03 Jun 2011
In another recent post one commenter was suggesting that the cost of becoming a republic would be astronomical because the state would lose the Crown Estate, the palaces and the royal art collection (among other things). This is an example of a common misconception about the relationship between the Windsors, the monarchy, the Crown, the state and the government. It’s a misconception fueled by the confusing way in which the government and the royal household describe the various property and ownership arrangements.
The Queen owns property in an official capacity and in a private capacity. Some things she owns as Queen Elizabeth, other things she owns as Elizabeth Windsor.
Property owned by Elizabeth Windsor is rightly hers and will remain so in a republic. Property owned by Queen Elizabeth would cease to be hers if she ceases to be Queen.
The Crown Estate is owned by the Queen ‘in right of the Crown’. In other words, in an official capacity. She no more owns the Crown Estate personally than David Cameron owns the flat above 10 Downing Street. If she ceases to be Queen she ceases to ‘own’ the Crown Estate.
The same is true of the royal palaces and the art collection. The same is also true, although in a slightly different way, of the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. They are only the property of the Queen and the heir respectively so long as those individuals are Queen and heir.
The Crown is something else altogether. Contrary to the view of our recent commenter on this site, the Crown does not ‘belong’ to the Queen. It is an institution of state and it belongs to the nation. Since 1689 parliament has had complete authority over who the Crown passes to and how its powers will be exercised.
It is also worth pointing out that the government doesn’t own or have claim to the palaces, land or art collections anymore than the Windsors do. But the nation does, as I’ll explain in a moment. But we need to be clear that the government is a separate entity from the state and from parliament. It is parliament that has control over the Crown, not the government (putting aside for one moment government access to royal powers). This difference between parliament and government is often lost in this country because parliament is so often controlled by government, but it is still an important distinction to make.
So, parliament decides who the Crowned head of state is and whoever that person is ‘owns’ the property mentioned above only so long as they are in that official position. They have no personal claim to it were they to leave office.
So what happens if we abolish the monarchy? It’s quite simple: parliament declares the throne to be vacant and passes the Crown to the people. The people’s parliament then has complete authority to determine what to do with all its assets and property. The monarch who is removed from office has no claim to any of the property as it was never theirs in the first place. The nation keeps the palaces, the art, the jewels and the land. It’s legally, constitutionally and morally right.
Some people like to point out that the former King of Greece has pursued the Greek government in the courts over confiscated assets since his removal from power in the 1970s. I’d say two things about this: firstly Greek law and the Greek constitution are different to ours. In the UK the situation is reasonably clear, the property in question is the property of the Crown and parliament has complete authority over the Crown; secondly, do we really want to look up to people who feel such an overwhelming sense of entitlement as the King of Greece?
Putting the technical points to one side for a minute, the underlying message of the “it’s going to cost us millions/billions” argument is that we should allow ourselves to be held to ransom by one family. The question of republicanism is one of principle and democratic reform, if the people want that reform then there is a duty on the part of the Windsors to allow that reform to go ahead. To demand money and property that morally and practically belongs to the nation on the basis of a technicality would be in very bad taste. Particurly given their own personal fortunes that they can fall back on in their post-monarchy lives.
So let’s be absolutely clear: there would be no financial loss if we became a republic because the property belongs to the nation and would continue to do so.
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June 3rd, 2011 at 10:27 am
Great article Graham, keep up the good work.
June 3rd, 2011 at 10:37 am
Some of this is true, with some minor errors with facts etc. However the cases for the duchyies like this article pionts out it a different matter. They would no longer exist and produce money. As for the Crown lands today they dont belong to Elizabeth Winsor as they belong to the crown. This is because the Queen gets money from the public, known as the civil list. However if the civil list stops then the lands and the money produced goes back to being privatily owned by the Elizaebeth, like it was before the agrument for taxpayers money occured.
June 3rd, 2011 at 10:52 am
“So let’s be absolutely clear: there would be no financial loss if we became a republic because the property belongs to the nation and would continue to do so.”
This is an interesting comment. One of the complaints that republicans often raise is the ‘cost’ of the monarchy, and that by divesting themselves of the monarchy they would be able to save millions of pounds and lower taxes.
Firstly – pfffffffthahahahaha! Lower taxes? Seriously? Don’t be so tragically naive.
Mainly, though, this expenditure isn’t just used as a personal income for the Queen it’s also used – the mjority of it is used – to maintain royal properties and employ its staff. This money would still need to be spent regardless of whether it was Queen Elizabeth or glorious El Presidenté Smith sitting on the big chair. As you say, these estates belongs to the nation so abolishing the monarchy would entail very little saving.
You could, of course, sell these properties off – and put hundreds of people out of work, and also contradict your own policy; you often complain of the ‘inaccessibility’ of the art in the Royal Collection (newsflash: museums and galleries never put all of their works on display at once) but in your drive for efficiency and economy and precious savings you’d rather dismantle the nation’s art and architecture and let the developers roll over it.
Republican economics are swingeing and incoherent.
June 3rd, 2011 at 10:54 am
Thank you for the article. I wonder if you could explain something else: when somebody takes the oath of allegiance, is that to the Queen (as Queen, or as Head of State), the Crown, or something else? I know the oath includes the phrase “her heirs and successors, according to law”, and the argument I have heard is that “successors” could be taken to mean her successor as Head of State, which may one day mean a republican President. Does it or could it actually mean that?
This may warrant another article!
June 3rd, 2011 at 11:04 am
“…but in your drive for efficiency and economy and precious savings you’d rather dismantle the nation’s art and architecture and let the developers roll over it.” DVK
Says who – you? Try not to invent the position that Republic holds in these matters.
June 3rd, 2011 at 11:10 am
no it doesnt mean that at all. Also parilement does not have complete control over the crown.
June 3rd, 2011 at 11:12 am
Phaedra, Republic likes to say that the royal finances are a drain on the nation and can be saved. Savings are a central plank of your programme – you even have a whole page of the website dedicated to it. The thing is, though, that abolishing the monarchy would entail no saving, for the reasons established above. So, how else are you going to satisfy this promise of economising?
June 3rd, 2011 at 11:14 am
Adam, that’s not the case at all. The Crown Estate was not exchanged as a private arrangement, it was simply passed from one branch of the state to another. In ‘exchange’ for that transfer the government agreed to pay the civil list. There is no obligation on the government to pay the civil list and if it stopped doing so the Crown Estate would remain unchanged.
Parliament does indeed have full control over the Crown.
June 3rd, 2011 at 11:24 am
DVK
Saving money is not and never has been a central plank of our campaign.
Monarchists argue that the country would lose money if we became a republic. We’re pointing out that that’s not the case. How is that contradicting the idea that we would in fact save money? And when have we said anything about lower taxes?
June 3rd, 2011 at 11:29 am
To DVK. Where does it say that republic is advocating selling off or developing heritage sites, which is what you suggested and I responded to? Making them fully available to the wider public, together with their art collections might be a considerable wealth-generating option.
Currently we are fussing over and using pubic funds to promote and protect a raft of members of this family. There are potentially massive reductions in funding available. The millions wasted in self-promotion and self-congratulatory aggrandisement might be a place to start. I know that a president would attract some costs, but nothing compared with the current scale of absolute waste.
June 3rd, 2011 at 11:33 am
If saving money is irrelevant, why do you have a specific page of this website dedicated to expounding the pernicious state of the royal finances? Why not delete it if it is of no real central concern? You could repurpose the site bandwidth to more constructive things.
Republic also bangs on the taxation drum quite frequently when it brings up the pennies-per-year-per-citizen point.
You also fail to address the central problem – you would not “in fact” save money by abolishing the monarchy. No real saving would be made at all.
June 3rd, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Phaedra, for one you’re making an awful lot of presumptions (why would a president necessarily spend less on promotion than a king? If anything, a president would spend more – he has a conflict of interest, because he’s got to keep people sweet to get re-elected), and for two, what would these supposed savings achieve?
By Republic’s own highest estimate, £180 million p.a. is spent on the monarchy. Government’s total expenditure for the coming year is billed at £702 BILLION. This makes even Republic’s own propagandist figure a mere 0.026% of annual government expenditure. It’s even only 3% of the £7 billion we’re currently spending on a pair of carriers with no aeroplanes, to choose a more visual comparison of real government waste that denies the common public money that efforts would be more usefully and constructively invested in combating, instead of chasing after the royal marginals.
Republican obsession with royal finances exposes the whole community as petty, small-minded beancounters, and losing the wood for the trees.
June 3rd, 2011 at 12:20 pm
The major costs would be the reissuing of our money (which we change with a new HOS in any case) reissuing of all service/civilian badges with crowns on and stripping the crown images and markings off of police cars and naval ships.
Or we could be really cheapskate and just leave it as is.
June 3rd, 2011 at 12:27 pm
@DVK
A president would not be able to spend public money on self promotion in the same way that the Government can’t use public money on an election campaign.
This article is about a very specific point, i.e. that of the crown estate and properties that monarchists are claiming would revert to ownership of the Royal family in the event that they become the Windsor family. It is not an article about Royal finances in general. It is easy to get sidetracked and I am one of the worst at taking articles off-topic but this topic has a very clear and specific point.
June 3rd, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Thanks for another great article Graeme. Keep up the good work.
June 3rd, 2011 at 1:06 pm
If a mandate were obtained to dissolve the monarchy then surely that would include the right to review any existing arrangements,no?
June 3rd, 2011 at 1:28 pm
My personal issue with the personal wealth of the Windsors is not so much to do with how much it might cost the country if you were to succeed in your cause, but more to do with the extreme wealth and influence that a now private and uncontrolable family would come to exercise.
The only severe issue I take with Graham’s article is with his presumption about the duchies, he states they are slightly different and them leaves it there. I am currently working through what documents are available and even within themselves the two duchies are unique, the Duchy of Cornwall though is in no part owned by the state, nation or crown. It is the personal property of Prince Charles. Obviously if an expert would like to take issue with this Il debate it with them, bu that is my interpretation of the situation.
I don’t think we exactly need to discuss the possible issues that might arise from Cornwall falling under the control of private indidvidual in a republic.
I feel that more reasearch is required into this subject before you can aptly debate it or before Graham can make broad sweeping statements in an article like this. I have only just started looking into the subject, and it is more complex then I could ever of imagined, and every property within or without of the Crown estate, related to the monarchy in any way is unique in its own situation.
As I have said before, these sort of issues need to be resolved before we can even begin the republic vs monarchy argument.
NB
June 3rd, 2011 at 1:42 pm
I’ll have Sandringham when it comes up for auction,I think it could make quite a nice hotel.
Maybe even create a few new jobs with it being open all year to paying guests too.
June 3rd, 2011 at 1:46 pm
“…for one you’re making an awful lot of presumptions (why would a president necessarily spend less on promotion than a king?” DVK
I said that a republic has the potential for making massive savings in a variety of areas; the security and logistical arrangements for multiple ‘royal’ Windsor add-ons, dukes, duchesses, princesses, princes, earls, cousins, second cousins, nephews et al, the lieutenancy, the innumerable households and countless support staff – being just one.
“If anything, a president would spend more – he has a conflict of interest, because he’s got to keep people sweet to get re-elected)”
You speak of presumption. You appear to have arrived at a prescribed formula, based perhaps upon the American model? What says that this is a system we will slavishly follow – or any other?
This thread is about who owns what. You appear to have dragged it sideways and are now, yourself, defining the monarchy in monetary terms and percentages.
Nobody here is ‘losing the wood for the trees’. Wasteful expenditure and value for public money is only a small part within a far wider campaign, which first and foremost highlights the illegitimacy, undeserved privilege of monarchy and the ridiculous notion that the same ghastly people have positions of authority through the flawed logic of birthright. What the Queen actually owns, against perceptions of what ‘the crown’ consists of, is a political reckoning as much as it is financial ‘bean-counting’.
June 3rd, 2011 at 1:52 pm
Nathaniel Brown the duchies are no-one’s personal property, they are owned by the state in perpetuity to be in the possession of the head of state re Lancaster and the heir to the head of state re Cornwall. Charles Windsor as a private individual person owns not one grain of earth of the Duchy of Cornwall.
June 3rd, 2011 at 1:55 pm
Andrew Morgan: Anything has got to be better than the present Fascist regime at Sandringham. Currently, a family of four is charged £32 to get in; the ‘tour of the house’takes approximately ten minutes and is restricted to about four downstairs rooms – a tiny percentage of this massive house’e volume.
The four rooms are a constructed homage to the Windsors, with fairly unremarkable art, one or two carefully-placed photographs, a collection of jade, some silverware and two cases of Sevres porcelain to be seen.
I strongly recommend that anyone at large in Norfolk and interested in history goes to Blickling Hall or Felbrigg instead.
June 3rd, 2011 at 1:58 pm
Is there anywhere in here that I can start a thread?
June 3rd, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Phaedra,
you can come around to mine for a tenner anyday
give me some warning though so I can do the hoovering
June 3rd, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Somewhere to be able to post new proposals for subjects for comments and analysis would be nice.
June 3rd, 2011 at 2:16 pm
“As I have said before, these sort of issues need to be resolved before we can even begin the republic vs monarchy argument”.
There is no excuse for further procrastination. GB is already 200 hundred years behind other nations as it is. Quite enough t’s and i’s have been crossed & dotted for us to be confident that, in a peaceful transition, EW will not end up in the poor house.
June 3rd, 2011 at 2:24 pm
“As I have said before, these sort of issues need to be resolved before we can even begin the republic vs monarchy argument”.
No. They have taken enough. What have they given? We do not need them to control us any further by worrying unduly about their unconstitutional position, much of which has been constructed to suit themselves.
Windsor does not own ‘The Duchy of Cornwall’. He has had the equivalent of £1 billion out of it however, for doing absolutely nothing.
June 3rd, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Sorry Graham Smith, you are wrong. First of all, parliament does not have full control over the Crown. The system we have in places tries to balance the power between parliament and that of the monarch. However parliament does have more powers then the monarch, but the monarch is not controlled by parliament, like parliament is not controlled by the monarch, they are meant to and do work together or work separately if needed.
As for the Crown lands they use to belong privately to the king or queen. This is because it was used by the monarch to pay for the running of the country (civil government) and other payments the monarch had to pay for being the monarch. However in 1760 the lands where losing value as well as mass, therefore king George III made an agreement with the parliament at the time, “that the Crown Lands would be managed on behalf of the Government and the surplus revenue would go to the Treasury. In return the King would receive a fixed annual payment – today known as the Civil List. This agreement has, at the beginning of each reign, been repeated by every succeeding Sovereign”
Therefore if the argument was to be broke by the government and the civil list payments stopped, then the money will go to the Queen again as technically it will be her property again. However due to the fact the lands and this agreement has been around for years and it know thought of to be part of the unwritten constitution of the UK, the lands and estates will be continued to be run by a separate board. This is because the government does not control the estate. While most of the profits would go to the Queen instead of the treasury, while the rest of the profit will continue to go to the treasury like it does know. Also if the civil list is continued then the money goes where it does know the treasury. So parliament is obligated to pay the civil list and it would change if this was to change.
June 3rd, 2011 at 2:42 pm
(Con)
I would also like to point out that like I said before this “1689 parliament has had complete authority over who the Crown passes to and how its powers will be exercised. “ is wrong. This too is wrong “parliament decides who the Crowned head of state” This also is wrong “But we need to be clear that the government is a separate entity from the state and from parliament. It is parliament that has control over the Crown, not the government (putting aside for one moment government access to royal powers). This difference between parliament and government is often lost in this country because parliament is so often controlled by government, but it is still an important distinction to make.”
Please check your own site as this article is basically saying the cost we pay for monarchy will still be there in the most part if we become a republic. While you “Royal finance” page say something completed different and does not look at all the angles. It also does not look at other countries properly when you make a comparison of other heads of states pay and cost. This page basically is saying we are not getting value for money and if we got rid of monarchy it will say us money. This is different to what this article is saying.
And this bit of the page “What you can buy for £183m” is even more wrong, as this article above says different.
Phaedra- what is this about “Windsor does not own ‘The Duchy of Cornwall’. He has had the equivalent of £1 billion out of it however, for doing absolutely nothing”?
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:04 pm
The idea that the Crown is ‘owned’ by parliament is absolute rubbish. The Crown is regulated in certain ways by Parliament but that doesn’t quite extend to asset stripping it on a whim. Its fantasy, as usual from Graham. Parliament also cannot just ‘give’ the throne to whoever it wants, the Crown is passed down in line with its own rules which parliament has influenced (banning Catholics from succeeding for instance). They could not for instance declare Charles King tomorrow, or declare that for no apparent reason William would succeed the Queen.
The Crown is an independent part of the State, in fact the embodiment of State from which all other areas get their authority so the idea that one area of Government can just nick it and redistribute its assets is a total fantasy. The comparison with 10 Downing street is ridiculous, it is understood that that does not belong to the PM, the same is not the case with the Queen. Evidence for that is in the fact that the Queen does not have to seek permission to make changes to the palace (or any palace) in the same way the PM would to Downing Street which is pretty much the definition of ownership. As for the comparison with Greece – the precedent was set in EUROPEAN courts, which supersede the UK courts. The precedent absolutely stands… Parliament could perhaps, in theory, strip the Crown of its power, but not remove it from the Queen. The assets are hers.
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:08 pm
“…what is this about “Windsor does not own ‘The Duchy of Cornwall’. He has had the equivalent of £1 billion out of it however, for doing absolutely nothing”? Adam
Adam, as a private citizen Charles Windsor does not own Cornwall. His ‘entitlement’ facilitates the income he derives from it. So far, over the course of his life, he has wreaked the equivalent of £1 billion pounds from the arrangement; this for having occupied the appropriate womb and nothing more.
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:12 pm
Phaedra, that’s a pretty common phenomenon known as ‘inheritance’.
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:14 pm
It is wrong that one family should keep for itself 1000s of major works of art by artists such as Michelangelo and Leonardo – work that belongs to the world. Even worse is the way historians went to the “Queen Mothers” house when she died and destroyed any “embarrassing” documentation Re; Edward 8th’s abdication and subsequent behaviour in the 2nd World War.They knew they were destroying part of this nation’s history in order to spare one or two individuals discomfort.
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:25 pm
@Adam
Adam, saying “you are wrong” does not make it so. You may wish to believe we have some kind of system of checks and balances but that belief is incorrect. The Crown is in the hands of parliament, parliament is sovereign, which means there is no higher power than parliament. It can do whatever it wish to do, include remove a monarch from the throne and appoint someone else, or no-one else.
The monarch can theoretically act independently of parliament in a few instances but never does. The convention is that she only acts on the advice of the PM. But ultimately both PM and monarch are subject to the authority of parliament.
No, it’s not saying that at all. It’s saying that there will not be a cost incurred to the taxpayer if we become a republic.
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Mark, I didn’t say the Crown is ‘owned’ by parliament, but it is the case that parliament has complete control over parliament. The phrase is “Crown in parliament”. The Crown is sovereign and is in parliament, making it the highest authority in the land. There is no power that parliament cannot exercise should it wish to do so. The line of succession is governed entirely by statute and parliament can re-write statute and put whoever it pleases on the throne. I’m not saying that’s how it should be, but it is how it is.
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:32 pm
“Phaedra, that’s a pretty common phenomenon known as ‘inheritance’.” Mark
Well it’s not a phenomenon in the sense that its cause is unknown. Neither is it remarkable, but merely a fact. It could change under a republic or various other forms of government. Self-styled ownership as part of managing an illegitimate system of monarchy and imposed upon a nation, rather than having been arrived at through a socially acceptable or popular means, is hardly a legitimate measure stick to define ‘inheritance’.
It might be engraved truth in the minds of curiously unpatriotic monarchists; for republicans it’s merely another problem which needs to be addressed en route to a fairer society. Before you trot out the usual rusty monarchist flourish and ask if republicans are against all forms of inheritance, the answer is that it has nothing to do with this state of affairs.
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:48 pm
@Mark
This is from the Crown Estate its self, have a read.
Up to the reign of King George III the reigning sovereign received the rents and profits of
The Crown Estate. Since 1760 the surplus rents and profits (after deducting management expenses) have at the
beginning of each reign been surrendered by the Sovereign to Parliament as part of the arrangements for the provision of the Civil List. The Estate itself remains part of the hereditary possessions of the Sovereign in the right of the Crown.
2. It is not a Government property, but neither is it part of the private estate of the reigning monarch. The Estate is managed by a Board of Commissioners under the powers vested in them by The Crown Estate Act 1961, which
provided for their salaries and the expenses of the office to be paid out of monies voted by Parliament. By agreement with HM Treasury the maximum number of posts so provided for is 41. The other administative costs of managing the Estate are paid out of the Estate revenues as part of the management expenses. The surplus revenues are paid to the Consolidated Fund at the end of each year and score as a miscellaneous receipt. For 2006-07 £200 million was paid to the Consolidated Fund. For reference, full accounts are produced in July each year under section 2(5) of The Crown Estate Act 1961 (9 and 10 Eliz 2 Ch 55) and is available, on request.
So who will own it when the monarch goes?
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:49 pm
Mark
“As for the comparison with Greece – the precedent was set in EUROPEAN courts, which supersede the UK courts. The precedent absolutely stands…”
This decision was made in the European Court of Human Rights (if you can tell the difference, this is NOT part of the EU).
As the recent controversy with a prisoner’s right to vote, retention of DNA samples etc. has shown, their verdicts are in practice NOT necessarily binding on member states.
(Please also consult a dictionary for the meaning of the word “supersede”.)
It would help if you were to clarify your thoughts and check your facts before wasting the time of others.
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:49 pm
“Nobody here is ‘losing the wood for the trees’. Wasteful expenditure and value for public money is only a small part within a far wider campaign, which first and foremost highlights the illegitimacy, undeserved privilege of monarchy and the ridiculous notion that the same ghastly people have positions of authority through the flawed logic of birthright.”
Lets be perfectly honest, few people are fully aware of the actual nature of the royal family’s economics, and just what they own and what they don’t own, and whats ‘kept in trust’ for them and so on. The reality is, they’ve lived well and high on the hog for centuries, and they’ve taken enough out of the pot to last them all for another couple of centuries, and that’s without them taking another penny from anywhere. They are not going to starve or be short of a bob or two, whatever happens.
Having a republic is far more than economics, but economics plays its part too. Why should anyone drain wealth from anywhere that they haven’t particularly earned or worked for? Don’t we all have to get on one way or the other? Why not them? A republic would change the very nature of this country and we might begin to challenge all the double-standards and hypocrisy and division that exists in Britain; I think this is why some people will fight tooth and nail to keep the royals in place. Where they lead, others follow. If they dodge tax, so will others. If they live well at someone else’s expense, so will others. If they have disdain and scant regard for the common folk, so will others. It is a bad precedent but a precedent all the same.
If England ever does become a republic, no one could fully say how it would be implemented or what route it would take. As a very clever person has said, repeatedly, on this site, a republican England is the beginning of a journey, not the end.
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Phaedra
What a load of waffle… what are you saying then? That you’re against inheritance or for it? Or you just prefer to waffle around it? If you’re fine with it then your point on Prince Charles is total hypocrisy, if you’re against it then… well… frankly you’re a raving commie who doesn’t want us to be able to pass our fairly gained possessions onto our children.
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Dolly
The Queen – as noted in that it is certainly not Government property as claimed by Graham. If it were dissolved the strongest claim by a mile is for EW to take possession, if only because for the most part it was bought with private money, it has absolutely nothing to do with the Government.
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:59 pm
Graham the Crown would have to be owned, not regulated, in order for them to be able to pass it to whoever they wanted. The FSA can’t asset strip banks and give it to the people simply because they dictate a number of things to the banks. Its, again, fantasy.
