Buckingham Palace has announced that King Charles will remove all of his brother, Prince Andrew's, titles.

The statement from Buckingham Palace related the announcement to the allegations of sexual abuse by the late Virginia Giuffre.

Andrew Mountbatten Windsor's title will not be immediately stripped as UK Correspondent Gavin Grey said the process of removing his titles "will take some time".

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Ever since the 1930s, when American soldiers were based all around the world, people in many countries have been antsy about foreigners getting what appears to them to be special treatment or privileges.

The phrase people used back in the day about the US soldiers was something along the lines of them being overdressed, overpaid, oversexed and over here.

And the Government seems to be tapping into the same kind of sentiment with this crackdown on employers not following the rules when they want to hire workers from overseas.

That some employers are going straight to taking-on migrant workers without even trying to find locals to do the work first. Which they’re supposed to do or required to do.

Immigration Minister Erica Stanford is saying today that, if employers don’t follow the rules and don’t prioritise hiring New Zealanders, then they can forget about being allowed to hire anyone from overseas ever again.

She says, since we started giving out accredited work visas to migrant workers three years ago, there are 20,000 more unemployed New Zealanders.

“We have New Zealanders who are desperate for jobs and they need to be given the first opportunity for those."

Which I think will go down like a cup of the old proverbial with some employers, who will say they should be allowed to employ whoever they want from wherever they want.

And that’s a view I agree with.

It’s something they’ve been pushing back against for years. But where the Government’s current concern stems from, is the number of employers who aren’t telling Work & Income that they’re on the lookout for staff. When they should be.

That’s because they’re not even interested in hiring locals and just want migrant workers.

Erica Stanford says more than one-in-six employers just want to employ migrants without considering local workers.

From the perspective of someone who is unemployed and needing work, I can see how that would be frustrating.

But does that mean that we should be forcing employers to give locals work over people from overseas?

It’s a bit rich of the Government to say that we need to turn the education system on its head so young New Zealanders can grow up and be ready to work anywhere in the world; but then, when it comes to people from other countries coming to work here, we go all protectionist on it.

Employers themselves certainly think they should be free to hire whoever they want. They’ve been saying that since 2016, when the-then National government announced changes to “put kiwis first in line for jobs”.

Anne Tolley was the social development minister at the time and she said: “The Government is committed to getting more New Zealanders into work by ensuring they are first in line for jobs.”

Which is the exact same thing Erica Stanford is saying today.

But I bet it won’t sound any better to employers today than it did nearly 10 years ago.

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Do we need more MPs? The NZ Initiative thinks we do - saying today that, instead of 120, we should have 170.

It says the number of MPs in New Zealand is low compared to other countries with similar populations and we need 50 more to keep them accessible to voters.

Another thing it’s calling for is a four-year parliamentary term. That’s a no-brainer, as far as I’m concerned. But 50 more MPs? No thanks.

However, I do think some change is needed because of the size of some of our electorates.

Which is essentially why the NZ Initiative is advocating for more MPs.

But I think a much better option would be to have less list MPs and more electorate MPs.

Because, you think about the size of some electorates - the West Coast is a prime example - I’ve always thought it’s crazy that one electorate MP has to represent and cover such a huge area.

The Te Tai Tonga Maori seat is another one. One MP has to cover the whole South Island - as well as Stewart Island, the Chatham Islands, Wellington City and the Hutt Valley.

The reason the NZ Initiative is making this call today, is because it’s reviewed the last 30 years under the MMP voting system. And its two key points are the parliamentary term and the number of MPs.

Senior Fellow Nick Clark says the three-year term is too short for effective long-term policymaking. He says: "By the time a government finds its feet and starts implementing policy, it is already thinking about the next election. A four-year term would give governments time to develop coherent long-term policies."

No argument from me there.

He also says our parliament - with 120 MPs - is about 30 percent smaller than international benchmarks say it should be.

So he says get 50 more. He also thinks we need less cabinet ministers and reckons 15 would be enough.

But I reckon he’s going to be pushing it uphill to sell his idea of more politicians.

I’m not sold. Far from it.

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Labour had their Capital Gains Tax policy leaked earlier this week.

