Oh Calendargirl I've just seen that this topic has no comments, so I'll add an answer.
I'm not sure that the RF would normally merit its own forum, but this year is certainly a momentous one for them. It won't be earth shattering news when the Queen dies, but it will certainly provoke lots of discussion and I understand why people on GN might like to keep it separate from the other forums. Likewise I assume there are those who regard it as trivial stuff which gets in the way at times. They must want it to have its own forum too because we sometimes read comments like, "Go back to your RF thread" when some others engage in political discussions.
I'm sure it was asked of GNHQ to separate News from Politics a while back, and although they said they would think about it, nothing ever happened. By the same token I guess a request for a RF forum might suffer the same fate.