Your entire argument hinges on this vague idea that Parliament has complete control over the Crown (and your utterly incorrect idea that they can dictate who succeeds and unseat monarchs at will), can you please direct me to the relevant laws and agreements governing this? The Bill of Rights, the most recent law Governing the relationship between parliament and Crown, certainly doesn’t.
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:02 pm
g horsefield
in other words tampering with the evidence with intent to pervert the course of justice
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:03 pm
The way I see it, if England wants to keep the monarchy, let them go ahead; the rest of the others has got to be stupid not to get their republics instituted right away.
I can see why England will tolerate the monarchy, but I don’t see why any other peoples do so. I believe that there are degrees of monarchists; and people are monarchists for different reasons. Therefore, monarchists should not be treated as a monolith.
Of course the most maddening is when you have whole countries who should know better, such as Canada, remain with this silly ideology of monarchy, you begin to wonder.
So, I don’t blame kids like Mark, they have absolutely no clue how this monarchy will go. Once, the other nations shakes off England’s imperialism for good, I mean nations such as Scotland, and Wales, then England will quickly seek popular sovereignty. England is loving the monarchy because it gives it cajones over the other peoples.
This is just my raw opinion. So, to summarize, monarchists are stratified, many different reasons why people adhere to an ideology that harms their own interest, and relegate them to second class humans.
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:09 pm
nice take on the situation eclub1,
Adam,was George III the guy who only spoke german?
I’m sure there was at least one of the house of hanover that spoke no english at all.
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:14 pm
Mark – the ‘Glorious revolution’ established the supremacy of parliament. It’s a shame that you prefer to accuse me of fantasising rather than going away and reading up on the British constitution.
Parliament also determines who succeeds as prime minister. Does that mean parliament ‘owns’ the government? Of course not. This is about constitutional arrangements, not property ownership.
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Andrew, I think that was George I. He was imported from Hanover.
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:29 pm
“… what are you saying then? That you’re against inheritance or for it? …If you’re fine with it then your point on Prince Charles is total hypocrisy, if you’re against it then… well… frankly you’re a raving commie who doesn’t want us to be able to pass our fairly gained possessions onto our children.” Mark
This was the simplistic dichotomy I expected and tried to circumvent. Your non-point turns on ‘fairly-gained possessions’. The illegitimate status of the Windsors and how they arrived at their possessions is not commensurate with any normally-perceived notions of domestic inheritance.
It is equally simplistic to try to use this argument to generate another false dichotomy of my own position. Do wise up Mark. You are certainly incorrect, but incidentally why shouldn’t I be a communist? Why should someone with a communist viewpoint be simply written off as ‘raving’? Doesn’t sit well in any careful argument does it? Your own ‘waffle’ is pretty impressive Mark, on the scale of muddled, inaccurate tosh!
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:40 pm
On the question of inheritance the distinction is between inheriting private property and inheriting public property and public office. One is defensible, the other is not.
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:41 pm
“Your non-point turns on ‘fairly-gained possessions’. The illegitimate status of the Windsors and how they arrived at their possessions is not commensurate with any normally-perceived notions of domestic inheritance.”
Yes, very good point. The whole nature of who owns what in the Western world is very shaky indeed. The history of the Raj, the scramble for Africa, the long history of the slave trade, the land-grabbing here, there and everywhere has been in many cases delicately but certainly deliberately airbrushed out of history, for the most part anyway. The amount of thieving and robbing that constituted the British Empire’s real reason for being, is incalculable. Some people in Britain, and perhaps one or two around the world, seem to have a romantic view of the British Empire; at best, I think it was just a very successful protection racket that got out of control. They made the mafia look like a kindergarten.
Looking back, people may get misty eyed about the whole thing, but lets remember what it was really all about, and they way some of the ‘values’ of empire have shaped, and still shape, Britain and British culture.
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:46 pm
Graham
The Bill of Rights came out of the Glorious Revolution and it had absolutely none of the provisions that you claim it did.
Firstly Parliament cannot ‘choose’ the PM, the PM is chosen by the Queen as the person who will be able to lead a successful legislative agenda. I.e. the head of the party with the most seats. Its not the same as saying they ‘choose’ it and its a totally different situation to the Monarchy. Besides which, as you note, even if this were the case, it would not denote ownership or ownership of the assets, so they are not at liberty to disperse these, or nominate a random body like ‘the people’ as the heirs.
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:58 pm
“So, to summarize, monarchists are stratified, many different reasons why people adhere to an ideology that harms their own interest, and relegate them to second class humans.” eclub1
Yes eclub a good summing up! Monarchy is dehumanising, non-mutual, toxic in its class-based insistency and a guarantor of poverty through its dissembled homage to corporate control.
Uber-monarchist drones are actually in a worse position than the grey masses who are prepared to accept a fair argument. They have swallowed the bait contained within The Book Of Instructions, hook line and sinker and are in the keep-net. I agree with you that we can ignore them as clamouring idiots seeking to curb our basic human rights.
The Windsor power-base is preparing to move into overdrive to sell the illusion of their own magnificence and self-worth to the country. They are already plastered all over their personal (mainstream) media and telling us how 2012 is going to be; what days we are going to have off, what the Bank Holiday will consist of and the ways in which we must spend it; ways that they consider to be suitable. Mark my words, the street party failure seen at the wedding will not be repeated.
It is inconceivable that any voices of dissent will be heard because they will automatically be drowned out by a heavy example of ‘right-thinking’ propaganda. The usual suspects will no doubt be rounded up and incarcerated for having the audacity to speak their minds publicly.
Free human beings we are not. Not all the while these people and their cohorts underpin an oppressive system, based on pretence, which insists that we need them because they are better than us, or significantly different through some flawed notion of genetics. We are some way from changing this situation, but it is perfectly legitimate to campaign forcefully to do so.
I propose we compose a requiem for the 60 lost years of democratic freedom that this woman and her presumptuous, grasping family have denied us. Everything is NOT ok.
June 3rd, 2011 at 5:02 pm
Actually lets get specific here Graham, can you please direct us all to the line in the legislation which removes the Crown from the line of succession and gives it ‘to the nation’ who you claim own it.
June 3rd, 2011 at 5:29 pm
Thank you Graham,
I knew there was one at least.
Isn’t all of this argument academic though?
Surely,should a mandate be obtained for dissolving the monarchy, that mandate would include at least a vote in the house of commons if not a full referendum on repealing any existing rights to property or the management of that property including laws and agreements that stand as we write?
On another note and without wanting to digress from the argument too much.
I would like to propose an idea for a ‘President’,if that’s what an elected head of state would be called in this country,that this person could be nominated and elected directly from anywhere and from any level and to hold office for 1 year only.
I like the idea that anyone could be elected to such high office and if Fred Bloggs,22 Acacia Ave,Wolverhampton was to meet and greet the Emir of Kuwait for example maybe that would give the rest of the world an idea,especially with all the change taking place in the world now.
It would be nice if I could nominate my uncle to a local board or body for election to president,maybe we could do a britain’s got talent kind of thing.
It could also stimulate interest in local,national and inter-national affairs if there was a better chance of an everyman going to the top every year.
June 3rd, 2011 at 5:51 pm
“This was the simplistic dichotomy I expected and tried to circumvent. Your non-point turns on ‘fairly-gained possessions’. The illegitimate status of the Windsors and how they arrived at their possessions is not commensurate with any normally-perceived notions of domestic inheritance”. —Phaedra
The above is not a small point.
Everyone was under the impression that the monarchy was like a ceremonial titular thing. I’ve been told time and time again that when the monarch says “my government..”, she is just upholding tradition, that she really doesn’t mean it. Well, what kind of ceremonial game is it that someone gets to claim actual duchies, the entire country’s treasures and heritage? What sort of game is this? Normally, when two people play a Monopoly Game, when the game is over, the play money and properties are put back in the box, put away to be used another day. Nobody actually gets to take the play money to a real bank, because again, it was a plaything.
In the case of the British monarchy, the monarch takes the ‘plaything’, or should I say the ‘ceremonial thing’ to the bank! She’s keeping all the perks for real, while the rest are role playing. It is her government, it is her duchy, they are her palaces, says Mark. But she doesn’t have to pay the military, or the civil service out of her pocket.
So, Phaedra what you said above is a huge point; because the nature were misled to believe that these traditional, and ceremonial titles were just play, like in monopoly, the nation should take everything back, when the monarchy is done. Every public servant such as the head of state (monarch), should be compensated perhaps 100,000 pounds a year for retirement, and not a penny more.
June 3rd, 2011 at 6:33 pm
“Let’s be perfectly honest, few people are fully aware of the actual nature of the royal family’s economics, and just what they own and what they don’t own, and whats ‘kept in trust’ for them and so on.”
And there we have it! T. Hughes has hit the nail pretty much on the head. The very fact that arguments exist as to what the Queen actually owns is pretty damning in itself. There should be no ambiguity, confusion or mystery at all! Why can’t things be simple, above board and open? Is this too much to ask? Is it too much to expect?
It seems such arguments are put forward by many monarchists to confuse, bamboozle and scare people out of asking for or even imagining change to the status quo. The core argument seems to be: “The royals are too expensive to get rid of as they have the nation over a financial barrel.” Sounds a bit like “The banks are too big to fail” argument.
Is this the relationship monarchists really wish to have with their beloved monarch?
June 3rd, 2011 at 7:09 pm
to-imatt
I agree with you. Monarchists believe they are untouchable thanks to ancient laws, precedent and favourable courts. They believe they have it all sown up. But let’s step back for a moment. If this blog had been running in 1936 monarchists would be saying that the govt of the day could never oust the King merely because it disapproved of his fiancee. But when it came to the crunch, not alone did he leave without a murmur, but his brother was unwillingly booted upstairs. When the day arrives a messy compromise will be improvised and agreed upon, not by courts or rules, but by one side backing down in the face of superior opposition. It always is.
June 3rd, 2011 at 7:35 pm
The line of succession is determined by the Act of Settlement 1701 which determines that the succession will follow from the Electress Sophia of Hanover (a granddaughter of James I) and proceed to her Protestant heirs.
The 1680 Glorious Revolution established the principle that parliament can remove a monarch and replace him with another monarch and that parliament has authority over the Crown. The Act of Settlement reinforced the principle that the succession is determined by parliament, not by the palace.
What I have said is that when moving to a republic parliament can give the Crown to the people, just as in the past it gave it to the Electress of Hanover and her heirs and successors.
June 3rd, 2011 at 8:46 pm
Graham Smith
It does make it so, when you cannot get your facts and figures right. The crown is not in the hands of parliament. They are balanced, there to check each other if you want to see it like that. Does parliament have real sovereignty? This is still in question and has been for years. There is no higher power then the Queen, it is the Queens government not parliament, government. They rule for the Queen and her people. Parliament cannot remove a monarch from the throne or can it appoint someone else, they too are bound by the laws they pass. They cannot also get rid of the monarch without public approval after all the houses of commons is voted in and they have to be voted in by the public. The houses of lords are the peers and the lords of the realm and religious figures who also answer to the Queen and the House of Commons however a law cannot be passed without their approval. Therefore neither house can get rid of the monarch unless they have the backing of the people.
The monarch does act on its own when dealing with the so called monarch duties. But when the monarch has to deal with the government or has to govern, the monarch has to work with parliament not one above the other “King in parliament” has seen to that, one cannot act without the other. Also who goes to see who? The PM goes to see the Queen not the other way around.
Then you still prove my point, check your own site. You say on this site monarchy is expensive but you have just said that this article “It’s saying that there will not be a cost incurred to the taxpayer if we become a republic” Therefore it will cost the taxpayer the same about, hence a republic is equally as expensive as monarchy.
June 3rd, 2011 at 8:47 pm
Again you are wrong, the ‘Glorious revolution’ like someone else has pointed out this did not establish the supremacy of parliament, and you do need to read up on the British constitution. Parliament does not determine the PM the party who has the majority do, as they chose him as the person who becomes PM normal is the head of the party, then the Queen either approves or disproves. Parliament has no say in this. The government is parliament.
It is George I but it was supposed that he couldn’t speak English, and he was not imported, he ascended to the throne.
June 3rd, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Graham, you are making links that are not there. The Act of Settlement of 1701 does “ determines that the succession will follow from the Electress Sophia of Hanover (a granddaughter of James I) and proceed to her Protestant heirs.” However it does not say or suggest that parliament can make anyone monarch or take the monarch away.
Please look at things in context, they asked someone else to become king/Queen. They could have chose to form a republic were they would be even more powerful. They chose not to because the people did not want a republic, they chose to have a monarch. What sort of monarch did they want? One that would respect the laws of the realm and respect parliament, therefore not wanting a king who thought of himself as an absolute king which James II thought he was. Parliament at the time also wanted some who would respect the countries religion which was Protestantism, which James II was not doing. Therefore the bill of rights and the Act of Settlement just reinforce parliaments place and it does not enforce parliament authority over the crown.
The Glorious Revolution of 1688 not 1680 did not establish any principles like that at all. It never established parliament having authority over the Crown as it does not and did not then.
June 4th, 2011 at 12:51 am
The sort of confusion over who owns what and why is part and parcel of the monarchist survival stategy (as well as in the survival stategy of other self perpertating political elites). Certain assets are public when it is politically convenient to claim that they are public and private whenever it is politically convenient to claim that they are private.
The ambiguity about rival sources of authority in this country needs to be cleared up with a clear written republican constitution for this country that needs to state that the people of this country are sovereign, and that all power, both executive and legislative is borrowed from them (i.e. us).
June 4th, 2011 at 5:19 am
Adam-
They chose not to because the people did not want a republic, they chose to have a monarch.
How could tend the people choose anything? At that time most didn’t even get a vote and no woman was allowed to vote
The ownships situation can be easily summed up, when any repairs and restoration need doing it belongs to the state and therefore the state picks up the bill. When any cityzens, sorry subjects want to have a stroll round it it is the unelected monarch’s private property.
June 4th, 2011 at 5:30 am
Graham
Parliament does not choose the PM. The government is made up of ‘ministers of the crown’ and as such the Monarch could, in theory, choose the PM and other ministers at her own prerogative. Although in ‘convention’ she chooses the person who commands majority support of the House of Commons to become PM and chooses other ministers on the advice of that person.
She could still, however, sack Mr. Cameron tomorrow and appoint me as Prime Minister and Parliament would have no legal or constitutional recourse.
As to your point that Parliament could remove the Monarch tomorrow. This is total garbage. You state that the ‘glorious revolution’ asserted the principle that parliament can remove a monarch at its will. It did not do this in any legal or constitutional way. A revolution is a revolution. There is no UK law that enables parliament to remove a monarch and of course any attempt to pass such a law could be vetoed by the Monarch by refusal to grant Royal Assent.
They only way that a Monarch can be removed is by revolution i.e an instance where the state is overthrown by a popular movement in an extra constitutional or violent fashion.
I know you want to believe there is an entirely ‘legal’ mechanism to remove the Monarchy but, i’m afraid, this is a total fantasy.
June 4th, 2011 at 7:02 am
I have to agree with cbrunstrom that the very fact that it is possible for monarchists to attempt to argue that the so-called British ‘constitution’ does not mean what it does not say is itself proof positive that we really DO need a proper written constitution. Monarchists clearly want it every way possible: To give just the very latest example, see ‘Lewis’ above, who claims:
“They only way that a Monarch can be removed is by revolution i.e an instance where the state is overthrown by a popular movement in an extra constitutional or violent fashion.
I know you want to believe there is an entirely ‘legal’ mechanism to remove the Monarchy but, i’m afraid, this is a total fantasy.”
Clearly such people do not live on the same planet that I do. If only they did………
June 4th, 2011 at 8:51 am
Lewis: I didn’t say parliament ‘chooses’ the PM, I said “Parliament also determines who succeeds as prime minister.” That is correct, because it is the support an MP has in parliamnent that determines who the PM will be. The monarch makes no independent decision on that matter.
You are quite right that in theory the Queen could sack the PM and choose someone else, we say so on this site. But in practice she doesn’t and that’s because parliament has the last word.
You and Adam seem to think the British constitution is written down. It’s an uncodified constitution made up of statutes, common law, case law and, importantly, convention and precendent. Parliament established its authority over the Crown in 1689, it has the power to remove the monarch and decide the line of succession. This is shown to be true because it has done just that in the past.
The Crown is not independent of parliament and does not act as a counterweight or check or balance against parliament.
June 4th, 2011 at 8:52 am
I will write a more detailed post on this point, but yesterday I emailed a constitutional law expert and said:
The reply was: “this is perfectly accurate”.
June 4th, 2011 at 9:11 am
Richard Vernon- Technically we do have a written constitution, the reason it is called unwritten is because there are multiple documents that form it, instead of one. Monarchists do not attempt to argue that the so called British constitution means something different; we know what is in it and what it means. I am afraid in the past Lewis was right but in modern society if the majority of people did not want the monarch then, we would not have one
June 4th, 2011 at 9:12 am
Jon brown, it’s not rocket science. I know a lot of people did not get the vote, and women did not achieve the vote until 1926. You are wrong; people can go around the crowns property as it is open access e.g. Tower of London. They reason we pay for repairs and restoration, is because we say it belongs to the people, the taxpayer pays for it anyway, it is not the private property of any monarch. However when the private property of the monarch does need repairing, the Queen has to pay for it out of her own pocket. As for how can the people choose? They chose to have monarch because they did not rebel, or remove the monarchy by force, which has been done in many countries because they were not wanted any more.
June 4th, 2011 at 9:15 am
Adam, it is incorrect to say “technically we have a written constitution”. Some parts of it are written, but many parts of it are not. For example, there is no legislation saying we need to have a prime minister, there is no legislation saying the monarch must remain out of party politics and there is no legislation saying the Lords must pass government legislation if it were in their manifesto, but all these conventions are deemed part of the constitution.
June 4th, 2011 at 9:33 am
Graham Smith:
“My point is that parliament has the power to remove the monarch from their post and choose anyone they wish to replace them, that the line of succession is entirely down to parliament to decide”
The truth of this is dramatically shown by the undeniable fact that the current Prime Minister, David Cameron, is, perhaps to his credit, attempting to modernise our so-called ‘constitution’ by changing it to allow non-protestants to marry into the ‘royal’ family, and for females to take precedence over younger males. This is being attempted by PARLIAMENT. Nothing else, just Parliament. And I have to point out that anyone who disagrees with this is either blind, stupid, mad, or all three.
June 4th, 2011 at 9:43 am
to-Lewis
I’m not commenting on behalf of Graham Smith or Republic, merely for my own part and I’d like to fully understand you. You say-
“A revolution is a revolution. There is no UK law that enables parliament to remove a monarch and of course any attempt to pass such a law could be vetoed by the Monarch by refusal to grant Royal Assent. ”
To clarify, are you saying that the Queen cannot be ousted without her consent?
Let’s remind ourselves that in the abdication crisis of 1936 the King was ousted by a cabal of cabinet ministers backed by Dominion PMs-perhaps illegally for all I know. Parliament and the new King retrospectively legalised the deed. They had no alternative, it was a fait accompli. This, because they disapproved of his choice of wife-not exactly an overwhelming reason. Now are you suggesting that if a referendum approved a republic and if the Queen refused to cooperate with proceeding to this, then the matter would simply end there? That we’re just stuck with her even against our wishes? You’re welcome to call it revolutionary or illegal if you want but in the real world a republican minded government would not stop there and would face her down with a choice of ‘go now with a generous pension or stay and be booted out empty handed’. Like her uncle she would go. If she won’t assent to the statutes herself the incoming President would do it retrospectively. Some procedure would be cobbled together. It always is. To a democrat the term ‘revolution’ isn’t the bed-wetter it is to a reactionary. There is no law higher than the express will of the people.
June 4th, 2011 at 10:28 am
Graham , . A party e.g Cons vote for a party leader, and then if we vote the party into power the head of the party becomes PM and answers to the Queen, and parliament and technically the people. The monarch can dismiss the PM and can chose the PM, however because the people want a democratic system of government, the Queen general appoints the PM that gets voted in, as if she didn’t it would seem autocratic. Therefore parliament does not have the last word as the Queen does, if there two parties with equal seats the Queen choose who becomes PM and the government not parliament.
June 4th, 2011 at 10:29 am
Technically it is written down within the statutes, common law etc we actually have 5 documents that many historians and politicians say make up the bulk of the constitution. Parliament did not establish its authority over the Crown in 1689 as the crown does not serve parliament, parliament serves the crown. What was achieved in 1689 was parliament making sure, that under law the monarch had to listen/use it. It also made sure the monarch was limited in powers so who ever was the monarch could not try to rule on their own, like James II tried to do. The only decision parliament has on the act of succession is the ceria a monarch must meet to become the monarch. Parliament cannot choose which person is to be king/queen of this country. It also does not have the full power to remove a monarch once the monarch has been crowned. They can only advise the monarch to step down they cannot actual force them out of the crown unless we go over to a republic which then has to be because of the will of the people. Parliament is legally sovereign because it can pass any laws it wants to if it gets the marjotiy in a vote and no laws that are passed cannot be edited or undone by a future parliament. As for the Royal prerogative, they are governed by parliament but most of the powers are know shared between, the PM, Queen and other officials to change these powers would also change the powers of the other people that can use them.
The crown acts independaly of parliament, they only time they work together not above each other is in the running of the country. Which is why we have “King/Queen in parliament” The body of parliament may have the main source of power however they do not control or are higher than the monarch when it comes to governing the country.
June 4th, 2011 at 10:30 am
Technically I am correct, we do have a form of a written constitution, and I never said everything was written down. But that does not mean we don’t have one or rather a form of one. The role of the PM has developed over time, from the first lord of treasury even though you can say this is the same thing. Just because it is not written down does not mean, it cannot exist or that the portion can be got rid of. As for the laws it works both ways, there may be no law that says that, but there is no law that says the House of Commons has to pass laws that the lords want put through. This is why, it goes through different stages and both houses so it can be checked and in the most part changed if people don’t think its right. Also there are laws that say that the lords have to pass a bill after a certain amount of time.
June 4th, 2011 at 10:42 am
adam
the majority of people didnt want the war in Iraq, the majority want the death penalty restored for certian crimes, the majority of voters think noone is worthy of their vote. Just because people dont revolt it doesnt mean they agree with something.
June 4th, 2011 at 10:57 am
Adam, while you have some knowledge of the constitution you have clearly misunderstood its fundamental nature and the relationship between the Crown and parliament. Yes, technically the Queen can dismiss the PM. But the parliament can remove the Queen too. However, the constitution now ‘says’ by way of convention that the Queen must only act on the advice of the prime minister.
Indeed, as I’ve said a lot of constitution does exist in an unwritten form. But any part of it can be ‘got rid of’ or changed.
That is simply incorrect. Parliament has supremacy, it’s that simple.
The criteria is all there is. If parliament changes the criteria to “The Crown shall pass equally and simultaneously to all citizens of this republic” then that is what will happen. If they change the criteria to “The Crown will pass to Margaret Thatcher and all her heirs and successors” then that’s what will happen. In 1689 parliament demonstrated quite clearly that parliament can indeed remove the monarch.
June 4th, 2011 at 10:58 am
jon brown
Agreed for today soceity and agreed, on the Iraq bit , but polls show great surrport for monachy. Over a million people protested against the Iraq war no one has done that for a republic.
But back then if you didnt rebell or revot it general meant you liked the goverment and what they were doing.
June 4th, 2011 at 11:22 am
Graham, I have not misunderstood anything. You clearly have. Parliament does not control the Crown; they cannot get rid of the Queen in any shape or form. Otherwise they would due to her age, they don’t because they cannot. Many people feel she is too old to do the job while others like me disagree, however parliament cannot remove her. Yes the constitution says that on some things not all, she still has the power to dismiss the PM as a PM is not going to say dismiss me.
