Royal secrets
I wrote last weekabout Robert Brown, the accountant from Jersey who thinks he is Princess Margaret's illegitimate son and made 638 freedom of information requests to the National Archives to try and prove it.
Mr Brown has had a good piece of news today in his determined campaign to establish his royal ancestry. He wants to see the wills of Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother. Unlike other wills, those of senior members of the Royal Family are . He failed in first legal attempt to get access to them, but has today been given permission to appeal against that judgment.
Interestingly, today's Appeal Court decision does not seem to stem from attaching any credence to Mr Brown's parentage claim or to a private right of his to see the wills. Instead it seems to be based on accepting that he could arguably assert a general public interest in whether it is right for the wills to be sealed. This raises a much wider set of issues about the exceptional secrecy of royal wills.
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Interesting story this and look how far he (Mr Robert Brown) has got on what even this Appeal Court calls a "manifestly unfounded basis".
Mr Brown was eager - over 600 FOI requests. I made one and so Mr Brown had over 600 more requests ignored than me.
Of course whilst it was a family thing for me also - I haven't any aspirations to any Royal connections. Just Mum, just mum and my maternal grandparents.
I wish Mr Brown luck but feel like me - he is due a disappointment.
And I was so sure I had Swedish royal blood running through my veins too. No one bowed to me in Stockholm though last month - although I was filmed whilst outside one of the Palace buildings. LOL
Subject: slash your motoring costs
Anagram: Moor lion's Court - Stags Shy
The number of requests was high simply because the files were untitled, and the TNA at that point were being deliberately unhelpful about providing just the titles.
My battles have meant at least some thousand government files from that period now have titles rather than being designated "no description".
Titles I unearthed in the process included Sefton Delmer, Commander Crabb, some Churchill Papers, other spy related papers and more.
This is the FOI case that ensued and I won.
I am still waiting for responses to Home Office files some two plus years plus later.
I have also been waiting some months for a response to complaints about the FOI Commissions adjudication process. The Tribunal criticised the Information Commission by claiming they had no jurisdiction to deal with the issues raised. Hence the complaint to the Information Commission. (see above judgement0
On the above case we will have to see how it turns out. As with the above FOI case, things are more complex than they appear at first glance.