Is there not a better way? (David Priest)

It has been shown that the vast majority want the monarchy. The thought of some politically correct appointment of someone who has no interest in the continuity of the country and only exploiting the system for a fat pension is horrendous.

This weekend should be a time of celebration of a fantastic achievement and not an opportunity to deride a great milestone in the history of our monarchy. 60 years of doing the same job day in and day out, meeting all sorts of people, visiting different places all across the world, shaking all those hands and making personal sacrifices in order to do your duty, is not what I would call a privilege, but a very onerous task, one that I would certainly not like to do. The Queen has performed this role with outstanding dedication and tenacity. Our royal family are the envy of the world. Prince William’s wedding alone was watched by 2 billion people all across the world. This figure does not suggest that our monarchy is in any way unpopular, especially when we have 7 billion people in the world. If people are unhappy with the monarchy and dislike it so much they do have a freedom of choice to live elsewhere in the world.

I’m not entirely sure I deserve it, Mr Smith, but it’s a kind thought.

Sue Wailoo, I assume you will trouble yourself to name these ‘several members’ of the Royal Family and provide concrete proof rather than slurs and accusations? A great many people everywhere failed to see the dangers of Nazi Germany in the 1930s – Sir Winston Churchill (a staunch Royalist) was a lone voice at the time. Indeed, there is even a infamous photograph of the England soccer team giving the Hitler salute before a match in Berlin in the late 1930s.

I note you did not feel able to challenge the fact that the Royal Family provided leadership and example in those times, nor that Great Britain has never flirted with extremism unlike many republics in Europe. It should also be remembered that both HM the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh served in the war, continuing a long tradition of patriotic which has been carried on by the Duke of York (Falklands) and Prince Harry. If only we could see such examples of service from Blair, Brown, Cameron et al.
I have recently read that the 1000 yacht regatta on the Thames will include a young soldier who lost a leg in Afghanistan but is going to row down the river in honour of HM. I assume you also disapprove of this magnificent gesture?

Please be assured that we will indeed enjoy our weekend.

CORRECTION:

“Mrs Thatcher’s hereditary peerage which will keep her family..in the House of Lords…”

It would have been be more accurate to say “Mrs Thatcher’s hereditary peerage which WAS INTENDED to keep her family…etc”

[The House of Lords Act, 1999, introduced some restrictions on hereditary peerages.]

Get it right John, Thatcher’s husband received an hereditary baronetcy, but she herself was created a life baroness by her successor, John Major. Since Thatcher’s tenure, only The Prince Edward and Prince William of Wales have been created hereditary peers (they were created Earl of Wessex in 1999 and Duke of Cambridge in 2011 respectively, both on the occasion of their marriages).
We should rid our selves of the house of Lords for no other reason that they are unelected, never mind this poor downtroden commoner’s guff..

A lot of the republican bleating about the Royal Family claims to be about democracy, but when one scratches the surface, it is purely petty jealousy and envy. If republicans were so worried about ‘democracy’, why did they not protest about Tony Blair becoming PM with just 35% of the vote? Or that the vast majority of Brits favour a referundum on EU membership, but this is simply ignored by our ‘mother knows best’ political class? Or that 75% of our laws are now decided upon by unelected Eurocrats.
These are real challenges to our democracy, not the fact that we (like Norway, Holland, Spain, Sweden and a host of other free, tolerant and decent nations) have a unelected figurehead as a ceremonial head of state.

Democracy is simply not the issue for republicans – instead they are really interested in 70’s style Class War moaning about ‘privilege’.The fact is that in any free market economy, certain people are going to end up richer or more privileged than others and any social engineering project to alter this results in wonderful People’s Paradises like East Germany and North Korea. Do republicans really believe that future (eg) Kennedy’s, Bush’s or Obama’s are not going to be born into privilege?

Luckily the latest polls show that only 13% of Britons favour a republic, and any republicans who feel they are mistreated in Britain’s Consitutional Monarchy, (or who find it ‘repugnant’) are more than welcome to try and emigrate to a republican eutopia – may I suggest Zimbabwe?

Robert Sim

You seem to overlook the fact that the Constitutional Monarchy and House of Lords were integral parts of our ‘parliamentary / political system at that time’ and therefore added to the ‘the stability and maturity’ of it.
Are you suggesting that all those nations in Europe who ended up with extremist governments lacked mature political systems? Even today, the first round of the recent Presidental elections in France saw 30% of people voting for either a Holocaust denier or a Communist. This is admitedly an improvement on the last time, when a man who denies the Holocaust ever happened came 2nd.