.
“Parliament did not establish its authority over the Crown in 1689 as the crown does not serve parliament, parliament serves the crown. What was achieved in 1689 was parliament making sure, that under law the monarch had to listen/use it.” – This is simply correct it is fact and it is history. The Queen is also supreme in her realm and she is also sovereign in this country. Parliament like I have said is one of the sovereign, as Parliament also needs the crown it’s not hard to understand.
Then they are not choosing the Queen or King. This is not in their power, the criteria is things like it has to be a women etc not a particular person, as this would then qualify as criteria. If we were to have a republic they would not say the crown shall pass… as there would be no monarch for the crown to pass to. In 1689 parliament did not demonstrate that they can remove the monarch. They demonstrated that the monarch needed parliament and that was put into law. Why don’t you get that, if historians can understand this and agree upon it, why can you not get it! The Bill of rights reinforces 2 other laws and is reinforced with 2 later ounces.
June 4th, 2011 at 11:35 am
adam
polls continually show hard core monarchy supporters number around the same with the vast majority being totally indifferent. When the act of succession was passed most people were barely literate and communications sporadic, the idea that they could organise mass protest is laughable. It does not however proof that they wanted a monarch, they were never offered a choice.
June 4th, 2011 at 11:43 am
to-Adam
“Parliament does not control the Crown; they cannot get rid of the Queen in any shape or form”.
Are you saying that this country could not get rid of the queen even if it wished to?
A simple Yes/No will be fine.
June 4th, 2011 at 12:15 pm
Adam, perhaps you can cite or quote these historians or their texts? Parliament is supreme, in the constitution statute trumps all. If parliament passes a bill saying “the Crown shall pass to the people and the monarchy is abolished” then that’s the end of the matter. I’m sorry you’re so determined to cling to your belief rather than accept a constitutional fact that is accepted by all serious experts on the matter.
June 4th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Graham Smith
You really don’t understand looking at things in context. 1689 did not make parliament supreme it has been a process and DID not happen in 1689 this is historic FACT. Parliament is not the only supreme force in the UK, for law maybe but not everything. Parliament also has the Queen in which is a constitutional fact that also help makes Parliament supreme but it also makes the Queen supreme. Both parts together, equal in law making as neither can do it without the other “King/Queen in parliament. No I am sorry you don’t understand the constitution of the UK, if you did you would understand what is being said. Also it’s not the end of the matter, as the people need to say they want an end of monarch, and by people meaning the far majority, not parliament. Therefore it is going to be a long time before that happens.
June 4th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Paul Roberts
Yes the country can, not parliament, they need the peoples support for something like this. But the country does not want that.
June 4th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
jon brown
.
You clearly do not read the polls properly as they show that popularity of the monarch or rather support for the monarch is around 80% so how can it be the same as people being indifferent. Answer it does not, people being indifferent in terms of % is far far less than 50% of people. You are missing the point aren’t you, it does not matter whether they where literate or not. Stop looking at it from a 20th or 21st cen point of view. Back then the only way the people got there point across was by rebelling if they did not like something, which happened a lot. So yes they have organizes mass protest and rebellions and revolts and uprising. Learn some history; mate because it is not laughable. It does prove they want a monarch as otherwise they could have overthrown them like, what happened in France, Greece , Russia , USA.
June 4th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
Every few days we get a “new” semi-literate, logic defying monarchist on this site, who repeats the same arguments which have been shot down 50 times before….I’m wondering if this is a characteristic of many monarchists, or are we being trolled by a sophisticated PR programme who are hi-jacking this site and boring us all to death. My reaction is a reluctance to read anything posted by Adam (for instance), because I have a low boredom threshold….if it is in fact a Clarence House funded spoiler to bore us all to death it may be be succeeding in my case.
June 4th, 2011 at 1:47 pm
to-Adam
“Parliament does not control the Crown; they cannot get rid of the Queen in any shape or form”.
OK thanks, next question. If parliament arranged a referendum “Would you like GB to become a republic?” and if the answer were ‘Yes’, then would Parliament be able to introduce a republic?
June 4th, 2011 at 2:28 pm
@Adam, you have made enough of a fool of yourself here. We have heard it all a thousand times before, from monarchists tossing accusations of republican inaccuracy around and refusing to accept that they are wrong and have no credible argument to prolong their ‘royal’ fetish.
The simple truth is that when this country wakes up and begins to understand to what extent they have been used, dehumanised, disempowered and manipulated by these people and their corporate friends, we will have a republic.
It will amaze you just how rapidly, irrelevant ‘constitutional’ garble-speak from warbling monarchists will vanish into thin air through the exercising of a common will, during the transformation to a more confident’ fairer society – one no longer duped by the lies of those protecting these perfectly unremarkable, presumptuous tin gods.
June 4th, 2011 at 2:36 pm
adam
Russia and Greece happened in more recent history with more literate populations. The USA was a colony and the French revolution happened almost a century after the act of succession. Your average British peasant in the 1700 would not have recognised the monarch if s/he stood next to them. Polls can easily manipulated, there has never been a referendum on the subject.
June 4th, 2011 at 4:42 pm
“The simple truth is that when this country wakes up and begins to understand to what extent they have been used, dehumanised, disempowered and manipulated by these people and their corporate friends, we will have a republic.
It will amaze you just how rapidly, irrelevant ‘constitutional’ garble-speak from warbling monarchists will vanish into thin air through the exercising of a common will, during the transformation to a more confident’ fairer society – one no longer duped by the lies of those protecting these perfectly unremarkable, presumptuous tin gods.”
And, it seems, slowly but surely, we are waking up to this unpalatable truth. And, we have been used, and we have been dis-empowered. Maybe even some monarchists will get some backbone from being on this site, but I wouldn’t put money on it. All these ‘ifs and buts’ from monarchists regarding they whys and wherefores of abolishing the monarchy and so getting us a republic, are smokescreens, and are wishy-washy and irrelevant; if the people do decide for a republic, a more democratic society, such objections will vanish into thin air. Don’t we all want more democracy and freedom, after all? Who wants to be a toadie, looking up to people simply because of who their ancestors were? No monarchist can explain this, and seems never will.
Should we look up to people, and regard them as superior, simply because they are descended from bloodthirsty Vikings, or landgrabbing Normans, or slavetrading aristocrats? This is what monarchists are telling us we should do. It doesn’t make sense, quite frankly.
June 4th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
To T Hughes – Excellent! Perhaps Republic should issue a challenge to those ‘monarchists’ who think they are umbilically attached to some sort of matrix of revered, hollow continuity, in which their only role is to be impressed, subservient, suicidally supportive and a barrier to progressive change.
Maybe they could tell us all exactly why the unstable, bloodthirsty, manipulative ancestors of the current privileged title-holders, are either the progenitors of a cause for celebration, or in which way(s), in real terms, they legitimise, in any way, the Windsors’ hereditary longevity. What have ANY of these people given?
June 4th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Graham’s comment was crafted carefully and evincing a high-level of insight into details of the system called monarchy.
I would like to add one consideration which is, in my view, significant to the tactics of this movement. Given the length of history this ‘system’ of a country once reigning half of the world is covering it is unsurprising that the economical entanglement of the monarchy are not easy to unravel since the monarchs have been and still are unlikely to volunteer a lot about their perks.
If looking at the transition of the slaveholder society towards a post-slaveholder society in the 19th century, little concern was given to the well-being of the profiteers, otherwise would have been strange for the masses. Nevertheless, most slaveholders didn’t starve to death afterwards. Something very similar goes true for noawadays monarchs in a post-monarchical society. It shouldn’t concern us to much what will happen to them. They didn’t have right to exist in the first place.
Also, to dispossess monarchs in such a transition phase in future will mean that at the beginning of the transition phase there only will be legal framework which has been shaped by the old system which is unlikely to further dispossessing or expropriating monarchs. At the end of the day, laws are run balances of power and this movement should be about shifting this very balance.
Tactically, if in a conversation between a supporter of this movement and an interested citizen there is much concern of a citizen for the well-being of royals in a post-monarchical society then the answer to this concern should be a political one, and certainly not the attempt of the anti-monarchy movement to set up a budget for post-royals. Millions of peopls laid off at work would dream of such comfort package (albeit they often really worked hard before) If the interlocutor doesn’t understand that then he/she is just not ready to give up on monarchy.
June 4th, 2011 at 5:24 pm
“Maybe they could tell us all exactly why the unstable, bloodthirsty, manipulative ancestors of the current privileged title-holders, are either the progenitors of a cause for celebration, or in which way(s), in real terms, they legitimise, in any way, the Windsors’ hereditary longevity. What have ANY of these people given?” —Phaedra
This is exactly what has perplexed me for so long. I have often wondered, why does the history, and the origins of the monarchy NOT be cause to throw them out on their asses now? Why is it not enough to raise the ire of the average person? I mean, the ancestors of these houses, these monarchs, took power by force, killed many people, when they can, and have never secured a legitimate mandate since; what is the justification for keeping them in power now?
June 4th, 2011 at 6:43 pm
Rainer-Wales has touched on something that annoys me. I disagree with republicans who assert that we should avoid criticizing members of the royal cabal, for fear of putting off potential converts to republicanism. It’s deference by the back door. If the royals’ activities warrant criticism, (dressing in nazi regalia, using military helicopters for personal junkets, hypocrisy, meddling in public policy decision making, bringing the country and its government into disrepute, etc. etc.) then they should get criticism in spades. They already have enough people making excuses on their behalf.
June 4th, 2011 at 6:52 pm
Bob
and in the case of a certain trade envoy trying to influence the police into droping investigations. If they want to interfere let them renounce their unearned titles and stand for election.
June 4th, 2011 at 6:55 pm
to-T.Hughes
“Don’t we all want more democracy and freedom, after all? Who wants to be a toadie, looking up to people simply because of who their ancestors were? No monarchist can explain this, and seems never will.”.
Not everyone in our society does want more democracy & freedom. Many want to roll back the clock to the 18th century when deference was part of the joy of being rich. Since the election of Thatcher GB has become increasingly socially divided-vertically as between social classes and horizontally as between the nation’s regions. GB became more equal as a result of two world wars requiring large scale voluntary participation by working class lads in the military, and working folk accepting privations at home. The ruling classes depended upon them as more than just wage slaves and society was adjusted accordingly. Now that warfare in Europe is unlikely, that willing participation is no longer required and social respect for the working class can now be withdrawn. The only respect they can expect is through hard labour or groveling. No one wants to be a toadie, but many people wants others to toady unto them. The wealthy, or those aspiring/deluding themselves of becoming wealthy, want to live in a society where you really can have a butler for £70 a month and plumbers charge £1 an hour. These people are behind the restoration of deference and frankly they’re winning.
June 4th, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Paul
There are some persons who unfortunately want to do nothing but toadie and despise those of us who have learned to walk on our hind legs and arn’t prepared to grovel, I despise them more than the useless people who they grovel and toady to
June 4th, 2011 at 7:34 pm
@Bob: Too right. Why should republicans be pussy footing around the Windsors when their behaviour ought to be challenged and criticised. They can’t be criticised in parliament, a stain on our supposed democracy, and the BBC has its Royal Correspondent or Royal Spin Doctor whom licence fee payers are forced to fund.
There are few places where the Windsors are open to robust criticism and this is one of them. If some royalist strays on here and is offended then too bad. If others stray on here with an open mind then they may be encouraged to consider the destructive effects of this system. Or they may begin to consider their position as subjects: near the bottom of the class heap and likely to stay there unless changes occur.
June 4th, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Rainer_Wales stated what I would say, only did it more eloquently than I.
June 4th, 2011 at 8:31 pm
It’s about time you lot actually learned history, republic have killed many people as well to get into power, but it’s funny how you lot don’t talk about that at all. You also take things out of context all the time. Who has monarchy in Britain take power away from?? When they first came about whom did they take it from? If you say the people that’s laughable as you really need to go back to school and learn history.
June 4th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Phaedra
I have not made a fool of myself at all. When a republican stops changing the facts and figures to suit their argument then I will stop mine. A republic has no credibility, “ It makes us more democrat” no is doesn’t, “ it makes our life’s better” no it does not, it does not change anything.
The simple truth is, a elected government can dehumanize , disempowered and manipulate a country just as much as anyone can. It seems based on the dem index that monarchs are less likely to do it then republics are.
We will have a republic when people stop believing in monarchy, when the majority of people do not want to have a monarchy. It’s about time republicans opened there eyes and start to realize we know the facts we can gather them and read them, understand them etc but the majority of us do want a monarch.
There is no lie, no one is lying. It’s also not garble speak, its fact and it’s the truth learn to put things into context and you would know that. Also no said monarchist thing the Queen or King is a god.
June 4th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
Paul like I have said many times, parliament cannot get rid of the Crown. It needs the support from the people. If the government just went we want rid of monarch, there would be an outrage as many people will say they did not get there democratic vote on the matter. So yes if parliament arranged a referendum and the people said yes then they can as it would mean the people do not respect the power of the monarch and do not want them.
If you look at what I said, “Parliament” not the People.
June 4th, 2011 at 8:38 pm
jon brown
Clearly you don’t understand history do you? And you clearly don’t understand the simple fact when someone tells you.
Let’s see the point I was making is that the people can rebel if they don’t like a government. This has been proven many times over with countries having absolute monarchs. The Russian people rebelled and killed there monarch in 1917, the Greeks got rid of there. The USA wanted independence and they got it, and put a republic in place, the French got rid of there in 1789-1799 and then had it come back for a while. It is neither hear or there that these have happened at different times throughout history, they did not want a monarch so got rid of them, it’s down to the people of the country not parliament. The British peasant in the 1700 know who their king was in the most part, as most of the time , the king travelled around the country etc and some of them would have seen the monarch at some point. Also even if they have not seen him, this still does not change the fact they wanted a monarch. The British people have been very loyal in the most part to the monarch and that can be seen too through history and modern times.
It is funny you know say polls can be easily manipulated after you said the polls show many people are indifferent both untrue. The method of poll taking is the same all over the world; they use them in republics to, to see who is most likely to get in power. But I guess you are right every poll must be manipulated all over the world. A referendum has never been done because there is not a majority call for one; most people want the monarch just deal with it. When there is mass protest on the streets to call for one, then the government hold one.
June 4th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
eclub1:
“I have often wondered, why does the history, and the origins of the monarchy NOT be cause to throw them out on their asses now? Why is it not enough to raise the ire of the average person? I mean, the ancestors of these houses, these monarchs, took power by force, killed many people, when they can, and have never secured a legitimate mandate since; what is the justification for keeping them in power now?”
Bob Wiggin:
“I disagree with republicans who assert that we should avoid criticizing members of the royal cabal, for fear of putting off potential converts to republicanism. It’s deference by the back door. If the royals’ activities warrant criticism, (dressing in nazi regalia, using military helicopters for personal junkets, hypocrisy, meddling in public policy decision making, bringing the country and its government into disrepute, etc. etc.) then they should get criticism in spades. They already have enough people making excuses on their behalf.”
I simply couldn’t agree more. The fact that more ordinary people are not appalled by monarchy disgusts me. I can see no logical, or even illogical, arguments in favour of this absurd system. Nor can I see any reason whatever for suppressing criticism of this system or the present so-called ‘royal family’. It is indeed deference by the back door.
Finally, to both of you, and many others, please feel free to contribute a little personal video as per my post of June 2nd, 2011 at 6:52 pm on
http://www.republic.org.uk/blog/?p=2052
I’d also very much welcome a contribution by T. Hughes and many more.
June 4th, 2011 at 9:33 pm
idiotic chocolate soldier time:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/04/prince-william-on-horseback_n_871322.html
shame on huffington post for selling this crap to the americans and creating a “prince william page”
they used to be a leftwing outfit until they sold out to AOL
June 4th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
Adam,
“We will have a republic when people stop believing in monarchy, when the majority of people do not want to have a monarchy.”
I completely agree. I am especially gratified that you say “when” and not “if”.
Support for republicanism has, I think, quadrupled over the past thirty years in this country. We’ve moved from being a tiny minority to a significant minority. Republic’s own membership has soared.
At this rate we will have achieved a convincing majority position within the next few decades.
June 4th, 2011 at 9:40 pm
Re criticising the royals…
It seems to me that when we focus on the positives of republicanism – the fairness, the justice, the transparency, the logic and the simple dignity of electing our own head of state – we get called hopeless idealists and told that the British people feel that that the royals do a good job and don’t care for such fancy abstract notions.
If on the other hand, we get detailed and start to challenge the idea that the royals actually do a good job – then we’re told we’re negative and cynical and that we should present our case more positively.
Either we’re in the gutter or we’ve our heads in the clouds.
The obvious Oscar Wilde quote naturally follows.
June 4th, 2011 at 9:48 pm
to-Adam
“So yes if parliament arranged a referendum and the people said yes then they can as it would mean the people do not respect the power of the monarch and do not want them.”
That’s great because it is the intention of Republic to influence public & MPs’ opinion that Parliament should hold a referendum seeking a mandate for changing the constitution to a republic and you’re OK with that, I’m OK, everyone’s OK. Welcome aboard!!
It’s a little thing, but now that you’re a republican you’re going to have to stop being rude to everyone-only monarchists do that.
June 4th, 2011 at 9:50 pm
@Adam
‘..The British peasant in the 1700 know who their king was in the most part, as most of the time , the king travelled around the country etc and some of them would have seen the monarch at some point…’
I don’t think William of Orange did much in the way of royal tours, pressing the flesh or ‘meet and greets’, y’know. Anachronism? He was absent from the country for most of time, and when here, exhibited little in the way of emotional connection to the people-after all, he wasn’t English.
Adam, I’m getting the impression you’re two different writers. One of them appears to know when to use ‘their’ and when to use ‘there’, the other doesn’t have a clue. One person writes lucidly, the other writes incomprehensibly. What’s the story? If you’re a published historian, I’m Isadora Duncan’s new dancing partner.
June 4th, 2011 at 9:58 pm
Richard, I sent an email to your private address so I could be initiated into the sacred mysteries of long republic postings, but as of yet no reply , maybe it’s gone in the junk folder. Probably the best place for it. BTW my buddy Broga also wants to know how to do it.
June 4th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
Lard, it should be with you now.
PS on Adam, I think someone helpfully suggested that he should get someone to correct his posts before he sent them. This may explain the different styles.
June 4th, 2011 at 10:40 pm
to-RV
I suggested Adam’s posts be corrected and I appreciate your calling it helpful because I wasn’t feeling very helpful at the time, just frustrated. I agree his syle does come & go. He has acknowledged having learning difficulties, which could not have been easy, and we should all respect that and not make ourselves available to an accusation of callousness. It’s going to be a bumpy ride!
June 4th, 2011 at 10:53 pm
Paul, I have to agree that it was very brave of Adam to admit his problems. He certainly tries hard, but it’s still very hard going at times trying to make out what he means, and at times impossible. But we certainly must not in any way make fun of him – that would not only be unreasonably cruel, but also put off other readers. And I’ll happily admit that many of my own postings have typos in them, in my case largely due to failing eyesight.
June 4th, 2011 at 11:00 pm
cbrunstrom
Well there is always a possibility sometime in the future , I don’t see it happening while the Queen is alive and I don’t see it happening under Prince William as he will make the system more modern, so then his children will rule , then possible it could change. But that’s another 150 possible 200 years yet, if they have served and worked this long, why not even longer.
No I don’t think so as based on the polls since 1993 monarch has never lost the majority. Also many people who can know vote don’t care/ don’t know what they would do. Do the research and you will know that.
Paul Roberts
Ha I never said it will happen and I never said I would vote against monarchy, I would not vote for a republic, I still by what I say its pointless. All I said was if the majority of people asked for then they would properly do it. How passed on the republics parties membership, etc I don’t see it happening for some time. I also don’t see many people want a vote on this because at this point in time there are better things to worry about in the eyes of many. I will always be a monarchist.
The lard ascending
They did know who he was and it doesn’t matter that he was not English, they know who he was. Is that all you can come up with, you really are pathetic like Richard really.
June 4th, 2011 at 11:18 pm
Ok, Paul & Richard, I quit with talking to Adam, no more from me, I’m not getting caught on a non-PC rap, I’ll give way to your ever beneficent selves. Watch him spit in your face now.
June 4th, 2011 at 11:20 pm
Lard:
“I’m not getting caught on a non-PC rap, I’ll give way to your ever beneficent selves.”
Just because I’m a Mac user?????
June 4th, 2011 at 11:26 pm
Ha Richard. Perhaps all the key members of Republic should pretend to have learning difficulties so they can never be gainsaid or contradicted. We’d be unstoppable.
I myself am working on developing a major deformity.
June 5th, 2011 at 12:23 am
@ Adam
a helpful historical hint – it’s not surprising that not many subjects saw William of Orange after 1700 as he died in 1702 and his sister in law Queen Anne took over. She was too busy attempting an heir of her own to gallivant round the country (and noone recognising her as they were still looking for a Dutchman). All her children died in infancy but she won the longevity battle with her Hanoverian cousin Sophia who predeceased her. This meant Sophia’s son George became Geo 1 when he succeeded Anne.
He spoke German as his first (and only) language but don’t forget Queen Victoria’s mother was German so German was her first language too. Easy to converse with Albert then as he was her German cousin.
June 5th, 2011 at 12:42 am
“Richard, I sent an email to your private address so I could be initiated into the sacred mysteries of long republic postings, but as of yet no reply , maybe it’s gone in the junk folder. Probably the best place for it. BTW my buddy Broga also wants to know how to do it”. –Lard
Lard,
We need to meet in some secret chat room, so I can tell you how to do it. Because it’s against the blog rules, that is why I haven’t posted it for you and Broga. Sorry about that.
June 5th, 2011 at 4:47 am
eclub1, I’ve told him how to do it. But I’d love to have a members-only section where we could chat. as I said before, feel free to send me a video.
Lard:
“Watch him spit in your face now.”
I see what you mean…….
June 5th, 2011 at 4:51 am
Adam:
“Yeah my thought were correct both thick as each other, no wonder the republic party is not going well with you two in it.Ha if this is all you got to offer, us monarchist really dont have anything to worry about. HA”
So why are you wasting your time here, Adam? Oh, and for your information we are not a political party.
June 5th, 2011 at 5:05 am
Okay, thanks Richard…
June 5th, 2011 at 6:55 am
to-TLA
“Perhaps all the key members of Republic should pretend to have learning difficulties..”.
What makes you think we haven’t?
June 5th, 2011 at 8:17 am
to-Adam
“Yeah my thought were correct both thick as each other, no wonder the republic party is not going well with you two in it.Ha if this is all you got to offer, us monarchist really dont have anything to worry about. HA”.
Here’s a simple question, why are you so rude?
Have I ever addressed you like the above?
June 5th, 2011 at 8:19 am
Adam:
“As for the Crown lands they use to belong privately to the king or queen. This is because it was used by the monarch to pay for the running of the country (civil government) and other payments the monarch had to pay for being the monarch… Therefore if the argument was to be broke by the government and the civil list payments stopped, then the money will go to the Queen again as technically it will be her property again”
Sorry, Adam, but that’s untrue.
The Crown Estates date from a time when the monarch and government were one. Their revenue was, as you rightly say, used to fund certain governmental costs in their capacity as monarch, when the monarch played a more active role in State affairs than today.
However, these estates were only owned by the individual as monarch, NOT privately. If the individual ceased to be monarch – like James II – then they ceased to have any right to the estates. The position of “monarch” is essentially an office of State, in the same way the office of “president” is in a republic. The Duchy of Cornwall certainly doesn’t belong to Charles either – if they were owned by the Windsors in the first place then Edward VIII would have kept ownership of them when he abdicated (as he did of Balmoral and Sandringham).
