Comments are closed.