I have read with great delight the comments on Mr Priest’s letter; which I had found repugnant in the extreme. Born “British” and proud of it; hopefully a member of the United Kingdom; and living for nearly 40 years in one of the most beautiful parts of that United Kingdom. I have a respect for the Royal Family and what they try to stand for in an ever changing world. None of us are perfect; but I can not see many people dedicating their entire lives in the way our Queen has done; nor can I believe that many of us would wish to do and be expected to continue doing; the daily work she commits herself too. Naive maybe; but my thanks go out to all of you whose more eloquent responses have found the words that I was unable to find – I join with you all “God Save The Queen”……..

Clearly, for some folk, the lines are very blurred between the monarchy and religious belief. And good luck to you on that one. We all need something to believe in.

What I have been suprised by in this exchange is the level of vitriol and personal invective directed at those who espouse anti-monarchist views. Does that typify the values we are all meant to see enshrined in the Royal Family?

John Tulloch, Robert Sim and Sue Wailoo thank you for your supporting comments. Sorry about the length of this.

This has been a very useful exercise in sharpening up my arguments, but nothing of the shallow arguments put up by pro monarchists has caused me to change my views in the slightest. Observing the comments above I would clarify what is important and why I am a republican (& proud of it) ;

1) The monarchy need to be de-coupled from the British constitution. their automatic right to be head of state to be suspended. Jubilee’s , royal marriages, divorces, birth’s deaths and bar mitzvahs can all go on as normal. Behind that the constitution needs redesigning, particularly the role of head of state and the operation and constitution of the house of lords, accountability of the military and judiciary needs to be considered and more effective checks and balances established. The UK has never really had full democracy, the House of Lords Act 1999 was at best a fudge.

2) It is politicians and those that slog away in the public sector that perform the real public service (including the military) in the UK. The make tough decisions with scarce resources and are regularly harangued – for sport- by a cynical and manipulative media. Never having to make difficult public policy decisions means that the royalty (& aristocracy) rarely have expose themselves to trial by media, unlike politicians, and can sit there aloof as those who try to make the world a better place have to slug it through all the invective and character assassination.

3) The head of state needs to have some affinity with the poor and disadvantaged in society. I don’t see where the royals have any affinity with anyone outside their own class. 2 weeks living in a croft in Loch Nagar doesn’t quite convince me that they understand the poverty issues of living in one parent families on council estates in major cities or what rural poverty really does mean in the UK.

4) I have some sympathy with the generations that lived through World War 2 or the post war austerity. The royal family did show some genuine leadership here and in actual fact in some ways the queen has not been a too bad head of state. She is attractive to many people in the UK because there has been a dignity and continuity and restraint in her own personal conduct – unlike some of those around her. But why does the queen feel she needs to go on for ever? The demands of the role must mean that as an 80 odd year old capacity and ability must be limited now and it demonstrates a lack of vision, inflexibility and selfishness in not standing down in a dignified way at a more normal retirement age.

5) There are other successful models of establishing a republican constitution. The republic of Eire is a great example, so is Germany post war (& a successful economy and football team too). Chris Ash seems to equate republicanism with dictatorship or communism. I equate it with proper checks and balances, moderate, consensual with forward thinking and a care for the whole community.I’m sure we can think of many failed monarchy’s over the 20th century often working in collusion with dictatorship to keep the masses down trodden.

6) The monarchy is against change and improvement. In the last 25 years of the Queens reign, inequality has increased, corporate power has increased and the elderly, vulnerable and disadvantaged have been increasingly alienated and left without a role in society. Where is the evidence that the monarchy have done anything to help stop or reverse this decline?

Chris Ash makes the point about the poor soldier in the regatta who lost his leg in Afghanistan. I’m glad he is getting an opportunity to do his bit and feel proud and get some recognition for his sacrifice but I feel he is being used in a very subtle PR game. Royalty are very dependent on the military and I am sure the military appreciate having figureheads who take an interest in their issues and point of view. This is a pact that re-established itself after the Civil War in England. But ultimately the royals use their close links with the military to be seen as doing their public service. It is a convenient trade off to do and young royals can be seen as both manly and caring and `doing their bit with the lads’ at the same time.
I’d like to see one of them do hospital porter shifts or train up as a social worker (inner cities of course) or work with asylum seekers for say a 3 year stint – not quite as glamorous eh..and a more poignant contrast to the regular pleasure dome of hunting, polo, horse racing that they would be more comfortable with.

The queen has been a popular head of state and if there was an election for the job next week, of course she could win. But in a few years time there will be a successor and the cracks in the royal edifice will become more noticeable. At last the royals are becoming more vulnerable.

It is important that Republic as an organisation continues to keep the pressure on and take opportunities to point out the flaws in the present anachronistic fudge. We are here for the long game. Your interest in my letter has only helped raise the profile and illustrated the weakness of the pro monarchist arguments, thank you..