The reason George III brokered the deal in the first place was because during his reign the monarch still had responsibilities of bearing the cost of government. Him and his predecessors failed to keep up and were severely in debt. Parliament did the king a favour by relieving him of this responsibility and taking control of the revenue from the Crown Estates and administering it themselves. As someone has said earlier, it was merely a re-administration of State funds, it certainly wasn’t the benevolent act of a generous king! (cont/d….)
June 5th, 2011 at 8:24 am
(contd/..)
If the agreement was reversed then technically the revenues would go back to the monarch. However, this also means reversing the agreement where the government pays the cost of civil government, which is what the revenues originally funded.
Therefore the monarch would have the revenues (in their capacity as Head of State of the UK), but would also have to bear the cost of government – something the monarchy would not want, since the cost of civil government today far outweighs the Crown revenues (the whole reason why George III made the deal, as he was in debt, and why every monarch since has renewed the agreement). So it really is parliament doing the monarchy a favour in this respect, as opposed to the “spontaneous generosity” portrayed by the Palace!!
By the way, HM Revenue and Customs, aka the Tax Office, is a Crown body. And I think even the most ardent monarchists would agree that the entire tax system does not belong to the Queen personally!!
June 5th, 2011 at 9:39 am
“We will have a republic when people stop believing in monarchy, when the majority of people do not want to have a monarchy.” Adam.
Absolutely right Adam. And people will stop believing in monarchy when they wake up and begin to understand to what extent they have been used, dehumanised, disempowered and manipulated by these people and their corporate friends. For me monarchy is the tip of the iceberg of a far larger problem. Getting rid of this visible embodiment of a heavy-handed tier of control is only one step in a continuum.
People became more rational when they stopped believing in fairies, demons and evil spirits.
Republic is not a political party. It is a campaign group. It contains a wide spectrum of political views. Achieving a republic means different things to different people.
You seem to me to possess an insistently anachronistic view of society – one which constantly reinforces the unthinking mindset of those currently impressed with monarchy. But you do acknowledge that things might change, so let them. Your position is well articulated by;
“Ha if this is all you got to offer, us monarchist really dont have anything to worry about. HA” There is not much more in real terms.
Republicans do not accept the plethora of protective conditions, awkward attitudes and ‘constitutional’ congeries which are wheeled out in a bid to impede change. They have no more legitimacy than the Windsors.
“Us monarchists” – those who are prepared to shout their heads off about it, mercifully are thin on the ground.
Why are you here demonstrating that you have nothing to worry about? If you believe that you are wasting your time surely? Are you similarly engaged, for example, on the National Secular Society website, offering inaccuracies and busily telling them that they are outweighed by religious groups?
June 5th, 2011 at 10:04 am
@Eclub
I don’t actually know what a private chat room is; it’s enough effort for me to find my way into a real room. You and me talking in a chat room could also be interpreted as grooming.
I dun asked you what the scam was about a week ago, but answer came there none. Perhaps you don’t read my posts, I can’t say I really blame you. Uncle Richard’s been kind enough to show me the secret of Republic wind-baggery now.
@Paul
‘…Here’s a simple question, why are you so rude?
Have I ever addressed you like the above…?
Paul, be careful not to be too abrasive with Adam, it could easily be misconstrued by the casual visitors to this site. I, for one, salute Adam’s courage and indefatigability.
June 5th, 2011 at 10:30 am
Lard, You are priceless!
June 5th, 2011 at 11:10 am
adam
I think i have a grasp of history although my qualifications are medical. i would dispute the “facts” as you present them.
in 1700 William of Orange was rarely in the British Isles and didnt speak English, very few of his subjects would have recognised him.
Are you seriously saying that communications and literacy levels in the first world war 1914-1918 had not improved since the 1700s? The Russian revolution was aided by the Germans who ensured Lenin a safe passage to Finland, hardly the same as a spontaneous peasant uprising.
What evidence have you to state that polls are the same the world over? In my experience they are usually weighted towards whoever commissioned them.
The fact that a population appears to docily accept something doesnt mean they agree with it, take income tax, first introduced as a temporary measure to universal unpopularity, despised by all and yet a few centuries later still there, albeit at increased levels and still despised.
June 5th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Regarding property and the Queen, someone seems to have given her a very valuable racehorse. An oil sheik, I think? Now Mrs Windsor has a reputation for being close fisted – near to minimum wage enthusiast, grabby about any gifts that come her way – but a valuable racehorse seems over the top even for her. I wonder why he gave it to her? Did he think, “What a charming women, I really like her, I’ll give her a racehorse? That would be nice.”
The Windsor’s practice of altruism is unknown except to themselves. Yet Mrs Windsor receives a racehorse. Is there a quid pro quo? What is in it for the oil sheik? Should Mrs Windsor not feel some embarassment or shame at her readiness to take so much? Or should be be alowed to keep the animal at all? Isn’t there some limit to how much she can accept and should such a hugely valuable animal not be the property of the state?
And here is the key issue. If Elizabeth Windsor were not head of state, and just a private citizen, would she be given the horse? If she would not, and if the animal is given in her capacity as head of state, should the horse be the property of the state?
The horse was third in the Derby.
June 5th, 2011 at 12:45 pm
@Broga
The BBC radio 4 news coverage of that race was particularly vomitsome, as though the Queen’s little disappointments are our disappointments and her triumphs are our triumphs. I imagine this kind of besotted BBC crap has altered very little since the 30s, and will probably be the same after we’re all dead and gone.
@Phaedra
Thank you for your kind words at this difficult time.
June 5th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Jennifer Jeynes
A helpful hint for you. Yes he did die in 1702, but he was king from 1689 and on his own from 1694, so they would have known who he was. Queen Anne took over in 1702 yes and ruled until August 1712. She couldn’t have been too busy trying to get an heir as developed favorites at court and had to do her job which was help govern the country, as she refused to give Royal assent to a bill. Therefore she properly did have time to go around the country during her reign, and the people know who their monarch was. Queen Anne died without a child, so the crown passed to the nearest non catholic heir which was Sophie of Hanover but she died before she could become Queen of England. However because she died Geo I became King.
He spoke German and its was supposed he could not Speak English, but he could understand and write it and during his later reign even speak it. He also spoke French, Latin , some Dutch, so NO German was not his only language
Queen Victoria mother was German, while her father was English. She might have been able to speak German but she also spoke English and all her childhood writings and older writings where in English.
June 5th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Richard Vernon
.
I am not wasting my time on here , talking on here actual helps me develop my understanding of republicanism (even though I don’t agree with it , in any shape or form), and helps me see how well others know the history of the UK, so when I do my academic writing I know how to make it understandable. I also do it because it makes me laugh, that this site actual gets a lot wrong, or at least misunderstand things, a bit like the users of the site. That is why I come on here.
Then maybe you should become one, and you might actually get your voices heard.
June 5th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
Paul Roberts
You might not come out and be rude directly but your comments suggest otherwise.
June 5th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Jammydodger
“As for the Crown lands they use to belong privately to the king or queen. This is because it was used by the monarch to pay for the running of the country (civil government) and other payments the monarch had to pay for being the monarch… Therefore if the argument was to be broke by the government and the civil list payments stopped, then the money will go to the Queen again as technically it will be her property again”- This is true because this is the agreement , the only thing that needs explaining it, what you pointed out. It’s not Private property as such, its belongs to the Crown not Elizabeth Winsor but Queen Elizabeth. But even so, if the agreement is broken then the money and land goes back to the Monarch.
.
The crown Estates actual dates well before the monarch and government were one. As you could even say during the Tudor times they where one, this did change when the Stuarts took over but that neither here or there with this. As the Estates only became estates when the English and Scottish crowns became one. You are correct about the way it works but the Duchies are a complete different matter. Also Edward VIII did not keep ownership of those two places, when he abdicated, they passed to his brother. They are know the private property of Elizabeth Winsor.
I never said it was done by a generous king, I said it was done because the value and income of the lands where decreasing. George III wanted this to change; the only way he could do this was by giving it to the parliament to control. So what I said was correct. However I will put into other words for you
June 5th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
put into other words for you
“The Sovereign’s estates had always been used to raise revenue, and over time large areas were granted to nobles. The estate fluctuated in size and value but by 1760, when George III acceded to the throne, the asset had been reduced to a small area producing little income – revenue which George III needed to fulfil the Sovereign’s fiscal responsibilities to the nation.
By that time taxes had become the prime source of revenue for the United Kingdom and Parliament administered the country, so an agreement was reached that the Crown Lands would be managed on behalf of the Government and the surplus revenue would go to the Treasury. In return the King would receive a fixed annual payment – today known as the Civil List. This agreement has, at the beginning of each reign, been repeated by every succeeding Sovereign.”
No wrong, as the government was also paying for the civil government like the above says , taxes had become the prime sources of revenue for the UK and parliament administered the country. So No the money produced by the crown estates would go back to the monarch without the cost of government.
The whole reason why George III made the deal was because the lands where not making the money he needed and because he run up a massive debt. Actually they are not doing the Crown a farvour as the lands did improve by that much while parliament controlled it. The Estate is control by a separate board not parliament and not the Queen, even though it is answerable to them both. Also the Palace doesn’t actual portray this in that way at all, that’s the typical republicans view coming across again.
I never said HM revenue belonged to the Queen as like I pointed out above taxes where the main source of income from the parliament. The HM is a title, because the government acts of her behalf , but I never said , or does anyone else that this belongs to the Queen personally
June 5th, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Phaedra
People will stop believing when they chose to; they don’t need to wake up. The facts and date are out there, people have access to them, it’s a shame republicans actually don’t use them but hey. Well you are wrong, as republics do the same thing.
I don’t have an anachronistic view of society at all, I study history and know what society has been like in the UK and what it is know, I have also seen it in other countries as there is not a big difference between different counties or system of society. We don’t have anything to worry about at the moment, but no one knows what the further will hold, so saying something won’t change is dreaming. It might be 100 years before change happens or it might be 300 we don’t know, we also don’t know what that change is going to be.
No we are not thin on the ground; there are many of us out there.
June 5th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
@ The lard ascending: I didn’t hear the commentary but the bits around the race were pure glutinous saccharine. In the morning one of the tabloids had written, “Good luck, ma’am. We all wish you well.” The BBC, yukky as ever, reported on “sympathetic applause” from the crowd at the Queen’s horse losing.
I like the idea of “her” horse. Someone gives it to her, someone else cares for it and trains it, someone else rides it and at most I suppose she might just give it a pat. However, should the animal win on the back of all this effort the glory is hers and “her” horse has won the Derby.
June 5th, 2011 at 1:03 pm
@Adam: Serious question this and I am interested in your answer. You mention your “academic writing.” Is this “academic writing” in another language and is English your second language?
Thanks.
June 5th, 2011 at 1:11 pm
jon brown
Sorry you only have a grasp. My Qualifications are in history. They are FACTS.
William of Orange was in the British Isles and he did speak English, and people would have known who he was,
You are missing the point completely. They had improved a lot but not completely, as the levels of communication and literacy levels in the first war are different today. The Russian revolution was still an rebellion against the monarch and it still got rid of the monarch because the people didn’t want a monarch they wanted change. I never said no one else was involved did I also when it started Russia was at war with Germany. A lot of people took part in it from all over society in Russia.
As for poll i mean the way they apply to the whole nation, is the same all over the world. As a poll does not cover the whole country so a mathatical formula is applied to get the countries view. In my experience, everything is weighted slightly more to someone’s personal views as, no one can be objective and completely neutral.
The fact is the majority of the country wants a monarch. DEAL with it please. As for income tax, it is still being used because we need the taxes to pay for the things the country wants, taxes are never popular as no one wants to really pay them but we do.
At the time we were at war and it needs paying for therefore income tax was introduced.
June 5th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
Broga- First.
June 5th, 2011 at 1:33 pm
adam
fact-william did not speak english and was rarely here. Photography hadnt been invented and your average serf was tied to the land, how were they supposed to recognise him let alone revolt? No phones or postal service – a bit hard to organise a revolt dont you think?
According to your logic the people of North Korea support their leader as they have not revolted. Does that mean they approve of him? Doesnt the fact that percieved leaders of uprisings have often been executed or severly punished e.g. Guy Fawkes act as a deterent to would be revolutionaries? Lack of action doesnt indicate lack of desire and that is where your theory falls down.
June 5th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
to-Adam
“You might not come out and be rude directly but your comments suggest otherwise.”.
OK, I can’t know what you mean but I won’t argue with you, so let’s allow suggested or indirect rudeness but exclude direct or explicit rudeness. OK?
June 5th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
@Adam. Thank you. Most helpful.
June 5th, 2011 at 3:37 pm
Mr Adam,
I do not agree with many of your views but I salute your spirit. I also feel that I should advise you to ignore Paul’s accusations of rudeness. He is a rude, dishonorable man and a hypocrite.
Keep up the good work of stimulating the debate!
June 5th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
I’d be interested to know what qualifications you have, few academics I know would so boldly claim their views are FACTS in that way, particularly given your misunderstanding of the British constitution. Then of course historians are not constitutional experts, they’re historians.
We are dealing with it, by seeking to persuade the people to change their view.
That’s an interesting view in a country where a majority thinks our political system needs reform.
June 5th, 2011 at 3:55 pm
to-Eccles
Welcome back to reading my mail. So GCHQ does work on a Sunday! Good to know.
June 5th, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Perhaps if you see something on this site that is factually wrong you could point it out and we’ll correct it.
June 5th, 2011 at 4:13 pm
The fact is, whether we want monarchy or not, those of us who don’t have merely to like it or lump it. It may just be that a majority does want monarchy, and a minority does want a republic, but whatever the case, there are serious issues of freedom and democracy at stake here.
We, to my knowledge, have never had a referendum on whether we want a monarchy, or a republic for that matter. So many things are kept from the general British public, that other countries take for granted. In short, the political class, and those who are and represent elites of one kind or another, have far too much power gifted to them. Campaigning for a republic for me is also about challenging these elites, and quite frankly trying to wrest some of the enormous power they now unwieldly manage. No one in a democracy should have untrammelled executive power without necessary brakes of one kind and another. When Tony Blair took the UK to war against Iraq, some of us realised, too late, that he had far too much power, and no matter how many people were vehemently against it, we were powerless to stop him.
It seems to me that we do have a long struggle to inform the general British public of the abuses of power, often done in their name, and in reality carried out by self-serving wealthy and/or political elites, who seem to answer to no one but themselves and their little cliques. Britain in some cases is still run as if we had an empire; AND WE DON’T! Get real, and see the (political) reality of these islands.
June 5th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
@Graham: Careful. Adam does academic research. Although he uses a form of English I have never encountered in any academic work. If you want a quiet smile all you need do is read any sentence written by Adam – you could, for example, look at the first sentence of your quote.
If any poster, republican or royalist, makes a jibe that the generality of a site “makes me laugh” he needs to be in far greater command of his language and his facts than Adam. He seems to me to have all the confidence of a not very advanced student; and none of the doubts or reservations of a mature academic.
Knowing that we don’t know, or at least having reservations about what we think we know, is a valuable characteristic. I don’t detect any sign of that in Adam.
June 5th, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Jon Brown
FACT
William did speak English , otherwise he would not have been able to communicate with his government. How well he spoke English is another matter. From 1694 he had to be in the country because he was ruling alone, plus I believe it said it in law with the act of settlement or bill of right.
Are you for really? Let’s see Photography did not come around until 1822, so no they would not have seen what he looked like. However this does not mean they did not know, who there monarch was. A revolt does not need pictures to start. Yet again you show the signs of not knowing history or even any brain to process thought. “No phones or postal service” A Phone is a modern product and it can not apply to this sort of history, how did anyone know what was going on anywhere in the world. How did people know a battle took places in the holy lands and who won, years before this? How did the Pope dispense his Papal bulls, o yeah the same way revolts can be started, you send riders out , you sent it out word by month, hold meeting is towns , travel the country etc. Also the postal service in the England started in 1516 it was established by Henry VIII. So if people had no way of commutating according to your logic , then the Pilgrime of grace , Northern rebellion , French rev , rebellion in 1215 which resulted in the magna carta, Prayer book rebellion, Irish rebellion of 1641 , peasants revolt of 1381, etc would not have happened.
June 5th, 2011 at 4:43 pm
A military dicrorship is different to having a monarch. A lot of them do want him because they are brain washed into thinking he is god and everything that happens is because of him and they also hate the west esp the USA. Yes they have been put down, and the leaders have normally been killed. However Guy Fawes is a rubbish example and a clear example of you not knowing history Guy Fawes tried to kill the monarch and other members of parliament. It was hardly a rev, or rebellion it was a plot to kill someone, to protest at something, it was also only a hand full of people.
Please learn your history.
Eccles- Thanks
June 5th, 2011 at 4:44 pm
Graham – If you ask an academic, what a document says, or when something happen like the Wall street crash in 1929, this is fact. If you asked them do you believe in a republic or monarch, the answer is a view. To back a view up you use fact, however on this site they are very must one site, for example the figures you give about what the head of state gets is a fact but you don’t use them properly or analyze them etc.
I have not misunderstood the British constitution in any shape of from, if you use the documents e,g Acts of Parliament , and government sources you are gathering the facts, and if you look at them, you would see I was not wrong. A historian put things in context and historians are very good at analyzing and evaluating evidence, it’s what we do all the time.
“Persuade the people to change their view” this in itself goes against the principles of a democracy of allowing people to make their own choice, you should present the facts and data properly and persuade people to see your point of view, but not to change there view. That should be up to the people you are talking to. I am not saying monarchist don’t try and persuade people to like monarch, however most monarchist want people to understand and a lot unlike myself let people decide.
It is a interesting statement because do people want a change in our political system? Answer … Not really, they want to change some aspects of it, e.g. how we vote, not on having a monarch or not.
June 5th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Graham – The whole site
June 5th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Broga
This is going to be short. I don’t care what you think; clearly by your posts talking about me you believe you are something special. You are not! If all you can do is insult me, all it shows a very pathetic nature from your side. I go to uni, therefore I am an academic, which means I write and I can do research.
Advanced student- guessing you are backing this up because of my spelling and grammer. However about instead of insults you come back with something a bit more sound.
At least the other on this site can do that!
June 5th, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Adam, please refer to our moderation policy and stop posting strings of consecutive comments.
If you have an example of something that is factually wrong please do let me know.
If you think that seeking to persuade people of a view goes against the principles of democracy then you clearly have no idea what democracy is.
Quite obviously you are too obtuse to bother with. If you cannot engage in some sensible debate I suggest you refrain from visiting this site. Repeating ad nauseum statements you claim to be ‘fact’ regardless of what is said to you in reply is tantamount to trolling.
June 5th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
@Adam: I think I may have upset you. But think about your attitude to those on this site – would patronising and superior be too strong? According to you we are so ignorant, compared to your “facts”, that we make you laugh. Now Adam, that is a bit heavy, isn’t it? You say I insult you but what are you doing to almost everyone here if you regard them as so lacking in knowledge, so obtuse, that they make you laugh?
As for myself being “special” I was making the opposite point that having doubts and reservations is an essential ingredient to any debate.
Perhaps, as an intellectual exercise and to practise academic rigour, you might just pull back a little, attempt some objectivity, give some credence to those you see as your opponents. I may be a fool, that is for others to judge, but there are a great many on this site who are far from that. They persist in debates with those who patronise them and attempt to explain time and again to those whose minds seem closed.
You might even consider the temperate response of Graham, who puts so much effort into us even appearing here, when you dismiss the results as “making you laugh.” Perhaps an apology to him is due?
No one is totally secure in their knowledge, Adam. Not even you.
June 5th, 2011 at 5:26 pm
adam
have you never heard of interpretors? My point was that the Russia revolution had the use of phones and telegraph.
I dont think any of my patients would agree with you that I dont have a brain. Your resort to personal attacks are proof of the weakness of your argument.
Guy Fawkes is an excellent example – he was just unlucky or the king got lucky depening on your point of view.of course North Korea is a military dictatorship, monarchs have had private armies and body guards too, the fact that they have not been ousted isn’t in itself proof that noone wants to oust them, it merely suggests that the opportunity didnt present itself.
send out riders – good idea if you had the papal fortunes not so practical for the poor serfs. a postal service is not much use if you cannot read and write.
June 5th, 2011 at 5:49 pm
“People will stop believing when they chose to; they don’t need to wake up. The facts and date are out there, people have access to them, it’s a shame republicans actually don’t use them but hey. Well you are wrong, as republics do the same thing.” Adam.
Continually repeating the same mantra that others are wrong does not make them wrong and confer veracity on your rather muddled point of view. I do not believe that you are an academic, sorry. No academic I know repeats the same claimed ‘facts’ only louder. If you are an undergraduate, my advice is to consult widely and not to waste too much time here.
I think that your attitude to the constitutional points that your raise is unhistorical and that you are unwilling to participate in any form of discursive argument. You seem unwilling to allow others to present their genuinely-held views as a matter of entitlement, which is undemocratic.
“The fact is the majority of the country wants a monarch. DEAL with it please.”
This is meaningless. This campaign is a matter of persuasion, just like any other significant group who seeks to suggest difference by widely passing accurate information to others. You are unable to show by deductive argument that Graham’s facts are wrong and your assault on republicans for merely being republicans is hardly credible. You might consider dealing with the fact that republicans exist and are free to speak their minds. Majorities are not always right.
You DO acknowledge that “people will stop believing when they choose to”. This is self-evident and applies to all people who are presented consistently with lies and propaganda to make them think or act in a certain way. An awakening to the way in which the establishment manipulates the people of this country is slowly being achieved, with the freedoms enabled by lightning and uncensorable information technology and the desperate responses to it by those who are concerned for themselves and no-one else.
June 5th, 2011 at 6:09 pm
phaedra
It was I believe the chief of nazi propoganda who said “if you repeat a lie often enough people start to believe it”.
June 5th, 2011 at 6:42 pm
“An awakening to the way in which the establishment manipulates the people of this country is slowly being achieved, with the freedoms enabled by lightning and uncensorable information technology and the desperate responses to it by those who are concerned for themselves and no-one else.”
Yes, the arrival of uncensored mass communication, like mobile phones and the ‘Net have aided more genuine democracy and the spreading of all kinds of knowledge. We, indeed, are part of this revolution right here on this site. There’s no stopping it really.
June 5th, 2011 at 6:49 pm
@Adam: At your “uni”, as you describe it, don’t you have to do some work? For example, read books, write essays, time in the library, talk and discuss with your tutor and other students, attend classes. You seem to spend so much time lecturing and hectoring on this site. Perhaps the “uni” activities seem boring as you have to strive to think – always hard work – whereas here you can deliver your lectures regardless of any underpinning of thought or research.
You really also ought to work to improve your writing skills which are defintely very sub standard. And I am not referring to your spelling. Sentences so ill constructed that they are often incoherent are unlikely to get you a degree, assuming that is your intention.
I say this in the kindest possible way and I know one should hesitate before ever offering advice as it is so often rejected but I make an exception in your case. I don’t know if you are familiar with the term hubris (a common device in Greek tragedy) but perhaps you should check it out. It would be sad if your time lecturing to us here caused you to fail your degree.
I hope you will accept these words as the are meant: with kindly intention.
June 5th, 2011 at 9:21 pm
@ Adam
Can you point me in the direction of your academic writing, please?
In the interests of learning and fairness, I would be very interested to read what you have said in the course of your learning.
June 5th, 2011 at 9:32 pm
to-T.Hughes
“An awakening to the way in which the establishment manipulates…”.
An interesting quote. Where did you find it?
