Telegraph’s New Royal Yacht ISN’T

The story has even been reported by the BBC: a ship claimed to be a replacement for the long-retired Royal Yacht Britannia is, it has been claimed, to be built at a cost to We The People of a cool £200 million. Thus the culmination of a tedious, and indeed pointless, campaign by the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, and its equally out of touch “Chief Political Correspondent and Assistant Editor”, Christopher “No” Hope.

Abandon Hope all ye who read the Tel

Hope suggests that he has secured the assurance from alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson that this new vessel will be built. Moreover, it is claimed that the ship will be named in honour of the late Prince Philip. And so, in today’s Telegraph, he has felt sufficiently emboldened to gloat at his success in defeating the naysayers.

“The arguments against my campaign for a new royal yacht never held water” we are told, followed by “Telegraph’s push for national flagship to replace Britannia was mocked by online critics - but PM’s approval shows how they missed the point”. No, it just means that Bozo has, once again, told someone what they want to hear.

Moreover, as Sunder Katwala has pointed out, “The Christopher Hope column illuminates a ‘Twitter is not Britain’ fallacy. Being popular on Twitter is certainly no guarantee of public popularity. But it’s also a fallacy to think that being unpopular on Twitter is in itself proof of public popularity!” On top of that, he has some actual data to back up his contention.

“None of the polling during those 5 years supports the claim that it is broadly popular. It seems more of an elite media and political campaign than one with general public enthusiasm”. A small majority of Tory voters back the project. But even Leave voters show a majority against. This leads Katwala to a rather obvious conclusion.

“Christopher Hope says his 5 year campaign has been popular (despite Twitter opposition). The reason he does not cite any evidence is that, to date, it has been a broadly unpopular idea when the general public have been asked”.

And what of the Royals? Hope’s optimism may hark back to the Queen shedding a tear at the decommissioning of Britannia. But nowadays, Brenda increasingly delegates this kind of thing to Brian. And the thought immediately occurs that, although he likes the Royal Train, a new Royal Yacht doesn’t fit with his idea of a “slimmed down” Monarchy.

So it came to pass that the Murdoch Sunday Times actually asked their Royal contacts what The Firm really thought of Bozo’s latest brilliant wheeze. “A senior royal tells the Sunday Times: it is ‘too grand’ a symbol for use by the monarchy in the modern age. ‘It is not something we have asked for’”. And now the vessel will not be named after The Greek.

As Otto English has observed, the ST piece went on to tell “the Prime Minister’s plan to honour the Duke of Edinburgh by naming the national flagship after him has been abandoned after the idea was greeted with coolness within Royal circles”. He deduced correctly “So this is just a Johnson vanity project”. Will it even get built?

Garden Bridge, Island Airport, Bridge to Northern Ireland, Royal Yacht. An inevitable progression that Christopher Hope seems not to have noticed, such is his detachment from reality. Maybe it can be called HMS Herd Immunity. Bozo approved of that, too.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by adding to its Just Giving page at

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/zelostreet9