Yes indeed, Robert., You can imagine the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret cursing and sinking about the failure of deference over their gin.

Interesting article by an erstwhile republican:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/the_queens_diamond_jubilee/9307361/Jeremy-Paxman-Were-all-monarchists-now-even-me.html

I thought that people might be interested in reading a Canadian opinion on the monarchy. Coyne uses a word which I don’t see much in the debate above: love.

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/opinion/Coyne+Long+live+monarchy/6730720/story.html

Chris Ash,

The above example John Tulloch gave is a good one. And reminds me that according to that same constitution Emperor Hirohito had divine powers, as per the shinto belief that his family were descended from the sun god Amaterasu. These kind of religious proclaimations are not uncommon in explaining/justifying how/why monarchs came to be, throughout any continent.

“Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith”

A lot of us think that matters of State and Religion should be kept entirely separate, monarch or not.

Chris Ash,

You’re right. IF the bombing of Pearl Harbour was the best argument for changing our system, republicans would indeed be scraping the barrel however it isn’t even the argument – the only reason Hirohito was mentioned was because you challenged my comment “Ruling monarchs took major countries to war against democracies as recently as World War II.” “RULING” monarchs – it was YOU who asked me to explain which “Constitutional” monarch took his country to war in WWII and I answered your question correctly.

Just because our royals are more cuddly than the Meiji Constitution Japanese monarchy doesn’t make it right for us to have a monarchy.

The problem with constantly shifting your ground each time your argument suffers a reverse is that the “wheel eventually turns full circle” and you get back to where you already lost in the first round, viz.,

The Queen does her job admirably and the Duke of Edinburgh’s honesty and lack of political correctness are refreshing however that doesn’t excuse the fact that they are where they are because of heredity – they are descended from the most successful – and ruthless – warlords of the past whose ill-gotten gains have been passed on from generation to generation until such time as they attained an air of legitimacy and entitlement.

I suppose the descendants of Saddam Hussein and Idi Amin might have become respectable “Constitutional” monarchs in about 500 years time had their lines not been rudely interrupted – in the best traditions – by force of arms.

Would that make it all OK to have let them stay on?

Chris,

You can skate around the argument throwing off red herrings as much as you like(which I shall answer separately to avoid detracting from this) however the one argument that cannot be resisted is that the automatic apportioning of supposed genetic superiority to a group of individuals by their “pedigree” and keeping them apart from “commoners” is not only undemocratic, it is tacit apartheid – racism.

If Prince Charles was the Queen’s little brother, would she still be the Queen?
If Prince Charles converts to Catholicism can he still be heir to the throne?
If Barack Obama was British could he become Head of State?

No, no and thrice, no.

Sorry, that can’t be right.

Funny how people who have lost an argument seek refuge in semantics.

“constitutional monarchy
n.
A monarchy in which the powers of the ruler are restricted to those granted under the constitution and laws of the nation”
Source: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/constitutional+monarchy

The Constitution of the Empire of Japan aka “Meiji Constitution” restricted the powers of the emperor in line with the above constitution and the laws of that nation. No more to be said.

I repeat, “the automatic apportioning of supposed genetic superiority to a group of individuals by their “pedigree” and keeping them apart from “commoners” is not only undemocratic, it is tacit apartheid – racism.”

Keep skating round it, you might get lucky yet.

“As the Americans evidently knew, the Constitutional Monarchy is the most stable form of government one can get.”

Then why did the American’s define their own country as a Federal Republic?

I understood your point about the Economist’s Democracy Index perfectly well, thanks. There is no need to start throwing around insults. You should accept that people have different views to you and rather than try and discredit them by saying they are stupid, you should try and discredit what they are saying.

I think what is even more relevant to this debate is that your Democracy Index is essentially meaningless. And discredited by the fact that it lists France, Italy and Portugal among many others, as being ‘flawed democracies’. This might actually be true… but I don’t think they’re any more flawed than say, the United Kingdom’s Democracy, or the Republic of Ireland’s.

Is the Kingdom of Norway really more democratic than the Republic of Iceland? Is the Republic of Iceland more Democratic than it’s old colonial motherland, the Kingdom of Denmark? Are these meaningful comparisons? Isn’t the correlation between ‘more democratic’ nations (as defined by 60 Questions posed by the Economist Magazine) and ‘constitutional monarchies’ more to do with European Colonial History? All 25 ‘full democracies’ except Japan and South Korea are European nations, or former European colonies.

Some are republics and some aren’t. Some will probably become a republic in the near future – like Australia – and some won’t. I suggest that the deciding factor in the Democracy Index seems to be access to European colonially influenced modern Free Trade policy, not links to constitutional democracies. And I suppose, this would be a logical conclusion for the “Economist Magazine”, which promotes and indeed sells economic intelligence, to reach.