June 5th, 2011 at 10:33 pm
Graham, who is the ‘constitutional law expert’ you referred your question to? Which Law School do they belong to? I find it hard to believe that any constitutional law expert would respond to your statement in such a simplistic manner, without providing any academic debate on a topic subject to intense controversy.
They failed to address the dilemma that Royal Assent would not be provided to any bill attempting to remove the monarchy as an institution (or ‘passing the Crown and its possessions to the people’). Most constitutional law academics believe this would result in the resignation of the Prime Minister, not some fantastical bypassing of the Royal Assent. Indeed, the House of Commons only managed to restrict the powers of the House of Lords through coercion, which led to the House of Lord’s approval of the Parliament Act 1911. Legislation cannot magically be passed without going through the correct constitutional routes.
June 5th, 2011 at 10:51 pm
to-XT
“They failed to address the dilemma that Royal Assent would not be provided to any bill attempting to remove the monarchy..”.
To clarify, are suggesting that if the bill described above were passed following a referendum calling for constitutional change to a republic, that the queen would withold her assent? A simple Yes/No will be fine.
June 5th, 2011 at 10:56 pm
@Paul: That’s ancillary to the question at hand, which regards constitutional law – not morals.
June 5th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
to-XT
It’s a necessary precursor to the dilemma you’re describing. After all if the event could never arise, there are no grounds for raising the dilemma and we’re released from an obligation to answer your question- so please answer the question.
June 5th, 2011 at 11:18 pm
@XT
I don’t think Paul is making any moral point. He’s asking you if removing the Queen is a constitutional impossibility, which appears to be what you’re gesturing at.
Didn’t the Queen once say ‘I hope when we go, we go quietly’?
June 5th, 2011 at 11:44 pm
Mr Ascending, I think Paul is simply misunderstanding XT’s point.
When XT said “They failed to address the dilemma that Royal Assent would not be provided to any bill attempting to remove the monarchy as an institution”
I think he either wrongly worded his sentence or made a pretty unsupportable statement. I think a much better way of putting it would be replacing the words ‘would not’ with ‘may not’, yes? Forgive me Mr XT if I misrepresent you.
Paul’s question is fairly meaningless. For this to be an issue all we have to agree upon is that there is a chance (regardless of how small) that the Queen or any one of her successors, when presented with such a bill, would refuse to give assent to it.
This seems to be a pretty uncontroversial premise to me, but I have been surprised on these forums before.
June 6th, 2011 at 12:56 am
I am a fervent republican believing that the royal family encapsulates much of what is negative about our country. This self serving family have little to concern themselves with apart from maintaining the status quo which they continue to do very effectively with help from sychophants in parliament and the media.
I believe that the UK is a conservative nation ,I don’t believe there will be a revolution instead a transition will happen. I think that the idea of a republic and a president is probably going to be a step too far for most of the population at least in the immediate future.
What do people feel about the suggestion of electing a monarch (purely a figurehead and not from a political party) with with a fixed term and limited number of terms in office? The general populace may feel find the Windsors being ousted from their position more acceptable if all the pomp and celebrity of monarchy is maintained but without the expense of maintaining a whole family on a civil list and without deference. Just wanted to throw that into the pot as a suggestion!
June 6th, 2011 at 1:24 am
Mr(?) Slainte, your suggestion of an elected monarch is interesting, but I’m not sure that it would work in practice. Most of the ‘pomp and celebrity’ of the monarchy, as you put it, is at least partially based on them being ‘special’.
Can you imagine an elected official riding around in a gilded chariot, dressing up in a crown and holding a scepter? I’m guessing most people would feel like an utter prat doing that, yes? I know I’d be excruciatingly embarassed!
Also, I’m not entirely sure that an elected and transient head of state could have the same power in the role as a figurehead.. It is a tricky question. I shall give it some more thought.
In terms of cost…well, if we are to maintain all the current traditions and ceremonies, I’m guessing that the savings will not be huge. But then I never thought that the monarchy was particularly expensive in comparison to the scale of other public expendatures. My objections to the institutions are more on idealistic grounds I guess.
I think my opinion on this matter is that if we get rid of the monarchy, we should get rid of the whole thing – root and branch. The traditions and ceremonies are, arguably, pretty empty gestures nowerdays. Continuing them without an actual monarch would be verging on the ridiculous. I think they would lose much of their power among the populace anyway, without the royalty to go with them..
This leaves me in a difficult position really…’cause I quite like the sense of history and culture that comes with the pageantry and pomp. I think I’d miss it were it to go…
June 6th, 2011 at 5:19 am
Re. Pageantry,
Absolutely no reason why a republic can’t fund
razzle dazzle if it wants to. Processions, costumes,
fireworks, bunting, balloons, brass bands, fancy vehicles… are all done by republics on a variety of
special occasions.
The idea that republicanism is more monochromatic than
monarchy is untrue and illogical. If the people decide
that a big party and a big show is worth funding then we
can find lots of good commemorative reasons for having a big show and a big party.
The domestic affairs of one family represents a rather narrow celebratory base. We can find plenty of others. British love of pageantry is no reason to stay a monarchy.
June 6th, 2011 at 8:14 am
Cbrunston has a valid point. Bastille day, or La Fête Nationale, on July 14th, is just one example of French pageantry and celebration. It is marked in numerous ways with fireworks all over the Eiffel Tower, very colourful street decorations, garden parties and parades by horseman of the French Republican Guard. All three services are involved with displays by the Patrouille de France arobatics team. In recent years there have also been appearances by British troops as guests – the Royal Marines, among others I believe. I saw a display by the Red Arrows over Paris a few years ago.
The significant difference is that a spirit of unity is achieved, celebrating the sovereignty of the people, and expressed in ways that all sections of the community can relate to. Packaged ‘celebrations’ involving the pedestrian rites of passage of the Windsors or the enforced joy surrounding another 60 years of hereditary imposition, are actually duties that subjects are required to participate in, having been pressured by the media – a heavy sense of guilt having been skilfully introduced as an alternative.
June 6th, 2011 at 8:25 am
to-Slainte
Yours is a thought, but ‘she’ has been broached on this before, and has made it clear she would not cooperate with any such scheme.
June 6th, 2011 at 9:43 am
The Crown Estate still thinks the “Royal Family” (aka the Winsors..) own & run the Crown Estate.
Just received the Summer 2011 “Latest News from the Royal Landscape” (I have a card to get me into Savill gardens and the 4 car parks in Windsor Great Park).
This includes the following from an article on ‘Flower for a Royal Wedding’ ..
“Having been granted permission by Her Majesty the Queen to use flowers and foliage from the gardens of Windsor Great Park…”.
But they didn’t bother to ask me or any other British Citizens our views.. the arrogance, the assumptive forlock-tugging…!!!
They still think the crown estate is their wee private playpen – e.g. the huge “Private Areas” they have for their houses, gardens & shooting, AFAIK for no charge.
June 6th, 2011 at 9:50 am
to Slainte: I very much liked your post and the creative thinking about an elected monarch for a fixed term. She may not cooperate in such a scheme, as Paul says, but if a positive alternative such as yours is offered, and the current Windsor scandals continue the public may take it on board.
Mrs Windsor, or her flaky heir Charles, may either have to like it or lump it.
June 6th, 2011 at 10:26 am
Mr Brunstrom, I did not mean to imply that a republic cannot have ‘razzle dazzle’. We already have plenty of that that is not directly associated with the monarchy. What I was trying to say is that to keep all the old directly monarchical traditions without actually having a monarchy would render them a little flat and meaningless. I think the razzle dazzle would have to change significantly with many old events being removed and perhaps needed to be replaced with new ones. Things like coranations, jubilees and royal weddings being obvious examples. Even if we were celebrating other, more republican events on those days, the nature of the celebration would be pretty inappropriate given that the current ones centre almost entirely around the royal family. Do we agree on this?
June 6th, 2011 at 10:43 am
Miss Phaedra,
Provided we don’t lapse back into insults, conspiracy theories and paranoia:
“The significant difference is that a spirit of unity is achieved, celebrating the sovereignty of the people, and expressed in ways that all sections of the community can relate to.”
I can agree with your middle bit but not so much with the surrounding ones. I think that we need to be realistic. Whether we like it or not the majority of Britons think favorably towards the monarchy. I think celebrations like the royal wedding were in there ways pretty unifying. Obviously different sections of society approved to different amounts so I’m not saying that the event was 100% unifying. But I think it was pretty much as unifying as any other public celebration.
People always herald the inauguration of Barrak Obama as a unifying event for the Americans but it is clear that many groups across that country were bitterly opposed to it. Same thing with the wedding. A quick google search found a poll by Angus Reid that said that 59% of people were interested in the royal wedding – and this was back in november before the hype really started. 59% is pretty unifying in my book. Oh, and another interesting result was that in newzealand apparently 42% of republicans also tuned in! So we were partially unified too Haha!
(I must confess I saw bits of it myself!)
” enforced joy surrounding another 60 years of hereditary imposition, are actually duties that subjects are required to participate in, having been pressured by the media – a heavy sense of guilt having been skilfully introduced as an alternative.”
I do not think this is true either. I feel no sense of obligation or duty to go participate in royal celebrations. Maybe that is because of my republican leanings. I asked a few of my more monarchist friends and they said they didn’t feel any sense of duty to participate. They certainly didn’t feel any guilt if they did not. I think your implication that our…
June 6th, 2011 at 10:46 am
What is a ‘constitutional expert’?
What qualifications does one need to become one?
Do all ‘constitutional experts’ have the same points of view on and interpret the constitution in the same way?
June 6th, 2011 at 10:46 am
End got cut off:
I think your implication that our fellow countrymen follow the direction of the media so slavishly is unsupported, unfair and extremely insulting. I have a great deal more faith in my fellow Briton.
June 6th, 2011 at 11:05 am
Lewis
A constitutional expert is an academic or lawyer who has studied the constitution in some detail and has engaged in the issue at an academic level. Principally they are professors of constitutional law but can also be professors of politics or lawyers.
There is certainly plenty of debate about the nature of the constitution but there are certain features of the constitution, such as the supremacy of parliament, that are broadly accepted by everyone. There is also agreement on what constitutes the uncodified constitution, namely:
1 Acts of Parliament
2 Treaties
3 European Union law
4 Common law
5 Conventions
6 Works of authority
June 6th, 2011 at 11:09 am
“Whether we like it or not the majority of Britons think favorably towards the monarchy.” Eccles.
We are a campaign group seeking to change perceptions, otherwise we have no purpose. Are there degrees of unification? Polls are polls containing no verifiable veracity; we will not be swayed by them.
Mass media instructions to comply, in a vast range of areas, not just this one, are very evident in my view. Some defenders of monarchy or the unthinking default flag-wavers are normally convinced of a number of things – participation through subtle peer pressure is one; Britain (obviously downtrodden and depressed) needing cheering-up – the spectacle of the monarchy celebrating their own achievements (and fulfilling that role) is another.
“I think your implication that our fellow countrymen follow the direction of the media so slavishly is unsupported, unfair and extremely insulting.”
I will say what I think here despite your patriarchal rhetoric. I think that you are argumentative and naive to a considerable degree. No offence.
“I have a great deal more faith in my fellow Briton.”
And patronising. It’s all worked so jolly well of course – 60 years fancy that! Why change anything? Your work here is complete!
June 6th, 2011 at 11:38 am
“I think your implication that our fellow countrymen follow the direction of the media so slavishly is unsupported, unfair and extremely insulting.” Eccles
“This is why I dislike newspapers. Too many people paid to write nasty things on demand…I hate how we are meant to be outraged at everything.” Eccles.
Surely not? You cannot be suggesting that there are malign forces at work in the media, seeking to manipulate us? It cannot be working can it? There are no media barons are there? Not that many people buy newspapers and tune-in every night do they?
Perhaps, unlike you, they haven’t realised the subtlety of what’s actually going on?
June 6th, 2011 at 11:39 am
“We are a campaign group seeking to change perceptions, otherwise we have no purpose.”
Hooray! But I can’t what relevance this has. I was stating what the conditions are at the moment. I guess it is part of the republican mission to make events like the royal wedding less unifying and more divisive. Doesn’t sound so great when I put it like that now that I think about it, but I guess these things must become much more divisive if we are ever to achieve a republic.
“Are there degrees of unification?”
I’d say yes. If we make the definition into ‘everyone is united’ it would become a pretty useless term in our context as no public event is ever going to be close to 100% unifying.
“Polls are polls containing no verifiable veracity; we will not be swayed by them.”
I’m sorry, but the first part of this is clearly false. A well conducted poll is an excellent statistical source of information. Any decent polling organisation will provide a wealth of information on their methods and questions so that one can evaluate their validity.
Polling is used routinely many fields. For example in manufacture it is a statistically reliable way of detecting failure rates.
Whether you choose to be swayed by them or not is of course your choice just as it is your choice whether to be swayed by the evidence that smoking causes lung cancer. It is perhaps interesting to note that when presented with the same data showing a correlation between lung cancer and smoking, a smoker is far less likely to trust the result than a non smoker.
The temptation to believe what we want to be true and distrust what we don’t is pretty strong I guess. It does just amount to intellectual cowardice though..
I’ve read your middle paragraph a few times but it doesn’t appear to make sense.
Also, can you please explain how:
“I have a great deal more faith in my fellow Briton.”
Is patronising?
June 6th, 2011 at 11:43 am
““This is why I dislike newspapers. Too many people paid to write nasty things on demand…I hate how we are meant to be outraged at everything.” Eccles.
Surely not? You cannot be suggesting that there are malign forces ar work in the media, seeking to manipulate us?”
I’m not doubting that the media TRY to influence us. That is patently obvious. I am just saying that you greatly overestimate their success.
Besides, they have conflicting goals. If I’m not mistaken several of the newspapers are anti-monarchy arn’t they?
June 6th, 2011 at 11:45 am
to-Phaedra
Your description of British military participation in Bastille Day was an interesting revelation to me. This seems like the kind of news the BBC blacks because, if it isn’t English or American, then the British mustn’t hear about it. I’m actually a little bit proud that the British military establishment contributed to Europe’s greatest republican festival. You’re right, republics can step out in as much style as monarchies if they wish, they just tend not to wish it.
June 6th, 2011 at 12:17 pm
@ Eccles,
Again, more interesting thoughts. I appreciate your input.
Your point about polls (surveys and referenda may also fall into this category) is an interesting one.
Whilst the following link is amusing, the use of humour explains how many polls are conducted:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gMcZic1d4U&feature=related
It should not be above the wit and wisdom of any organisation to construct a poll that might be construed to wholeheartedly (not) support the creation of a republic or (not) the removal of a monarchy.
So, for instance, a poll to support monarchy might begin:-
1) Do you value the tradition of British heritage?
2) Do you think that these traditions and heritage are fundamental to being British?
3) Do you think that these traditions and heritage influence your pride in Britain?
4) Do you accept that the monarchy is part of these traditions and heritage?
5) Do you support the monarchy’s role in defining these traditions?
On the other hand:-
1) Do you believe that all people are born equal?
2) Do you believe that all people deserve equal opportunities?
3) Do you think it is right to treat all people equally?
4) Do you think therefore that the monarchy represents inequality?
5) Would you say that the monarchy does not belong in the 21st century?
The serious point here is that people are making decisions that are ill-informed or non-informed. We need an open, free and informed debate based on the full facts.
June 6th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Mr G, good to hear from you again, sir!
You are of course correct that it is very easy to add bias into a poll through a whole raft of methods. The way data is interpreted and analysed also can be extremely misleading especially to someone who is not familiar with statistics or the scientific method.
This is what gives rise to the expression “Lies, damned lies and statistics”
I personally have a visceral hatred for unbiased information whether it is biased towards my opinion or not (in fact, I hate it even more when it agrees with me, weirdly). I feel that it is treating my like a child and telling me what to think. I’d rather just have the facts and make up my own conclusions (hence my dislike for newspapers!).
Ack, going off on a tangent. My point is, transparency and neutrality are key! As I said, any decent polling organisation will give a very detailed methodology for their polls which you can read up on to personally assess whether you think the data is representative. For example if you visit the ipsos mori website (http://www.ipsos-mori.com) you can find pretty much all the info you could want about their polls.
It is the same with anything really..don’t take facts at face value – assess the quality and reliability of the source. The fact that some sources are unreliable does not mean that you should discount ALL sources. A well conducted poll is an excellent tool for gauging the opinion of the populace.
Now, your point about people being non/ill informed is a different issue to what Phaedra was saying. It is an important and complex issue. I don’t think I’ve thought about it enough to have an opinion right at this moment though.
PS.
<3 For the yes minister clip!
June 6th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
@Martin G,
You made your point quite vividly.
I will add, if you allow, one thing:
Everything in a monarchy is probably good, and trustworthy, EXCEPT anything that has to do with preserving the monarchy or not. When it comes to that, I don’t trust the paper any such poll is printed on. The monarchy goes through great lengths to preserve itself, including EVERYTHING! So, manipulating pollsters is the least of its tasks.
I don’t think the average person knows what’s involved to maintain such an unnatural thing as a monarchy in an enlightened period of the internet and all. This institution of the monarchy is a juggernaut, that involves secret intelligence, the courts, the media, the police, the army, and you name it. The monarchy have their men/women at the helm of all these institutions. Oh I forgot to mention parliament in the list too.
The monarchy is not just this lonely partying, and celebrating 85 year old monarch.
It’s amazing how the House of Commons is designed to go get a popular mandate, then commanded by an unelected council to abandon it at the door, on the day of their assembly. That is the most brilliant construct I’ve ever seen. Pretend to be democratic on and before elections, but join the secretive monarchy to govern. The people are completely shut-out.
June 6th, 2011 at 12:52 pm
“I personally have a visceral hatred for unbiased information whether it is biased towards my opinion or not (in fact, I hate it even more when it agrees with me, weirdly)”. —Eccles
@Eccles
Unlike you, I cherish unbiased information. Why would you have such hatred for unbiased information? That makes no sense.
Now, in case you simply made a typographical error there, let me tell you, as someone who lives in a republic, where polls are utilized prior to, NOT INSTEAD OF, an election, there are many circumstances where one side leads in a poll, by wide margins, only to have the polls tighten close to the election, and actually have the poll-leader lose on the day of elections! So, the monarchy could lead in polls, but lose on the day of actual balloting, to republic. That is why, conducting elections, and having actual balloting is distinct from polling.
June 6th, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Yeah, unbiased should have been biased. Reordered the sentence and forgot to change the word. My bad.
“there are many circumstances where one side leads in a poll, by wide margins, only to have the polls tighten close to the election, and actually have the poll-leader lose on the day of elections!”
What you are describing here is a change in public opinion over time. I don’t think anyone would dispute that this happens.
A poll on an issue conducted today may well yield a different result compared to the same poll conducted in a year’s time.
There are a few times when a well conducted poll can give a different result to an anonymous election conducted at the same time (eg an exit poll). This generally occurs when people are voting for a party that they would be ashamed admit to voting for. For example, in France, the far right parties tend to do better in elections than polls suggest. Same with the BNP here.
Other than the anonymity, there is not really a great deal of difference between a poll and an election. The only major other difference is that one has to actively go out to vote in an election whereas typically one is approached to take part in a poll. Both therefore discriminate against different sections of society. Elections discriminate against the apathetic and polls discriminate against the impatient.
The fact that ‘everyone’ has a vote in an election is of course a vitally important ideological and personal thing, but, theoretically, it makes zero difference to the result compared to the expected (using the statistical meaning) result of an excellently designed poll.
Also, your pointing out of the fickle nature of public opinion (“the monarchy could lead in polls, but lose on the day of actual balloting, to republic.”) is a pointing out a flaw in irreversible referenda that does not sit well with me..
I’d love to have a republic, but I dunno. I always end up thinking of things like Scottish independence. I really quite…
June 6th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
@Eccles,
It first appeared as though your last sentence was cutoff. I did allow a reasonable time for you to finish.
I just wanted to tell you that, polls are vector quantities, not scalar. They have magnitude and direction. Whereas, ballot in elections are scalar quantities. Therefore, we cannot substitute polls for actual balloting.
Finally, you mentioned in your last entry, I quote “I’d love to have a republic, but I dunno”, let me tell you the bad news, because I do know, it is NOT up to you. Apparently, you have NO CHOICE in the matter. That is why I suggest you join this campaign, to secure to yourselves the ability to choose, just in case, Eccles, you make up your mind, and decide to go for a republic. As it stands now, if you in fact decide to “know”, you are out of luck. Monarchy is compulsory.
June 6th, 2011 at 1:49 pm
“A poll on an issue conducted today may well yield a different result compared to the same poll conducted in a year’s time”. —Eccles
@Eccles,
This concession is a game changer. This concession is a debate ender. If we agree on the point above, and we do, we are obligated to throw out polls as an alternative to elections.
Besides, polls are made up of many variables, constants, samples and what-not. Electoral balloting, is the made up of the real thing, the actual.
June 6th, 2011 at 2:00 pm
Yeah, I noticed that the end was cut off. I spent quite a while ordering my thoughts on referenda but I couldn’t be bothered to retype it. It basically boiled down to:
Public opinion is volatile – it fluctuates.
Hence any referendum that is a ‘one way’ affair will inevitably go that way over time purely through statistical variation.
The example I used was scottish independence. I don’t want to get into an argument about actual figures so lets just take this purely as an illustration. All figures are entirely invented by me:
Say on average over many years, 60% of Scotts wanted to remain part of the UK. If we had a referendum that would mean that the chances are that the UK would remain whole. But this would not be the end of the matter. Any ‘union’ vote would be a temporary affair. Another referrendum would be run in X years time. If, on the other hand, a ‘split’ vote was recorded, that would in all likelihood be permanent.
Because public opinion fluctuates, this means that over time a permanent split is inevitable, even if most of the population don’t want it most of the time. All it takes is for one badly timed scandal or something similar for a permanent change that is not, necessarily, democratic in a holistic sense.
The reason I couldn’t be bothered to retype this before is that I couldn’t think of a better solution.
As for “polls are vector quantities, not scalar. They have magnitude and direction. Whereas, ballot in elections are scalar quantities.”
I’m going to need you to explain that. If you poll people to see how they are going to vote in a general election it is pretty scalar, yes? 30% Lab, 20% Lib, 50% Con seems pretty scalar to me.
June 6th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
““A poll on an issue conducted today may well yield a different result compared to the same poll conducted in a year’s time”. —Eccles
@Eccles,
This concession is a game changer. This concession is a debate ender. If we agree on the point above, and we do, we are obligated to throw out polls as an alternative to elections.”
What? EXACTLY the same thing can be said for elections. Thats how the party in power changes, yeah?
Anyway, noone is suggesting using polls as a replacement for elections. In matters such as a referrendum they simply indicate whether one is necessary or not. If an idea consistently polls 10% approval in well constructed , large scale and recent polls, there is no point in having a referrendum as the chances of gaining a majority approval are vanishingly small.
I really don’t want a referrendum on the monarchy right now. Public approval is extremely high. All it would do is confirm that the majority of the public are in favor of the institution and that would kill off our cause for a generation. It would be a spectacular own goal.
Far better to try to get public approval down first over the decade probably and then try for one.
June 6th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
“I’m going to need you to explain that. If you poll people to see how they are going to vote in a general election it is pretty scalar, yes? 30% Lab, 20% Lib, 50% Con seems pretty scalar to me”. —Eccles
@Eccles,
Here in the US, polls prior to an election, is not an event; rather, it is a process. A poll is conducted monthly, nay, daily! This, according to the pollsters, will show the movement of the public opinion. The differentials are noted; who is losing ground? By how much? Who was up yesterday? Who is up today? And so on…
That is a vector quantity, in that it calculates not just the magnitude percent wise, but also, the direction it is moving.