The tax would only apply to residential and commercial property sales, not any other taxable areas. A decision which has led some to question if this is really a Capital Gains Tax.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins had previously said that there would be no Capital Gains Tax under his leadership. However, he told John MacDonald that, 'after the election when we lost, I said, well, everything goes back on the table.'

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So another ham-fisted announcement from the Labour Party.

In fact, it wasn’t even an announcement. Because of a leak, it was forced this morning to confirm its plan to include a capital gains tax in its policies for next year’s election.

Which looks to me like a very watered-down, scaredy-cat version of a capital gains tax that won’t impress many.

Because, if they were serious, they’d apply it to everything. None of these exclusions. Which I’ll get to.

Another fly in the ointment - aside from all the exclusions and the leak - is what the money from the tax would be used on. Three free doctor’s visits a year for all of us.

Which I think would create more problems than it would be worth.

So, if Labour forms the next government, it will introduce a capital gains tax that, if it’s to be believed, would only apply to what seems like a very short list of things.

There’d be no capital gains on the sale of the family home and there’d be no capital gains on the sale of farms. But there would be a capital gains tax on the sale of rental properties and commercial properties.

So the farmers would be happy and the landlords - residential and commercial - would be brassed-off.

There would also be no capital gains tax on KiwiSaver, shares, business assets, inheritances, and personal items. Which, Labour says, would mean 90 percent of us not paying any tax on any property we own and all of us getting three free doctor’s visits a year.

That’s because the revenue from this new tax would be funnelled straight into the health system

But has Labour really thought it through? Because, as soon as you start telling people they can go to the doctor for free three times a year, what chance do you think they’ll actually be able to get an appointment with everyone doing the same?

What’s more, Labour says “one in six New Zealanders cannot afford to visit their doctor when they are sick.” So why aren’t they targetting those people?

Why would you give free doctor’s visits to the five-out-of-six who can afford to go to the doctor?

That’s why this tax proposal is Labour’s second-worst policy idea in the last few years, coming a very close second to the non-sensical, last-minute GST-off-fruit-and-vegetables idea it cooked up before the last election.

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Today on Politics Friday, National MP and former doctor Vanessa Weenink, and Labour's Tracey Lee McLellan join John MacDonald to delve into the biggest topics of the week.

They discuss the Government response to yesterday's wind storm, the mega-strike, the end of home economics and outdoor education in schools, political involvement in the Netball NZ debacle, and Labour's future funding policy.

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What happened to the emergency mobile alert system ahead of and during yesterday’s wind storm?

One explanation for the absence of text alerts from one government MP is that, with the power out in places, the cell towers weren’t working.

But the power wasn’t out in Christchurch city and there were still no alerts on my phone. What’s more, the power only went out once the wind hit - well after the Emergency Management Minister pre-emptively declared a state of emergency on Wednesday afternoon.

So, there are questions to be answered.

I also think that, from the outset, the state of emergency shouldn’t have been limited to Canterbury.

If you look around the South Island, there are areas that have been hit just as hard - if not worse - than some areas in Canterbury.

The Emergency Management Minister declared an emergency in Southland this morning. But it should have happened sooner.

Then there are the people who question the need for such a response.

I’m not sure if it was just the state of emergency that made things so quiet in town yesterday or whether it was the state of the emergency plus the mega-strike.

Odds on, it was the state of emergency. Which one Christchurch business owner isn’t happy about. They think it was overkill including Christchurch because the city wasn’t as badly-affected as other parts of the region and their takings were down 50 percent because of it.

It was like a tale of two Canterburys yesterday. We had trees coming down and that fire at Hanmer Springs. Whereas, in Christchurch, I think a lot of us were wondering when it was going to hit.

The wind picked up at times. But, overall, Christchurch got off pretty lightly.

Nevertheless, I disagree that the city shouldn’t have been included in the state of emergency.

Because who knew the wind was going to behave the way it did? With that wall of wind that was heading towards the city yesterday morning splitting into two and skirting around the city.

That’s why I’ll always support the “better safe than sorry” approach.

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Canterbury Civil Defence Controller James Thompson joined John MacDonald on Canterbury Mornings with the latest information we need to know ahead of today's expected damaging wind storm.

The region is under a red wind warning locally, along with parts of the Southern North Island.

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