Here’s how the Democracy Index was devised:

60 Questions about each country were asked. Don’t know who to. (e.g. ‘Are Elections Free and Fair?’). Most answers are “experts’ assessments”; the report does not indicate what kinds of experts, nor their number, nor whether the experts are employees of the Economist Intelligence Unit or independent scholars, nor the nationalities of the experts. Some answers are provided by public-opinion surveys from the respective countries. In the case of countries for which survey results are missing, survey results for similar countries and expert assessments are used in order to fill in gaps.

This is meaningless sociological survey work. Pseudo-science. It’s essentially an opinion. In this case, being taken out of context to argue against democracy in the form of a democratically elected head of state. The Irony… I wonder if one of the questions in the Economist’s Democracy Index survey might have been ‘Was the Head of State democratically elected?’. How many points for that?

And on the point of Pearl Harbour, that was simply a response to you saying that no monarchies attacked republics in WW2. Another vacuous and meaningless assertion.

Well they did. One notable example was Japan’s agression against the USA, which by the way, was nothing to do with monarchial nations being more or less aggressive than republics, it was a bid to safeguard oil supplies from British/Dutch (Shell) controlled fields in Indonesia. A power play which ultimately went tragically wrong for all involved. No more no less.

This in turn was in response to a comment about members of the Royal Family being Nazi Sympathizers in WW2. Well, that is widely speculated on, by many historical experts. It’s not difficult to imagine though, since prior to the outbreak of was about 50% of Europeans supported extreme right wing policy, and about 50% supported extreme left wing policy.

I support the idea of a British Republic because I believe in people being equal. And I believe in modernism; I don’t believe in maintaining tradition for tradition’s sake. Finally, and most of all I find royally inspired chauvanistic patriotism/nationalism which the monarch are designed to personify, offensive and embarassing. As a secularist I don’t have much time for religious proclamations from sovereign heads of state either. It’s not about Pearl Harbour, or a meaningless poll/editorial gimmick from the Economist, and I acknowledge that nationalism is not reserved only for monarchists, but you’ve failed to convince me that the monarchy are worth supporting, Chris, so I’ll just stick to my bizarre views as you call them. the jubilee stuff had shades of the ‘dear leader worship’ about it and I’m not comfortable with that. But each to their own. We’ll carry on regardless and I don’t suppose it will much affect my life. Except for the hugely irritating and embarassing Cliff Recard/Elton John/Wills n Kate fest I’ll have to endure when she snuffs it and that twit Charles takes over…. yawn

Don’t mind me, put it down as some more “normal miserable Class-War ranting from a republican.” if you like.

RAIN? REIGN! Dyslexia for President?

The Economist’s Democracy Index? OK.

I think we can conclude that those countries at or near the top which have “constitutional monarchies” must be extremely democratic in respects other than the way they determine who is to become head of state; they are therefore at the top IN SPITE OF and not because of having a monarchy.

Perhaps it’s because of their “unicameralism” (I thought that was inhabiting a “one-camel-town”) – no House of Lords with membership by heredity or political patronage and the fact that what’s left of their monarchies is well pared down. For example the personal fortune of King Harald V has been estimated at 100 million kroner (about 10 million pounds). Try multiplying by 1000 for our lot.

Come to think of it, when does the Norwegian Household Cavalry “troop the colour” – I must remember to book my holidays?

Interesting too that the UK falls below such republican beacons as Uruguay, Czech Republic, Malta, Germany and Austria, I wonder why that might be?

Aha! So the reason that five of the top six most democratic nations are all Constitutional Monarchies can only possibly be DESPITE their system of government! I’m now beginning to understand how a republican sees the world.

As for Semantics, and while we’re on the subject, let’s take democracy:

de·moc·ra·cy/diˈmäkrəsē/

Noun:

1.A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
2.A state governed in such a way.

So if you are one of those who chooses to see the world in black and white, this would mean that Apartheid South Africa (a country which threw off the tyranny of a Constitutional Monarchy to become a republic, let’s not forget) was a democracy – afterall, “all the eligible members of a state” got a vote.

There are, however, shades of grey in everything. Imperial Japan was far closer to being an Absolute Monarchy than a true Constitutional Monarchy. The British system had been rejected as giving ‘too much power to Parliament’ (ie. the people), and the Japanese Emperor alone had the right to make war, make peace, dismiss and appoint any and all government officials and was “sacred and inviolable” and worshipped as a God – so not a lot of restriction in his absolute power, I think you’d agree.

Well, John, I am glad I managed to help you firm up your opinions and many thanks for a lively debate.