But on Election day, we simply have the result, the magnitude, the percentage, not direction. Who won, who lost, by how much?
On the Scottish Independence, why poll it? Simply allow the people to choose on a ballot. That is the way I like things, let the people decide. Polls should have nothing to do with it.
June 6th, 2011 at 2:25 pm
Hmm, over here I don’t think we do polls quite so frequently. But by your description polls are much better than elections. There is an awful lot more data contained within them. In terms of deciding policy, better to have a map of public opinion over a length of time than a single snap shot on a certain, arbitrary date.
The interpretation would be more complex but any conclusions drawn will have more meaning.
You seem to suggest that the vector nature of a poll is a bad thing? One could always ignore it and just treat each poll as a distinct entity. But that would be wasting valuable data – a vector result is an improvement over a scalar.
It would be like recording data to 3 significant figures. If you only want to quote your results to 2 that is fine but you should still use all three for your calculations and analysis.
I fear you’ve missed the point of what I was saying with the Scottish Independence example.
June 6th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Eccles Anyway, noone is suggesting using polls as a replacement for elections. In matters such as a referrendum they simply indicate whether one is necessary or not.
eclub1 Make no mistake about it Eccles, the arbiter who decides whether an election is necessary or not, should be the people, via a written constitution. This decision should not be left to the elite, and the media. Of course this is what they want, to be the ones making such decisions. I am very surprised that as sophisticated as the Brits appear, they are actually hoodwinked for so long by these elites. How can you let these people set arbitrary dates for when important events should occur? Elections should have permanent dates, clearly denoted in a constitution. The type of government should NOT be left to the monarchy to determine, or worse, the pollster. The people should tell the monarchy what type of government they want, NOT the other way around. Make no mistake about it, the monarchy is only looking out for itself, like all human institutions. The monarchy is self-interested, period. That’s just human nature.
Eccles If an idea consistently polls 10% approval in well constructed , large scale and recent polls, there is no point in having a referrendum as the chances of gaining a majority approval are vanishingly small.
Eclub1 If it’s polling 10%, then let it get 10% on the election day. Don’t prejudge it. Nobody has the right to postpone an election simply because one side is not fairing too well. Only the people should decide these things.
Remember, if a referendum is announced for monarchy versus democracy this year, automatically, the polls will improve for democracy; then the campaign will be funded better, and resources will pour in. It will be a different ball game when the two sides are placed on equal footing. The BBC will be forced to appear fair in their coverage etc.
June 6th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
“You seem to suggest that the vector nature of a poll is a bad thing? One could always ignore it and just treat each poll as a distinct entity. But that would be wasting valuable data – a vector result is an improvement over a scalar”. –Eccles
Oh Eccles, remember what a poll is attempting to predict?
If a poll is better than the actual elections, over here it is called rigging.
You actually advance my point; the British polls are constantly better than the electoral results would have shown.
June 6th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
“Oh Eccles, remember what a poll is attempting to predict?
If a poll is better than the actual elections, over here it is called rigging.
You actually advance my point; the British polls are constantly better than the electoral results would have shown.”
???
June 6th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Graham Smith
Again you are wrong. And clearly don’t like people showing you up or rather this site.
You bring up the moderation policy know, when even you have been breaching it yourself, on many points like others on here have done to. The strings of comments are in reply to people who have asked me something, or addressed my comments. This is called a debate Graham, clearly you have no understanding of this word. The reason why my comments are consecutive is because depending on the day, I do not have time to come back and reply to comments after someone as responded therefore they have to be consecutive.
Factually wrong – ok
Option polls page – If you are going to say this “some have put it as high as 43% (GMTV/Mirror 2008” reference it better as this is hard to find, compared to the other polls.
“That means that at least 10 million people would vote to abolish the monarchy” Factually wrong as you are basing this on a poll which I and many others cannot find. However if you said based on the most common per cent is… then this is more factual and honest. For example if you said based on the Ipsos polls since 1993 to 2011 republicans support various from 15-22% , with the most common % being 18-19 with 10 of the polls coming in at this, you are correct. You are also wrong saying at least 10 million people would vote to abolish the monarchy tomorrow as based on the latest poll and the population figures is slightly higher.
“A 2002 poll showed that 70% believe Britain will be a republic within 50 years (Mori 2002)”. Completely wrong , only 33% believe Britain will be a republic within 50 years. As even with the don’t know section it only still adds up to 56% and even in a 100 years it does not add up to 70% so again wrong.
June 6th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
“The majority of British voters (63%) believe our system of government needs improvement, with only 3% believing it works “extremely well” (Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust ‘State of the Nation Poll’ 2004).” This is a bit misleading and the figures are questionable, you should use the 2010 one, also this document does not even mention monarchy. It’s about parliament, and the people not the Queen and the royal family. Therefore it has no bearing on monarchy vs republics.
“An opinion poll is not a substitute for a referendum or an election” – This is your opion not fact, every country including republics use them to get a feeling of what the country wants.
Royal finances – The Royal family do not say how much tax they pay, the government mean parliament do. The Duchies are not classed as an income, so they are taxed differently but they are still taxed even if it is they are not made to. Also they are not public property because they were never set up to be public property. Therefore should not be used here as they are not taxes payers money and never has been. Civil list is not £15.1 million, Travel costs are wrong. Expenditure met by gov depts, Travel and accommodation for Prince Charles ,wrong. Unpaid taxes should not be included and same with security cost. You are right in saying we don’t know the actually cost but you are wrong in saying they cost us £184.2 million as this is wrong.
“There are fifteen working royals according to the official monarchy website. That means we pay around £12m a year for each one” You miss out the staff we pay for too, and what the money is spend on other then wages etc.
June 6th, 2011 at 3:00 pm
“The total bill for parliamentary salaries and expenses is around £155m. Add other costs of running the House of Commons and we’re looking at a total bill of approximately £365m” – Wrong as of 2010 the budget points out the house of Commons costs £400 million on its own. The Salaries and expenses also add up more than £155 million and you have left out the pensions. As some MPS expenses are over 1 million, you also forgot the lords which get allowances and you forget the prime minster and 10 downing street.
Information on the Crown Estate is wrong as it belonged to the monarch, and it was give to parliament in exchange for the civil list. An agreement was reached, and that’s the way it has been ever since, the monarchs did use to own it.
“It may not be a large slice of government spending, but here’s what you can get for £183m” and what comes under is wrong as a lot of this cost will still be there even if we didn’t have a monarch.
“Some people have argued that figures from countries such as Ireland don’t count, because its population is so much smaller. This argument doesn’t make sense” This does make sense as if a country is small in population, there tax income is smaller, therefore what they would pay there head of state and that of there government would be different from a bigger country. If you are going to compare different countries spending like this, this has to be taken into account. Also where did you get the information from? Link that too so people can see for themselves.
So on two pages alone there are these many mistakes. Let alone the rest of this site. If you want people to make the right decision, give them all the right facts/ information.
“If you think that seeking to persuade people of a view goes against the principles of democracy” This is what you are doing yourself on this site, so don’t preach at me saying I am going against the principles of democracy when you are doing it as well ,…
June 6th, 2011 at 3:02 pm
As for I have no idea about democracy really? Ok
There is no universal acceptance of a definitions for a “democracy” but there are five commonly used ones
1. “Government by the people exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
2. A political or social unit that has such a government.
3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
4. Majority rule.
5. The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community”
Or if you go by what the word means in Greek where it came from “The rule of the people”- this is so vague that the people of a country cannot all rule it does not work or function. There are also many principles that people believe are included in a democracy e.g freedom of speech, freedom of press, equal rights, freedom of political expression, human rights , civil liberties.
It is common accepted that this idea started in Greece , in Athens’s however even there idea of a democracy had limitations and did not meet the def of a democracy, yet they said it was.
Sensible debate, this is very one sided coming from you. Others are not having a sensible debate either, but because I am a monarchist you only address me in this issues. What I have said is fact; your site does not present facts. I am not trolling I am entering in a debate, if I was trolling then I would have commented on a lot more, then I have done.
theartfullodger
The Crown Estate knows the Royal family owns the estate they technically still do it, it is only held in a trust and the Queen appoints the people who run the estate any way.
Martin G
I have not published anything yet, like I have said I am at uni, you cannot publish work until the end of the 3rd year, even then it is hard to do. My academic writing is what I do at uni , essay, write up etc these are academic writings.
June 6th, 2011 at 3:02 pm
“???” —Eccles
Dear Eccles,
You had implied that you preferred polls(vector) to actual election results(scalar), and I thought that was absurd.
For instance, in your Scottish example, if the polls predicted a 40% share for independence, and somehow an election for forced by the people, and it garnered x%, no matter what value is assigned to x, it would be 1000% more legitimate than the 40%, which was just a snapshot in time, and prone to many shenanigans. That’s all I’m saying, election returns are the real thing that polls are trying to mimic or predict. So, how can a poll be better than the real?
June 6th, 2011 at 3:17 pm
To quote myself “noone is suggesting using polls as a replacement for elections. In matters such as a referendum they simply indicate whether one is necessary or not.”
Saying that a poll is better or not than an election is pretty meaningless as they each have different roles.
My Scottish example was concerning problems with ‘one way’ referendums.
I am a little wary when people use words like “election returns are the real thing”. Democracy is about ruling with the will of the people. An election is merely a way of the people letting their will be known, albeit in a very limited capacity. Elections are not the be-all and end-all, they are merely the ‘best’ system we have been able to come up with at the moment. The AV referendum is an obvious example of this. That would have changed our entire electoral system (if more than about 6 people and their dog had wanted it!) There is nothing sacrosanct about elections.
Aaaanyway. I’m not sure this discussion is really going anywhere.
June 6th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
to Adam: You seem to need long posts, padded with verbiage, to comment on anything. I don’t suppose you are familiar with Oscar Wilde’s comment in writing a longer than usual letter : “I am sorry to have written such a long letter but I didn’t have time to write a shorter one.”
June 6th, 2011 at 3:28 pm
to Adam: you write “I would reply to the other comments but I have ran out of time to…” Well Adam, I guess that is a deprivation we will all have to accept with whatever fortitude we are able to muster.
June 6th, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Adam
Aside from your comments being deeply confused and based on a considerable misunderstand of what others have said and of the constitution, your remarks consistently resort to personal comments and rudeness. As a moderator it is my responsibility to point out the moderation rules and you are still in breach of them.
You are here as a guest and you are welcome to debate with us, but if you continue in the manner you have been continuing in recently then you will be blocked.
As for your comments about factually incorrect points on the website the most you have is one statistic that is slightly out of date.
This comment is really confused. You told me that seeking to persuade people of our view is against the principles of democracy. I said to you that if you thikn that then perhaps you don’t understand the meaning of democracy. Yes, I am seeking to persuade people of my views, but I don’t think it’s undemocratic to do so. I haven’t suggested you are acting against the principles of democracy, I’ve suggested you don’t understand them.
June 6th, 2011 at 5:04 pm
2:57 and Adam finally got up…..I’m off to do something more interesting, like clip my nasal hair…..
June 6th, 2011 at 8:47 pm
“We are a campaign group seeking to change perceptions, otherwise we have no purpose.”
Hooray! But I can’t what relevance this has.” Eccles
It means that it is a work in progress Eccles – a group working towards changing the attitude of those “who think favourably of the monarchy”. Try to remember what you have written dear boy. Unification denotes ONENESS Eccles – a unity – and there is a considerable difference between citing 59% against 100% or very near it.
“A well conducted poll is an excellent statistical source of information.”
I didn’t say that it wasn’t. It might show trends under certain circumstances, depending on multiple factors and a host of variables. What I said was that whilst it might purport to represent something truthfully, levels of truthfulness could not be verified.
“The temptation to believe what we want to be true and distrust what we don’t is pretty strong I guess”… which is why truthfulness and accuracy are at a premium in most polls.
“I’ve read your middle paragraph a few times but it doesn’t appear to make sense.”
I’m sorry you couldn’t understand it. Read it again!
“Also, can you please explain how: ‘I have a great deal more faith in my fellow Briton’ is patronising.”
You are setting yourself up as arbiter and conferring your beneficence on your fellow Briton, whose views (obviously) concord with your right ones? Awfully decent of you old thing! You later go on to say that: “I’m not doubting that the media TRY to influence us. That is patently obvious. I am just saying that you greatly overestimate their success.”
What do you base your notions of overestimation on – other than perhaps the few monarchist friends you interrogated – hardly a poll was it? Which papers are ‘anti-monarchy’ in your view. I was referring to the mainstrean media of course – utilised by corporate gods for their own ends. Their influence is MASSIVE Eccles. What are you dreaming of? I’m bored with you now. Go and consume or something!
June 6th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
“Democracy is about ruling with the will of the people. An election is merely a way of the people letting their will be known, albeit in a very limited capacity”. —Eccles
Eccles,
I tried to ignore the above quote, and my conscience could only hold out for a few hours. I am only interested in having you stop believing that, because I don’t think there’s any other sincere soul that shares that definition with you. Yours is a very dangerous definition for democracy; it allows dictators to rule and govern, as far as they are doing so for the people. It is nonsense.
Here’s why: democracy, since time immemorial, is defined as government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
The way you tried to portray, we cavalierly gave away the first two parts of that definition, in essence you are promulgating a “government of others, by the others, for the people”, and that is clearly anathema to what democracy is meant to install. I therefore, urge you to refrain from such confusion forthwith.
Monarchy has tried everything to co-opt or corrupt the term democracy, I’m afraid it just won’t happen. The reason is that, not only do we know what democracy is, we also know what it is not.
June 6th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
to-Broga
““I am sorry to have written such a long letter but I didn’t have time to write a shorter one.””
It’s only when you see hectares of undigested, untreated, unconsidered wordage slopped out in front of you do you realise the perception in Wilde’s paradox. But I suspect you’ve thrown the ball too high and I can’t imagine it’s been caught.
June 6th, 2011 at 9:26 pm
*sigh* You really are a thoroughly unpleasant person, aren’t you Phaedra? Are you entirely incapable of talking to people who disagree with you in a neutral tone or do you just choose not to out of some kind of vicious entertainment?
Mr Eclub I may have worded myself clumsily. I meant to say that democracy is government enforcing the will of the people…which is kinda what I said when I look at it. I’m not sure what point you are making about ‘by the people and of the people’. MPs are selected from a pool of volunteers that come from ‘the people’, as you put it? But they are still ‘other’ because they are different from the rest of us in that they have been elected, no? ‘ by the people’ kinda suggests mob rule to me? I’m guessing you meant it in a different way.
I think we probably agree on the underlying points but are interpreting words in different ways.
So in the interests of clarity can you please expand on what you mean by ‘by the people and of the people’?
June 6th, 2011 at 10:02 pm
“So in the interests of clarity can you please expand on what you mean by ‘by the people and of the people’?” —Eccles
@Eccles,
Despite your misogyny towards Phaedra, and your dishonesty in the beginning, when you introduced yourself as a republican, whereas, you are a monarchist, I will attempt to answer the above, but realize that I am very upset with the way you addressed Phaedra above, and I hope you tender her an apology right away.
I will answer your question about democracy, the people, and so on by posting the meaning of the other types of government, in classical terms of course:
As I have already stated, U.S. president Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) defined democracy as: Government of the people, by the people, for the people;
Another way to look at it, in relation to the people, as you requested, is to look at democracy as the opposite of the following:
Monarchy Government by a single ruler (king/queen, emperor)
Aristocracy Government by noblemen (hereditary)
Oligarchy Government by few persons
Theocracy “Government by God” (in reality this means government by religious leaders)
Dictatorship Government by people, that have seized power by force (often: military dictatorship)
As you can see Eccles, democracy is the only one where the people are sovereign, and is the government. They(people) may appoint, or elect representatives to take care of business for them, but they (people) are the ones in charge.
**portions of the above adapted from Democracy.info
June 6th, 2011 at 10:11 pm
Sorry Eclub, I stopped reading your post at the beginning – I’ll read the rest later, but first please explain how I am a misogynist? What has gender got to do with any of this? For all I know she might be a man posting under a female pseudonym.
I have tried to be pleasant to her from day one but I’ve got nothing but shit in return. I shall not apologise unless it turns out she has some physiological or genetic reason for being so mindlessly nasty.
June 6th, 2011 at 11:09 pm
Graham Smith
Actually Graham it was not confusing its quite straight forward, there was no misunderstanding of any sort on the constitution or what others have said. Yes as a moderator that is your job but how about you do it, and say the same to others, and make sure you stick to the rules as well.
I sense you will block me anyway because I am a monarchist. Also no you got them wrong, just check the site and you will see that, also do the research I will help you actual here
““A 2002 poll showed that 70% believe Britain will be a republic within 50 years (Mori 2002)”. Completely wrong , only 33% believe Britain will be a republic within 50 years. As even with the don’t know section it only still adds up to 56% and even in a 100 years it does not add up to 70% so again wrong” – information comes from http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/poll.aspx?oItemId=1010
“That means that at least 10 million people would vote to abolish the monarchy” Factually wrong as you are basing this on a poll which I and many others cannot find. However if you said based on the most common per cent is… then this is more factual and honest. For example if you said based on the Ipsos polls since 1993 to 2011 republicans support various from 15-22% , with the most common % being 18-19 with 10 of the polls coming in at this, you are correct. You are also wrong saying at least 10 million people would vote to abolish the monarchy tomorrow as based on the latest poll and the population figures is slightly higher.” Comes from http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/122/MonarchyRoyal-Family-Trends-Monarchy-v-Republic-19932011.aspx?view=wide
June 6th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
http://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/122/MonarchyRoyal-Family-Trends-Monarchy-v-Republic-19932011.aspx?view=wide
“The majority of British voters (63%) believe our system of government needs improvement, with only 3% believing it works “extremely well” (Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust ‘State of the Nation Poll’ 2004).” This is a bit misleading and the figures are questionable, you should use the 2010 one, also this document does not even mention monarchy. It’s about parliament, and the people not the Queen and the royal family. Therefore it has no bearing on monarchy vs republics. – http://www.jrrt.org.uk/uploads/son-2010-summary-of-findings.pdf
I am sure you can find the rest for yourself which proves your facts where wrong!
I understand the principles of democracy, I know what they are, I know there are different types and a republic is just one form, it is not the best and nor is it the only one.
If you don’t want the facts you got wrong pointed out don’t ask. Also if you are going to tell me about the rules how about you be fair and say the same to others that have broken them.
June 6th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
Adam,
So, despite you claiming to do “academic writing” you admit that none of it has been published. Quelle surprise!
You also said “My qualifications are in history” and yet you are a third year undergraduate which currently makes you – on paper – at least as qualified as me in the subject with my sixth form Joint Matriculation Board knowledge of history, although it’s clear that neither of us are formally, principally and academically qualified experts on the current topic of constitutional matters.
Even if you are the man who invented history, patented it and sold it off by wallet-load to the rest of the world, your immense profile would not give you the clout to come onto these pages and insult people with ill-informed attitude and rudeness presented in such a cavalier manner without acknowledgement nor apology.
Should you wish to continue this game of one-upmanship put downs, I put it to you that http://www.republic.org.uk is not the place to do so. May I suggest that we adjourn appropriately to another part of the worldwide web to reconvene where you will no doubt continue to be reduced to a metaphorical pile of rubble.
In the meantime, best of luck with your post-degree employment opportunities which, hopefully for your sake, will not be limited to just writing scripts for the late Professor Stanley Unwin.
June 6th, 2011 at 11:15 pm
Phaedra
Well I am, most academics don’t say these are the facts because facts are pretty basic thing to get the hang of and understand. Here is one for you world one was from 1914-1918 and there period in between both the wars was all the interwar period lasting from 1918-1939. These are facts and most academics would think people would know that or know these are facts.
How are they unhistorical? , they are basic facts, when dealing with the laws of the land look at the context they are in not just what they do.
“The fact is the majority of the country wants a monarch. DEAL with it please.” – This is meaning full. Most of the countries do want this and trying to say otherwise is wrong, say the majority of the country needs to wake up etc is wrong.
. Yes I do believe that, when they chose to not when republicans try to persuade them to does it know. The country has not been manipulated in any shape of form; this sort of thing makes me laugh. Do you know what we are taught in schools know? To find the balance view to look at both sides of the argument, it’s how you form an essay etc. Therefore no one is manipulating anyone the facts are out there and we have access to them.
June 6th, 2011 at 11:16 pm
Broga
Yes I am at uni, well when I was posting it was on a Saturday and Sunday therefore I would not have any lecs. Also I am guessing you don’t know the academic year as most unis have finished know , well we are in the middle of doing exams etc and depending on your course you might not have any work to do. Also at uni you are only in lessons 4 times a week, you don’t have to spend long in the library and in most cases you don’t talk to a tutor unless really needed.
I am working on them and I am not going to explain to you what learning difficult I have. However this does not affect my grades or my IQ, well that might be the case on here but my essay etc say different seeming the grades I get are very high.
No chance of me failing I have never failed a piece of work in my life.
not the monarchist
Pointless comment, possible a bit like the writer!
June 6th, 2011 at 11:18 pm
jon brown
Yes, but at the time they were at war, if a Germany came over to this country then we would have said they where spies , the same thing would properly have happened in Russia.
Yes they had telegraph, but not everyone would have had a phone in 1914-18.
My point was that the Russia revolution had the use of phones and telegraph. My argument was not week, and personal attack may have not been needed but come on.
Asking a question like they didn’t have phones … so how can they organize a revolt, is stupid many revolts and rebellions have happened well before phones where made so that does not have an effect on how they were organized.
Guy Fawkes is not an excellent example as it was not a revolt/rebellion it was a plot to kill the monarch and other innocent people. Well done for accepting that N.K is a military dictatorship as that is different to this country or any in the west. Monarchs in Britain have never had private armies and yes they have had body guards a lot of people did. All that shows is the people wanted them, there has been many times when the monarch could have been over thrown but the people liked the monarch or the idea of it. History shows you that!
Riders where sent out, and have you not herd of town cries etc that passed the news, and like I said word by month normal did it. It was the people who could read and write that normal organized it.
June 6th, 2011 at 11:23 pm
Martin G- you don’t have to be published to have academic writing. No I have qualifications in history I have A level and GCSE. I am also not ill informed.
June 6th, 2011 at 11:23 pm
@Adam
‘…Yes I do believe that, when they chose to not when republicans try to persuade them to does it know….’
Well said! My sentiments exactly.
June 6th, 2011 at 11:25 pm
“It’s about parliament, and the people not the Queen and the royal family. Therefore it has no bearing on monarchy vs republics”. – Adam
Of course it has nothing to do with the monarch, because this time the news is negative, or there’s accountability required, yes shift the bad news to the people and parliament. It works all the time, anything glorious, power-wise, positive, give it to the monarch, anything otherwise give it to the commoners. What a genius system!
June 6th, 2011 at 11:28 pm
eclub1- what? I might have misunderstood you but , I was talking about a doucment look at the writing about what you have quoted
June 6th, 2011 at 11:55 pm
@Adam,
Ipsos employs over 9000 people, and is a major part of the Elite in Uk. Look at this:
“Ipsos MORI’s Social Research Institute works extensively for Government of the United Kingdom, looking at public attitudes to key public services, and so informing social policy. Issues such as identity, social cohesion, physical capital and the impact of place on attitudes are all key themes of the Institute’s work”.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipsos_MORI
So, Ipsos is a major government contractor.
