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Monarchy and Royalty

Mullardman

Moderately extreme...
I do not wish to sully the Prince Philip RIP thread with this. As far as I'm concerned the bloke was a product of his times and circumstances. I neither liked nor disliked him.. but he does seem to have stuck to the job he signed up for and if the Dof E Award was his only legacy.. he made his mark.
But.. I digress...

Our Monarchy is basically an institution which has been incorporated into the mechanism of 'The State'. The Monarchy currently exists by the consent of Parliament and the people. Yet in a curious way, each lends legitimacy to the other. It is what it is. I recognise its usefulness as a 'marketing' tool for the UK, and also as a sort of more or less politically neutral focus for the population when needed.

Royalty, on the other hand..is frankly an absurd concept...which gives present day 'royals' some sort of legitimacy... in the eyes of those who accept the bluff.

Those individuals who are deemed 'royal' by dint of their family history and descent, are essentially the descendents of people who acquired and maintained power and ascendency through military force, skulduggery, murder, intrigue, incest, and worse. There is no 'direct' line of 'royal' descent..and several times throughout our history.. different people/families have gained ascendency through conflict, convenient marriages, murder...or even invitation... etc...

'Royalty' ceased to have any meaning once democracy was established in the UK.. not that it had any real meaning beforehand other than some bizarre belief in 'divine right' etc. Royalty was replaced by 'The Monarchy'

Are those above qualities ones we should really be using to elevate human beings to some sort of status which places them above the masses, requires 'cap doffing' etc?

Pushing the point a bit I know.. but just for effect... Putin is a man who has maintained power in Russia by disposing of his enemies..or silencing them through fear. In what way is he different to Henry VIII? OK..as far as I know he doesn't invoke 'God' as his legitimator.. but in modern times Fear of God is not needed.. fear of the man is enough..

Same could be applied to China, North Korea, numerous Gulf/Arab states.

Royalty is a sham. Discuss.
 
Part of the reason the current mob had so much trouble assimilating Diana was becasue, in reality, Diana had a far better claim to the throne, via bloodlines, than any of the present incumbents.

I'm not pro monarchy at all and that was concreted for me when Bertha wholly failed to do the right thing and dismiss Johnson for breaking the law. At that point Bertha, by her inaction, made them utterly irrelevant to a modern democracy. It's every politics students first essay. "Does the UK need a written constitution, discuss". This past decade have seen every last check and balance that supposedly existed within the "naturally evolving unwritten constitution", ripped up and peed on by the Tories and the monarch has sat there on their billion dollar backside and done, diddly squat.
 
Once the old guard have shuffled off, quite soon as most are of very advanced years, how long do you think the new brat pack will last?
A combination of embarrassing actions caught by the paparazzi, a lack of ability to display the "royal graces" and their own anti royal duties/expectations attitudes, will surely hit hard on existing public acceptance, state service and general justification.
Out with the popcorn...
 
Well, "dieu etc mon droit" is still the motto of the monarch of the United Kingdom. It seems to me a better question might be, does anyone believe it any more?
Of course they believe it ,she was anointed at the
coronation, her touch still cures scrofula.
 
Honni soit qui mal y pense, my British friends.

:D

Tourists from all over the world want your monarchy to continue, that’s the reason it does, even though it’s an anachronism.
 
Honni soit qui mal y pense, my British friends.

:D

Tourists from all over the world want your monarchy to continue, that’s the reason it does, even though it’s an anachronism.


I wouldn't crow too loudly your taxes paid their EU
farm subsidies.
 
Tourists from all over the world want your monarchy to continue, that’s the reason it does, even though it’s an anachronism.
Although the château in Versailles gets 5 times the number of visitors (8 million) that Windsor Palace gets, not to mention Buck House which is not really open to Joe Public. So tourism does not strike me as a good enough reason to maintain an obsolete institution.
 
I used to be against the idea of a monarchy, now I really have no view. I don't underestimate our capacity to replace it with something far worse. There is a very large part of the population who actually seem to find it comforting to be ruled over. Across the world dictators tend to be the most popular leaders for what I can only assume are similar reasons.

Leaders of genuinely consensual or inclusive coalitions can only dream of such appreciation.
 
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I'm instinctively a republican, at least I think I am, but I have often pondered what a "Republic of the United Kingdom" might be like, how we would actually get there without war or revolution, and how we would decide important constitutional issues like who would be Head of State, how would they be elected, would they have executive powers or would they be mere figureheads replacing the monarch, with their role heavily circumcised by law, custom and practice? What about the continuing role of the Prime Minister? Might it just be easier to leave things as they are?
 


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