I wouldn’t trust polls put together in a monarchy, because everything is class based; in order to rise to the level of doing work for the UK government, a group has to take an (secret) oath to protect the monarch, in my opinion, implicitly, or explicitly; let’s NOT kid ourselves here. BTW, in order for the monarchy to deceive you in the UK, you must look the other way, or be a willing fool. Don’t tell me you don’t know that 75% supporting the monarchy has got to be crazy. Common sense alone should tell you it’s not more than 20%. And I don’t care what anybody says about it. That is my take on the number that supports the monarchy. Anyone who argues contrary to this is simply wrong, or brainwashed. Yes, even Republic, and my fellow members here are sick a bit from brainwashing of the UK government, and the monarchy’s operatives.
June 7th, 2011 at 12:01 am
to-Adam
“I sense you will block me anyway because I am a monarchist.”.
Unless you were other than a monarchist for the duration of all your many, many previous postings, this assertion makes no sense.
June 7th, 2011 at 12:06 am
Sorry but what a load of crap. Just because its done in a country where there is a monach does not mean it is wrong. Actuall it is correct, many people I have talked to actuall like monarch and want it, we can see that because there is not a nation wide call for a republic. Also many people in the UK dont want a republic either, so it must mean based on your thoery that people dont care. Far more then 20% of people want a monach far more people want the Queen, then a republic. No one is brain washed at all if you belive that then you are the thick one.
They also do work for the public sector and other business all over the world.
Also wilki is not a vaild soucre to use as anyone can go on the site and change it.
June 7th, 2011 at 12:14 am
Also to join ipsos you dont take an oath or anything of the sort. How pathtic to even suggested it!
June 7th, 2011 at 12:18 am
Eclub, sorry to interrupt your conspiracy theories, but you made a pretty serious allegation against me – ie. that I was a misogynist. I think you at least owe me an explanation.
June 7th, 2011 at 12:34 am
“Also wilki is not a vaild soucre to use as anyone can go on the site and change it”. —Adam
I trust wiki more than I trust you, Adam.
If the information on wiki is wrong regarding Ipsos, then log in and correct it.
Besides, are you disputing that Ipsos is a major UK government/monarchy contractor? NO
Are you disputing that it employs over 9000 people, and therefore part of the elite that would protect stability there? NO
So, why thou protest so much?
June 7th, 2011 at 1:30 am
Ah, so Eclub is like Paul then? Makes baseless insults and accusations and then refuses to acknowledge them.
Pathetic.
June 7th, 2011 at 1:42 am
@Adam,
Another reason not to trust the establishment, such as BBC, Ipsos and so forth, check this out:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13669239
There, BBC ‘will not reveal cost of royal wedding coverage’. “The BBC has refused a request for details of the cost of its royal wedding coverage, according to a campaign group.
Republic’s request for information on the number of complaints the BBC received on the day was also refused.
The BBC said the information requested was not covered by the Freedom of Information Act and it was not obliged to release it.
The campaign group said it would appeal to the Information Commissioner”.
You can see this reported fully in Republic’s “In the News” page here: http://www.republic.org.uk/What%20we%20want/In%20the%20news/?command=fe_show_press_release&press_release_id=355&date__date__year=&date__date__month=&date__date__day=
Here, I will quote extensively from it:
BBC blocks publication of royal wedding costs
6th Jun 2011
The BBC has used a controversial exemption in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to block publication of the cost of its royal wedding coverage and the number of complaints it received on the day.
Campaign group Republic, which submitted the requests, is to appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to have the exemption overruled.
The BBC has been widely criticised for misjudging the level of interest in the royal wedding and was predicted to receive an unprecedented number of complaints about its non-stop, wall-to-wall coverage. It had also been attacked for allocating vast sums of resources to the event when other areas of the corporation’s output had fallen victim to funding cuts. Over a thousand staff were reportedly sent to cover the wedding, more than five times the number of commercial rival Sky.
Under the FOIA, the BBC can refuse to release information that relates to ‘journalism, art or literature’. Justifying the decision, the BBC’s Lynne Connoly said that the corporation needed ‘a private space in which to produce our content’.
Republic campaign manager Graham Smith said:
‘The only conclusion we can draw is that the BBC has something very embarrassing to hide. There is a very significant public interest in knowing how licence fee-payers’ money is spent, particularly when it comes to highly controversial issues such as the monarchy.’
Republic campaign manager Graham Smith said:
‘The only conclusion we can draw is that the BBC has something very embarrassing to hide. There is a very significant public interest in knowing how licence fee-payers’ money is spent, particularly when it comes to highly controversial issues such as the monarchy.’
‘An exemption introduced to protect the independence of the BBC was not intended to shield the corporation from legitimate scrutiny. The BBC must be seen to be impartial and must be seen to be making appropriate decisions based on viewer feedback. If tens of millions of pounds of licence fee payers’ money was spent on the wedding, if thousands of viewers lodged complaints about the BBC’s coverage, clearly the licence fee payer has the right to know.’
‘Throughout its royal wedding coverage the BBC let itself be co-opted into the Palace PR machine. It’s time for the BBC to come clean, admit its mistake and move toward more objective and proportionate coverage of royal events.’ ”
Then again, because there’s no separation of powers in the UK, appealing to the commissioner is appealing to one and the same bosses of the BBC. The two have a common boss, the monarch.
So, it’s naive to expect a different result. The fix is in.
June 7th, 2011 at 5:58 am
Adam,
We’ve drifted off topic and we’re mired in the
dreary world of challenging opinion polls. Perhaps
if we conceded the fact that we republicans are still in a minority in Britain then we could move on to real debate.
Without doubt, however, republicanism has grown four or five-fold over the past thirty years. We’ve grown from being a tiny minority to being a significant minority. Furthermore, the fact that monarchists seem to feel that merely stating the fact they they are still in a majority is the same thing as arguing positively for the monarchy, means that republican arguments meet little resistance when fairly stated to open minded people.
Republicanism, at its present rate of growth, looks pretty unstoppable to me. It’s “when” not “if”.
One rhetorical note Adam – in debate (academic or otherwise) it’s not the done thing to continually brandish qualifications and credentials. Arguments have to make their own point. By continually asserting your academic qualifications, you’re coming across as somewhat pompous and whatever argument you’re trying to make gets obscured.
June 7th, 2011 at 6:27 am
adam
if planning to blow up parliamanr and kill the king (guy fawkes)then what is?
Of course there were uprisings before the invention of telephone, the point I make is that it was much more difficult. A town cryer shouting out for people to gather and revolt might just have had his liberty curtailed. Snooping on e mails and tapping phones might be the modern way of spying but spies existed then as now. Many kings have had private armies. The absence of a revolt to overthow anyone doesnt automatically mean that the person or institution is popular, it may be that would be assassins or revolutionaries didnt have the means to carry out their ideas.
June 7th, 2011 at 6:28 am
adam
sorry first sentence should read if ploting to blow up parliament and kill the king is not revolutionary then it begs the question what is.
June 7th, 2011 at 7:33 am
I’m not sure why there is animosity toward Eccless but can it please stop, we encourage polite and respectful debate here.
Please refer to the revised moderation rules and guidelines.
Eccles made a perfectly valid point that the influence of the media is not as significant as is often assumed. Eclub, “democracy, since time immemorial, is defined as government of the people, by the people, and for the people” is not really correct. That is a quote from a speech made around 150 years ago. Democracy has been defined in various ways for more than 2000 years.
To answer Eccles on this point, it’s not mob rule, but it’s also not rule by elected elites. Democracy is founded on the idea of equality, if not then it has no meaning or value. As such it must mean the right for all citizens to govern themselves as much as is practical and to have an equal stake in governing society through accountable institutions. But mob rule is not democratic because a mob can be as tyrannical as an individual.
June 7th, 2011 at 7:58 am
Eccles. I have not ignored your last. I posted a more comprehensive reply to you. I don’t agree with much of what you say. In light of Graham Smith’s request I have cancelled it in order to keep the peace.
I am less impressed by your seemingly pro-monarchy stance than he seems to be. I cannot see how anybody here thinks that the influence of the media is not as significant as some assume. I took exception to you busily telling everyone that to hold this view is insulting the people of this country.
I think that you are here to derail and disrupt by continually arguing polemically with republicans and complaining about attitudes and personalities. Graham clearly doesn’t and he is the moderator. If I am wrong I apologise unreservedly. There is robust debate here and so there should be. Shrinking violets are not going to oust the monarchy and some people will be insulted or regard themselves as victims. This is my last word on the subject.
June 7th, 2011 at 8:03 am
To eclub1. Thanks eclub, but in the interests of harmony and objectivity here I am drawing a line under this exchange. I agree with you however.
June 7th, 2011 at 8:49 am
Adam
“you don’t have to be published to have academic writing. No I have qualifications in history I have A level and GCSE. I am also not ill informed.”
Possessing A level history (as no doubt many of the contributors on here and elsewhere have) does not really make you an academic in history let alone an authority on constitutional issues.
Nor does your claim to have produced “academic writing” (but not had it published) make you some kind of font of knowledge any more than me saying that I am an maestro classical pianist but haven’t played any concerts yet.
FACT!
Now, please, can you remain on topic with salient points made in a polite (but firm, as you wish) manner.
June 7th, 2011 at 9:44 am
to-Phaedra
“I cannot see how anybody here thinks that the influence of the media is not as significant as some assume.”
I would say the importance of the media, especially TV, cannot be exaggerated in modern society. Britain is not a cafe society it is a stay-at-home-in-front-of-the-fire-society and in an era when people decreasingly read books & journals, attend public lectures, meet in social-clubs, churches, pubs, friends’ homes to exchange ideas & info, TV emerges as people’s sole source of news & views. Channel 4′s ‘Big Brother’ series testifies as to how far TV can manipulate people into watching absolutely anything, no matter how absurd, if you invest enough time & effort into making people feel excluded if they miss out. Nowadays it is ‘queer’ to disagree with TV’s version of conventional wisdom. Sitting with your friends/family and owning that you don’t agree with the BBC, is, today, like admitting to being homosexual, in the same setting, in the 1950s. Why would you do that? Why can’t you just be like everyone else? The convergence of interest between the media & monarchy is profound. It isn’t simply that royals make ‘good copy’, though, of course they do, but more importantly they have a shared agenda of social control.
June 7th, 2011 at 10:19 am
“TV emerges as people’s sole source of news & views. Channel 4′s ‘Big Brother’ series testifies as to how far TV can manipulate people into watching absolutely anything, no matter how absurd.” Paul Roberts.
I agree totally with this view. And your point about agendas of social control is what I had been commenting on. Who on earth could fail to see the massive propaganda exercise prior to and including the recent Windsor wedding? The mainstream media presented a one-sided spectacular, designed to internalise the whole affair as desirable, essential viewing – an account in which most dissenting views were airbrushed. The utter complicity with the Palace machine can be measured in the BBC’s refusal to show how much public money it spent on coverage.
By articulating this view, one of my fellow republicans has announced that this is ‘…unsupported, unfair and extremely insulting’ to fellow countrymen, the implication being that they do not necessarily follow the instructions set by the media.
The more subtle point is as you say – the unqualified acceptance of the daily soundbites and imagery has been internalised as a routine method of understanding – a normative way of absorbing ‘accurate and truthful’ information. Murdoch’s dumbed-down press can also be seen as a corporate symbiosis, between those with massive financial interest in creating their own reality.
I believe that dissenting voices in this country are many; so where can their accounts be read and their voices heard? Not the mainstream media for a start. In terms of any republican campaign, reaching the masses who have been brought up on a post-war diet of authoritarianism and who have passed notions of subservient acceptance to the generations they have influenced – supported by a media overwhelmingly controlled by the self-interested – is an ongoing drive towards greater awareness.
June 7th, 2011 at 10:20 am
@Paul
‘..Britain is not a cafe society it is a stay-at-home-in-front-of-the-fire-society and in an era when people decreasingly read books & journals, attend public lectures, meet in social-clubs, churches, pubs, friends’ homes to exchange ideas & info, TV emerges as people’s sole source of news & views…’
I’m dunno about that. I recall some commentator saying that what was notable after the Columbine massacre was that young people didn’t go to TV to get their information, but went to the net, and that this indicated a generational change. Whereas my age group would have gone to TV, and the one prior to that newspapers
‘…Nowadays it is ‘queer’ to disagree with TV’s version of conventional wisdom. Sitting with your friends/family and owning that you don’t agree with the BBC, is, today, like admitting to being homosexual, in the same setting, in the 1950s. Why would you do that? Why can’t you just be like everyone else….?’
I think cynicism about the BBC is part of the cultural wallpaper now-perhaps so much so that you don’t notice it. I think the Sachsgate affair demonstrates this, and wasn’t there that recent survey (which I’m damned if I can find) which found most people view it as a propaganda tool of the left? Hardly unblinking acquiescence.
‘…The convergence of interest between the media & monarchy is profound. It isn’t simply that royals make ‘good copy’, though, of course they do, but more importantly they have a shared agenda of social control..’
I think there’s a plurality of views-see Channel 4 news, which reports royal news stories in an endearingly flat, bland manner. Though I admit, I’m struggling to think of other media that is balanced. Of course, I agree the BBC can’t help itself and is so transparently pro monarchy it’s laughable.
June 7th, 2011 at 10:29 am
To Paul – last bit cut off. Many are NOT slavishly in thrall to a biased media, but mass subliminal manipulation is, in my view very evident.
These illusions of reality are partly responsible for many things; exploitation, poverty, inequality, mindless consumerism, an extreme gap between rich and poor, bizarre notions of worth, militaristic hubris – and constructed devotion to the Windsor family being just some of them.
June 7th, 2011 at 11:42 am
to-TLA
In these brief texts one must comment in simple geometric shapes and I do accept that there are kinks & bends within the details of my understanding. My remark stems from my experience over the last fifteen years of being the only person, in a group, who would ever criticise the BBC, though in the last few years others will now concur- these are more likely to be the young or more educated. And you’re right about the possibilities offered by the WWW, whose potential for change, we are exploring right now. Do you remember from the late 1990s how vigorously opposed was the BBC to the WWW and how it campaigned to have it banned? Well, that’s another story.
June 7th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
to Adam.
“Sorry but what a load of crap. Just because its done in a country where there is a monach does not mean it is wrong. Actuall it is correct, many people I have talked to actuall like monarch and want it….”
This, Adam, is the start of one of your efforts. In writing like this you embarrass yourself. The pity is that you appear oblivious of the spectacle you insist in making of yourself.
June 7th, 2011 at 12:50 pm
@Paul
Yeah, disliking the BBC was a fringe thing until recently, I agree. Though my brother has loathed it since his natal hour and he’s 50 +.
I’m a tad suspicious about claims of social control being exercised through the media. And the dominant ideology thesis all together. For instance, the depiction of businessmen in the media is overwhelmingly negative. The plot lines of Eastenders seem to be dramatic elaborations of liberal truisms. The Anti Chomsky reader picks apart the social control idea quite fascinatingly.
BTW I was wrong, it wasn’t after the Columbine massacre, it was the Virginia Tech massacre of 2007 that the aforesaid claim about generational change was made. Funnily enough, I corrected myself by going to wiki, which has a section on ‘Notable school shootings’, which seems to imply there are pedestrian and unimaginative school shootings.
But point taken.
June 7th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
to-TLA
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not suggesting the BBC is a plain & simple right wing power player. Modern media has its own agenda which transcends the traditional right/left wing parameters of traditional ‘street’ politics, picking from either side as suits the moment. The BBC trumpets many of the axioms of trendy, wine-bar, upper-middle class liberalism and I can quite see how a traditional tory could feel alienated at having this bohemian ‘coolness’ rammed down his throat. The BBC’s strange inter-weaving of left and right wing ideas is well illustrated re N.Ireland where it is firmly on the unionist side in wanting to retain N.Ireland as part of its captive, fee-paying audience, and to encourage acceptance of this it calls for a fairer, non-sectarian non-discriminatory society, to which no one can object. You can call it right wing ends through left wing means.
June 7th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
“These illusions of reality are partly responsible for many things; exploitation, poverty, inequality, mindless consumerism, an extreme gap between rich and poor, bizarre notions of worth, militaristic hubris – and constructed devotion to the Windsor family being just some of them.”
Another very well written paragraph which I can’t help but praise.
Anyway, yes I concur, the media is responsible for promoting various illusions of reality, which if we really thought about them, and it seems most people don’t, we would take umbrage with. The divides between rich and poor, and the seemingly blithe indifference to (sometimes extreme) poverty in the UK, is part of this manufactured ‘reality’, ideology in fact which serves the power and wealth elites, and leaves everyone else as either a powerless observer grateful for their lowly place, or as angry outsider, jealous of the very people the media, and it seems society as whole, lionises as the zenith of all that is great about Britain and British society.
Incidentally, I read the other day, in the Daily Mirror, that child poverty in Britain is rated 18th out of 22 countries in Europe. This makes me very angry, as there should be no poverty in a country as wealthy as the UK. So, while some people are living in their fluffy royal fantasy-world, populated by people who will never know a moments real discomfort, other people are growing up in some cases seriously disadvantaged circumstances; is there a correlation between the very poor and the seriously rich?
While there seems a never ending supply of money and endless good will for one family, there seems no end of hatred and indifference to thousands of other families; isn’t it time we challenged this, for a fairer Britain? Or am I being too naive?
June 7th, 2011 at 4:07 pm
Much as I do not want to give succour to Adam, I disagree that Parliament has supremacy. I think that the will of Parliament is supreme subject to the Sovereign. Removing the Monarch would require an Act of Parliament which would need the Royal Assent to become law. The Queen would be constitutionally entitled to refuse the Royal Assent and prevent her removal.
Given that it was 1708 when the Royal Assent was last refused and that the Queen has reportedly said that when the time comes, they (the Windsors) will go quietly, I’d guess that she wouldn’t try to defy Parliament, even in those circumstances. But theoretically, she could dismiss Parliament and as Head of the Armed Forces, order the Army to arrest Republicans.
In practice though, Parliament is supreme. As a student of history, Adam will know there was no election in 1940, because the 1935 parliament decided to extend its life by 5 years. Parliament could pass an Act of Attainder against Adam and have him gruesomely executed as it has done with others in the past. The European Convention on Human Rights would be a problem, but Parliament could just withdraw from that.
All this just goes to show that it is time that this country grew up and had a proper written constitution with effective checks and balances on the Government, instead of the power to restrain it resting with unelected peers and a hereditary monarch.
June 7th, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Royboy – yes, but parliament always has the last word. For a start the monarch doesn’t personally give royal assent and hasn’t done so for a long time, so parliament would have no trouble passing a law to abolish the monarcy. Secondly the law says parliament must sit at least one day a year, the monarch cannot repeal law and so even if she disolved parliament the moment it was reconvened the first order of busines would be to remove the monarch or disolve the monarchy.
Parliament is supreme save for the nuclear option the Queen has of dissolving parliament. But parliament has the last word and can remove the monarch and abolish the monarchy (whereas the monarch could not abolish the parliament).
Parliament also controls the Treasury and is required to pass budgets, so without it the monarch would quickly find her ability to pay ‘her’ soldiers to be strictly limited.
However, the key point here is that the monarch is monarch with the implied consent of parliament and the Crown is ‘in’ parliament and controlled by it. Which leads back to the original point in the post.
June 7th, 2011 at 4:19 pm
Graham, it just occurred to me, although I think I have thought on it before, would it be a good idea for some of the brighter and more astute republicans on this site to come together and write a provisional written constitution, a sort of pre-constitution if you will, that could point the way to a real constitution in the future? Just a thought anyway. There’s so many talented writers on here.
June 7th, 2011 at 4:47 pm
To T Hughes. The naivity is certainly not yours T, although not all on this particular forum agree that the mainstream media has an agenda.
For me it is not so much agreed-upon duplicity as unspoken, high-level, mutual nurturing. This exists within a definite schema, the lies and dissimulation being geared to support corporate vested interests on a global scale, to the detriment of social welfare. Some major decisions are made, not in the interests of everybody, but against a balance sheet. For example the funding of pointless wars, with all the western business opportunities they create for the already-rich, and replacing nuclear weapons, is put well before the civilian populations in the countries we invade and mutilate and whose infrastructures we destroy. Our own education system and caring for the disadvantaged suffers because these are the areas in which we are expected to pay for it all. There is little doubt that the stealthy class-system, operating within certain sections of public schools and universities, and the secret long-term camaraderie it engenders plays a significant role in these things.
The club of massive wealth is able to dictate the social menu is every case. All we are expected to do is consume within the fairly narrow band in which we can manouevre themselves. This we are told (George Osborne yesterday BBC Radio 4) will remedy the banking crisis we paid for. The part the mainstream media plays is to re-inforce our own view of ourselves as highly fortunate, which most of us certainly are, in comparison with the sort of dictator-led cultures the West exploits.
This state of affairs will continue in this constructed reality, with the Windsors on the top of the heap within the ruthless ‘big business and war executive’ – a situation the media relentlessly portrays as normal. All three major parties are bought out in my view.
June 7th, 2011 at 6:00 pm
Doh!….”The club of massive wealth is able to dictate the social menu IN every case. All we are expected to do is consume within the fairly narrow band in which we can manouevre OURselves”
June 7th, 2011 at 6:52 pm
“Royboy – yes, but parliament always has the last word. For a start the monarch doesn’t personally give royal assent and hasn’t done so for a long time, so parliament would have no trouble passing a law to abolish the monarcy. Secondly the law says parliament must sit at least one day a year, the monarch cannot repeal law and so even if she disolved parliament the moment it was reconvened the first order of busines would be to remove the monarch or disolve the monarchy”. —Graham
Three points I’d like to make:
1. Parliament being “supreme” is not a good thing. Parliament having the last word is not a good thing. I have postulated time and time again that, parliament is no friend of the people. The monarchy is able to frustrate everything that this campaign is trying to accomplish by the use of parliament to appear democratic. But there’s no daylight between parliament and the monarch. The parliament is simply a willing tool of the monarchy. I notice Graham, you extol the supremacy of parliament with glee, and it is not good. The only thing that guarantees the people’s rights, and protects it, is the law and especially a written constitution. Everything else, including parliament is malleable when it comes to the monarch.
2. The monarch is 1000% more powerful than you give it credit for. Read the ‘constitution’ and the laws of the UK, everything it says about the monarch is for real, and not a ceremonial thing, as you seem to think. The monarch is simply playing possum with her powers. She utilizes every single one of those powers and privileges. And we both know there’s nothing the law didn’t give the monarch authority over, including the laws passed by congress. Recently, someone accused the monarchy of complicity of murder, I don’t know if it’s true or not, but the privilege given the monarch in this respect held, and in the eye of poor grieving the accuser, the monarch literally got away with murder. This incident requires ‘empathy’ to feel the uselessness of an individual against the monarch, the individual is like an ant compared to the mighty king or queen, and that is unacceptable. There should be a written constitution to guarantee equality before the law for everyone.
3. The house of commons is a part of the monarchy. This is a crucial point. If they are reading this, I just want them to know their trick is clever, at least it didn’t fool everyone. They hold no hearings to find out anything to protect the people against the huge juggernaut called monarch. They prostrate in front of the monarch. They are NOT for the people. Graham, I have witnessed you seek up to a dozen things, in an action to expose the monarchy, and you have NOT won one, yet you do not condemn the house of commons?
June 7th, 2011 at 7:05 pm
-continued-
To: Graham,
4. Parliament may control the purse, or treasury, but they do so only for the Queen’s heart and desires. The monarchy can command them to do anything, or pay for anything, and she often does, and they oblige and “obey”. The relationship between the monarch and every single entity, including the citizens, and parliament, is a military one. The monarch can command everyone, and often does. The monarch, unlike in a free republic, is the commander of the people. In a republic, the head of state is merely the commander of the armed forces. This is a significant difference.
Graham, you should adjust your standard when it comes to judging the monarch, and the criteria you should use is thus: IF THE MONARCH DOES IT, IS IT LEGAL? If the answer is yes, you have to tick that one in her column, don’t wait till she deploys that power, she will eventually.
5. Graham, as much publicity as you’ve gotten around town, the house of commons have never invited you to testify in front of any committee to determine what your grievances are, or what it is that you seek. That is damning on them.
June 7th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
Adam, just a quick question. Do you really believe that 100% of everything you’ve written so far is 100% correct?
It just seems that you are so conviced you are absolutely right and everyone else who challenges your points is very wrong. Especially with your calling people stupid, pathetic, acting like a five year old, etc.
June 7th, 2011 at 8:39 pm
eclub
I have never said that parliamentary supremacy is a good thing, in fact we have repeatedly said it is a bad thing and that soveriegnty should be with the people.
No, the monarch herself is not 1000% more powerful than I suggest.
No, the Commons does not act on the direction of the monarchy.
The problem with your conspiracy-theory-esque ideas is that it detracts from the real seriousness of what we’re dealing with. The problem is the undemocratic nature of the constitution that gives inordinate power to the PM and his government. The monarch and the monarchy are indeed a problem, but to suggest the Queen herself is directing the exercise of executive or legislative power is baseless.
June 7th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
Graham Smith:
“No, the Commons does not act on the direction of the monarchy.”
So tell me, Graham, how did the total exemption from FOI came about, then?
June 7th, 2011 at 9:12 pm
Richard, the palace of course lobbies the government, but that’s quite a different thing to saying the government and parliament simply does what the palace wants. On the FOI issue the government no doubt calculated that it was also in their interests as too much freedom of information would also be embarassing to them.
June 7th, 2011 at 9:16 pm
Here’s how I see it…
Parliament has effectively been sovereign ever since the end of the seventeenth century. Ever since William and Mary, successive monarchs have seen their remaining prerogatives steadily eroded. Whenever a monarch has actually gone head to head with a parliamentary majority – that monarch has had to back down.
The monarchy has exactly as much power and influence as politicians allow it to have.
So why hasn’t parliament not assumed full legal and constitutional sovereignty by abolishing the monarchy altogether? I believe the answer is (as Graham has argued elsewhere), that successive governments have found “the crown” to be a useful political device in order to evade the full consequences of popular sovereignty.
In other words, powerful vested political interests prefer conceding limited privileges to royalty to conceding full sovereignty to the British people.
June 7th, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Graham Smith:
“Richard, the palace of course lobbies the government, but that’s quite a different thing to saying the government and parliament simply does what the palace wants”
I have to say that it seems to me to be a very fine distinction, especially given the sycophantic nature of so many MP’s.
“On the FOI issue the government no doubt calculated that it was also in their interests as too much freedom of information would also be embarassing to them.”
Yes, that’s the key, isn’t it? How to make it SEEM that we have a working FOI act, when in reality it’s more like a Freedom From Giving any Information Act…..
June 7th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
“The problem with your conspiracy-theory-esque ideas is that it detracts from the real seriousness of what we’re dealing with. The problem is the undemocratic nature of the constitution that gives inordinate power to the PM and his government. The monarch and the monarchy are indeed a problem, but to suggest the Queen herself is directing the exercise of executive or legislative power is baseless”. —Graham
As the campaign manager, I will avoid open combat with you, plus I want you to spend your time pushing the campaign, but bear in mind that I do not just have semantic disagreement with you on the above issues. I told you before that ‘conspiracy theories’ have acquired a nefarious jacket, often painted that way by establishment and media, but for you, a campaigner for change, you must avoid knocking conspiracy theories; they are often right.
You have to choose whether you are for status quo, or change, Graham. This campaign is not going to achieve anything with bland, cosmetic changes, and talk. We have to tell it like it is. (I appreciate and respect you, but maintain your own charisma, and let me maintain mine. I like my ways better than yours. So, you know. I want you to be you, and let me be me. If any monarchist, such as Eccles, or Simon is disrupting this debate, you may want to be a gentleman and harbor them, but don’t do it on our behalf. That’s just an example. I can tell you that the way you have been judging arguments and fights between monarchists and republicans, is unacceptable. If monarchists come here to cause trouble, there’s nothing a republican can say to them that is faulty, or wrong.)
June 8th, 2011 at 12:03 am
Ah, I think Mr Brunstrom has put it pretty perfectly.
“The monarchy has exactly as much power and influence as politicians allow it to have.”
I think his point that politicians maintain the monarchy as it is a “useful political device in order to evade the full consequences of popular sovereignty” is very interesting and likely true. But I think the main reason is that abolishing the monarchy or appearing to be against the queen would be a huge vote loser. One of the biggest problems with any democracy is the fact that politicians end up being incentivised to do what is popular rather than what is right.
But then the alternative is pretty much elitism which also has some pretty big problems! (haha!)
As far as conspiracy theories go – and by conspiracy theories I mean utterly mental conspiracy theories of the tin foil hat brigade – I completely agree with Graham that all it does is make Republicans look like lunatics.
Any supporters we gain from it will be negligable (and likely unhinged!) and we are likely to lose a huge deal of credibility.
I’d also use the same line of argument to say that we should try not to look like bitter arseholes either (pardon my french). We should remember that this is a public forum and that anyone can come here to read what is said. If prospective members or people who are undecided about the monarchy come along and just see an endless torrent of personal attacks against monarchists they are likely to be turned off, yes? Its a very British thing to side with the underdog methinks.
To this end (and from a moral stand point), I think we should distance ourselves from comments like
“If monarchists come here to cause trouble, there’s nothing a republican can say to them that is faulty, or wrong.”
PS.
Thank you Graham.
June 8th, 2011 at 12:16 am
@Eccles,
There was once a conspiracy theory, a tin foil kind, that the USA operated some radar evading, no noise helicopters; the proponents of these conspiracy theories were often laughed out of the room. For many years. Until the mission to kill Bin Laden, and one of the helicopters left behind revealed what: a radar evading, no noise helicopter!
What did the conspiracy theorists get as a reward? Not even a “I told you so!”
I’m not much into theories of any kind. I am a scientist: I deal in what is true or false, not necessarily in what is good or bad, or wrong or right; and my posts reflect as much. I was just defending the rights of conspiracy theorists to do their thing. Any campaigner for change worth his salt, will hardly beat up on conspiracy theorists as I’ve stated. Those who are against your antagonists, are for you.
**On a side note, Eccles, I know you’ve been beaming since Graham granted you some favorable actions and comments, but don’t overplay your hands. Stick with the debate and issues. Respect the forum, and the regular posters. We are not going to fight each other if that’s your goal. If you don’t heed this advice, trust me, you will be removed from this blog.
June 8th, 2011 at 12:37 am
Eclub, I will continue to respect the forum and most of its members but I will not respect you until you either satisfactorily explain or apologise for calling me a misogynist.
I have no wish to fight you (or anyone else for that matter) and I also have no interest in filling these forums with offtopic flames. So to that end I’ll give you this chance to settle things amicably. If you decline to take it I’ll do my best to ignore your posts and hope that you do likewise.
Hope that sounds fair to you.
June 8th, 2011 at 1:19 am
@sclub
‘…If you don’t heed this advice, trust me, you will be removed from this blog….’
There you go with the banning talk again. Lawks a mercy! Do you get a sexual thrill out of it or something?
Anyroad up, the use & development of so-called ‘stealth’ aircraft goes back to the cold war; I don’t think it actually constitutes a conspiracy theory–it’s more an open secret. As a kid I recall reading about the Lockheed Blackbird and it’s ability to evade radar detection. I think it was well known that the Pentagon cancelled development of a stealth helicopter in 2004-ish.
I don’t think stealth aircraft really compare to stuff about the royal family being reptiles, or Paul McCartney being replaced by a double (shame he wasn’t, really).
And why not ‘beat up on conspiracy theorists’ if what they come out with is racist twaddle (see The Protocol of the Elders of Zion)?
No offence our kid..
June 8th, 2011 at 1:31 am
Lard,
Very funny stuff..
Mention a gravel, and you’d turn it into sex.
Anyways, you came to this board after we brought it to order. A few years ago, all I saw here was Republic being a whooping boy for uber-monarchists, Simon inclusive. They called republicans all kinds of names, and asked all of us to move to France. So, we decided not to be weaklings, or turn the other cheek. We decided to boot any rowdy, unpatriotic poster from the blog, and it worked. Without it, our FAQ would have been dominated by questions such as “What do we say when they tell us to move to France?”.
So, even tho these ‘friends’ of yours (Simon) etc, he is not playing around, he is absolutely looking forward to the arrest of these campaign members by the police.
…
..
.
.
.
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@Eccles,
I choose the latter. Thank you.
June 8th, 2011 at 7:33 am
eclub, my point about conspriacy theories is that if you start inventing problems that don’t exist (such as ‘the monarchy is everything and the politicians act on the monarch’s instruction’) then you undermine the very real and very serious issues that Britain faces in terms of its democratic deficit.
The moderation policy is enforced in the interests of Republic. As has been pointed out above, this is a public forum and it is read by many more people than those who contribute to the debate. To be blunt your hyperbolic comments about the almighty power of the monarch are more problematic to us that anything Eccles has said.
Eccles, yes there is truth in that. However, I think it’s always important to distinguish between the power of the monarch and the power of the Crown. The monarch has little direct or formal power, although she can of course wield influence particularly in defence of her own interests. But the Crown offers enormous power to the politicians. In this country the PM sets the agenda and the PM gets the most benefits from the Crown, so vote loser or not there’s a big obstacle right there.
June 8th, 2011 at 7:56 am
I agree Graham,
I would never suggest that the monarch can’t (and doesn’t) wield influence, inappropriate and disproportionate influence…
The point is, that politicians are prepared to put up with the limited if baleful influence of the monarchy because they imagine it less demanding than being fully accountable to the people.
June 8th, 2011 at 8:13 am
Graham,
I continue to remain persuadable on the distinction you try to make of the crown, and the monarch. I have not bought in to that yet.
I deny uttering any hyperbole in re: the monarchy, that is certainly a daunting task to accomplish!
I don’t mean to cause your campaign any troubles, I frequently state the reasonable disclaimer that I speak for myself, and that I am not a member of Republic; and you affirmed that the blog is not the campaign a couple of weeks ago.
Your Eccles has made a couple of positive contributions since his ego was massaged earlier today. So I guess you do know what you are doing.
I will accept the poor grades you gave my own contributions, and try harder to do better.
I’m sure you know I have a strong jaw to absolve your blows, treating me like a stepchild. (I mean no offence to the steps
)
June 8th, 2011 at 8:30 am
“eclub, my point about conspriacy theories is that if you start inventing problems that don’t exist (such as ‘the monarchy is everything and the politicians act on the monarch’s instruction’) then you undermine the very real and very serious issues that Britain faces in terms of its democratic deficit”. —Graham
@Graham,
There are two things about the above quote: You can argue that the monarch is not sovereign for real, that the monarch has little usable power, and you may turn out to be right, but you certainly cannot argue that this view is one held by monarchists, or the vast members of the public. If that is your appraisal, I will like to see proof of that. Now, if the the majority of the people hold the view I espouse, which is that the monarch is omnipotent, then how exactly am I an embarrassment to your campaign? On this issue, I maybe with the majority. Hence my insistence that the monarchy be abolished because the monarch has too much unaccountable power; whereas you are arguing that the monarchy be abolished because the monarch has NO, or little power?
I am not lost in the next logical construct, which is that the elected representatives are usurping the power of the crown. This is a very weak argument, because, if the elected HoC are usurping the power of the monarch, it passes the democratic smell test, because they are elected, it may not be a good thing, but it is not evil, or warrant a major change in the polity, as far as many are concerned.
June 8th, 2011 at 8:37 am
eclub
Most people don’t care much about the monarchy because they see it as powerless and harmless. Quite why you think most people believe the monarch is omnipotent is beyond me, but there is no evidence of that.
We want it abolished because it does not serve the interests of the people, it is offensive to democratic principles, it grants too much power to the politicians and it is an obstacle to serious democratic reform. Also the institution itself, our head of state and all who surround her, is unaccountable and secretive. That clearly causes problems in a democratic system.
All of those are serious matters that we need to address. None of that suggests the monarch or monarchy are omnipotent.
June 8th, 2011 at 8:41 am
“Its a very British thing to side with the underdog methinks.” Eccles.
The public side with underdogs, because it is a British thing.
Monarchists are underdogs.
Republican attacks on them must be avoided, otherwise the public, who all think that monarchists are underdogs, will side with monarchists and will not join Republic.
Republicans are not underdogs.
So monarchists can attack them on a public forum.
Republicans must present themselves as underdogs in order for the public to side with them.
June 8th, 2011 at 8:56 am
“Also the institution itself, our head of state and all who surround her, is unaccountable and secretive. That clearly causes problems in a democratic system”. —Graham
I think I’ve identified where our disagreement stems!
The way I count the monarchy, and the monarchical support, includes the privy council, all that surround the monarch, and pretty much every head of every institution. I count the military industrial complex, the media, in short, the establishment. I didn’t mean to imply that the monarch doesn’t rule by proxy — she does.
As a matter of fact, I count the prime minister, because the prime minister meets secretly every week with the monarch. Graham, I take the law and the paperwork of UK at face value, when it comes to the monarch. The monarch is called ‘Sovereign’, and from what I see, castles, rolls royces, millions of pounds, privileges, free from freedom of information, granting of powerful positions to heirs, pinning medals on many, refusal to admonish erring princes –and thus they doing wrong with impunity, receiving heads of state as the head of state, I don’t know what to mention and leave out the other, I therefore say the monarch is omnipotent. Sure she does a lot by proxy, but it’s still her prerogative. And we are talking for many decades.
But, I will let that be the last word if you like. I remain unconvinced, however. I know ‘constitutional experts’ see it differently, but they may have this one wrong.
Graham, it is no virtue for the monarch to have these powers.
I believe if you listen carefully to the monarchists on this blog, they do have a dual appraisal of the monarch: they do believe that she is above politics, and can intervene in a crisis to protect the country, hence powerful, and probably inerrant; yet, they do suggest, without crisis, she is simply ceremonial. I disagree with them.
June 8th, 2011 at 9:05 am
Eclub,
What a pathetic comment, if you trust wiki then you trust the site of Ipsos as , wiki doesn’t even suggest that the polls are wrong, that your stupid interpretation. I am not disputing that fact, that one of their major contractors is parliament not the monarch. But this does not mean they are not correct or reliable. How’s employing 9000 people making it part of the elite? You do not know who works for them, how much they earn and what these people are like and where from society they come from, therefore how are they elite?
What is your point about the BBC? They kept to the law; they did not have to disclose any information.
I think more people will be interested in the cost of the actual wedding rather then, what it cost to cover it. We pay a TV lenience and in my life time we always have, we pay for everything on the BBC so it comes without saying that we would pay for the coverage of the Royal Wedding.
Separation of power and what do you think this should be? And why do you think we ,don’t have it? As technically we do.
cbrunstrom
We are not drifting of topic, as the polls we are referring to are about monarchy.
“four or five-fold over the past thirty years”- I don’t agree here, I believe republicans has grown but, I always have believed there had been levels of it around, since the French rev. You can see that in the poll that republicanism is steady at 15% , monarchy at 70% while the 15% that are left flicker between these two sides and not caring or don’t know what to chose. This is the issue we all need to address as this is 15% that flicker as it were will get bigger. This can be seen, with the generation slightly above mine , mine and the one below, many like monarch , some like republicanism but many more don’t care or don’t know. This is what both sides need to address first.
I am not sure whether it is “When” or “If” as times change and people’s views change it is very hard to say what…
June 8th, 2011 at 9:09 am
“Most people don’t care much about the monarchy because they see it as powerless and harmless.” Graham.
Which is, of course, far from the case. These protected people exercise considerable power and are socially and politically toxic.
However don’t forget Eccles’s point that he thinks the implication that our fellow countrymen follow the direction of the media is unsupported, unfair and extremely insulting. He has a great deal more faith in his fellow Briton. They may not be so easily duped. Wherever did they glean the opinion from, that the monarchy is powerless and harmless?
June 8th, 2011 at 9:10 am
In theory the Queen and the Crown have absolutely immense power, but in practice should the Queen ever exercise that power it would undermine her position and harm the monarchy. That is part of the beauty of monarchy, you give an individual huge power but they would not use it except in the most severe constitutionally crisis (nothing seen for centuries). Where as a politician often has limited powers but tends to want to gain more and abuse the ones he has. So for example people are not happy with Obama because he has yet to get approval from congress for the war in Libya, hes exploiting a loophole, unlike our system where the PM could take us to war without parliament… but didnt.
Republic say having a constitutional monarchy means that our executive prime minister is able to use huge powers in the Crowns name and that this is a bad thing for democracy. It may certainly be true that the executive has too much power, but that is down to our sovereign parliament not the monarchy.
One of the main reasons the PM has too much power is because we have no codified written constitution which clearly lays out the powers and limits on each part of the British constitutional system. But you see there is no reason for us to abolish the monarchy for us to change that, a written constitution is possible which does lay down the rules including the limits on the monarchs power if that is what people want.
The chances of us getting a written constitution are certainly higher than becoming a republic as there is more support for one. However there are down sides to a written constitution, so at present i think it would be safer to keep the status quo even if it does leave some people questioning where the power rests.
At the end of the day in our system with a free media and mature democracy it does not really matter where the power rests, its ensuring the power is used appropriately. So for example whilst the PM may technically have the power to take us to war through use of the Royal Prerogative, recent wars have only followed a clear vote in the house of parliament as should happen. Its also important to remember that the PM only can use that power whilst he is PM, and to remain PM u need the confidence of the House of Commons.
So if a PM tried to take us to war against the wishes of parliament… he would be forced to resign and an election would be called.
June 8th, 2011 at 9:12 am
jon brown
It is a plot to kill someone not change anything, they wanted to replace the current king with another not change the system.
Yes it is difficult, but it still happened and they were affective, well most of them were. They happened throughout history and I am sure they all ways will. What have spies got to do with anything? How random.
What kings where they? British ones …NO. Most monarchs have had armies but they were never private in most cases they were the countries armies. It does mean they are popular as they continued, if the revolutions took up arms and were beaten in battle or stop it meant most people like the government or the changes they got as a result to the revolt etc, for example the pilgrim of Grace shows that.
Martin G – Possessing A Level in History does give me qualification in history. I am also studying at uni level therefore at academic level. Just because I have had nothing published does not mean I have not produced academic writing.
Graham
“Most people don’t care much about the monarchy because they see it as powerless and harmless” Then why campaign for a republic if they have no “real” power? Also many people do care, polls show this and so does the interest in the Royals.
“We want it abolished because it does not serve the interests of the people, it is offensive to democratic principles” Which democratic principles are we referring to there are many? And how are they not serving the public?
How are heads of state answerable in a republic?
June 8th, 2011 at 9:18 am
Not at all Simon. The power that is in the hands of the Queen is used regularly, but it is used only on the instruction of the PM, thus giving the PM considerable power. Get rid of the monarchy, get rid of that power.
Adam, I said most people think they have no real power, I was answering a specific point by eclub. It doesn’t mean there is no power in the institution.
In a republic a head of state is accountable in two ways: to parliament (they can be impeached if they’ve acted unconstitutionally); to the people (they can be defeated in an election if the people are unhappy with them or decide someone else can do better).
June 8th, 2011 at 9:21 am
Adam,
“How are heads of state answerable in a republic?”
A republican constitution would detail clear terms and conditions for articles of impeachment. This would be an extreme and unlikely circumstance.
A president would serve a limited term or terms. I’m in favour of allowing a president to serve two terms (no more), of four or five years each. If the people don’t like their president after their first term – then that president won’t get another term.
Can all of us (including Adam) stop going on about academic accreditation? In an open debate, academic credentials are irrelevant. Arguments need to make their own point.
June 8th, 2011 at 9:24 am
Graham, the Queen is answer able to parilement as well, for example if she does not up hold the partiulcar acts etc. Also not all the power comes from the Queen as a lot of the power has been taken away from her in Acts of parilement.
However the main running of the country is done in her \name\ the Queen does not do it, the PM does. Surley it makes sense to vote him/her in rather then, allowing there party to do it?
June 8th, 2011 at 9:26 am
“What is your (eclub1′s) point about the BBC? They kept to the law; they did not have to disclose any information.” Adam.
No. Secrecy is best. This is perfectly OK. We need far more secrecy surrounding our publicly-funded institutions, otherwise we might find out what is going on. We must accept and comply at all times. We can trust the people in authority to think on our behalf and to do what is right.
“We pay a TV lenience [sic] and in my life time we always have, we pay for everything on the BBC…”
And this means that we automatically expect endless coverage of the Windsor wedding with millionaires like Huw Edwards and hundreds of others earning considerable fees. It would be rude to ask how much it all is costing us. It would be wrong to see it as propaganda that we are all paying for. But this is not the reason that the BBC will not disclose how much.
PS: It’s not because it is likely to be unfeasibly high or anything, which might shock, astonish or affect the way that this sort of coverage is carried out in the future.
June 8th, 2011 at 9:32 am
@Adam
‘..I think more people will be interested in the cost of the actual wedding rather then, what it cost to cover it. We pay a TV lenience and in my life time we always have, we pay for everything on the BBC so it comes without saying that we would pay for the coverage of the Royal Wedding…’
I actually agree with this Adam. However, the TV lenience is an enforceable poll tax on the poor, punishable by the courts, so it’s like justifying one piece of dubious paternalistic culture with another. I had a friend that was learning disabled and my oh my did the BBC bully, cajole and intimidate him into paying up. Sticks in the craw a bit. But yeah, if you don’t like The BBC or Royal Wedding coverage, don’t pay the license fee, get rid of your telly and read a book. Simples innit?
June 8th, 2011 at 9:43 am
Graham Smith – i was talking about the monarch not using the powers she technically has. I delt with the issue of the PM in my other comments, the fact the PM has the power to take us to war but went to parliament first. Unlike the situation in the USA where the President needs permission of congress but did not get it.
Where the power rests is not the problem, its if the power is misused. In the case of the ability to take us to war, the last two occasions have seen parliament vote on the matter despite not needing. As long as we maintain a free press these sorts of things do not need to be worried about.
Our country is facing absolutely huge problems today.. The fact that in principle the Queen could make use of huge powers or the PM could make use of certain powers in the Crowns name is just not something that is going to keep me nor most British people up at night. The house is burning, now is not the time to redecorate the living room.
June 8th, 2011 at 10:00 am
LOL at the ironic tone emerging….”secrecy is best” and the “the TV lenience”….unfortunately it may have gone overhead……
June 8th, 2011 at 10:23 am
\if you don’t like The BBC or Royal Wedding coverage, don’t pay the license fee, get rid of your telly and read a book\
Or watch it all on iplayer for free (haha!)
I do kinda think the whole thing about the BBC not divulging their costs on the wedding is a bit of a needless distraction though. Firstly, it was watched by 20M at it’s peak. An audience share like that does really justify a pretty huge price tag.
Secondly, I can see why they are reluctant to divulge any of their costs. It opens them up to a lot of (often unfair) criticism. I’m thinking of the ‘scandal’ over the pay of it’s top talent. That got them a ton of bad press despite the fact that the independent watchdog said the payed the going rate. The BBC is quasi commercial. It has to be competitive.
It seems to me that the lack of balance in the coverage would be a much more reasonable grievance.
June 8th, 2011 at 10:29 am
If the BBC released all their figures for cost of programmes / broadcasts but tried to use the FOI exemptions to block releasing just the royal wedding or other monarchy related coverage then Republic would have a very good case and the justification for moaning about it would be one id even accept is justified.
However, the BBC is not like that. The BBC is extremely secretive about its costs in all areas rightly or wrongly. The government designed the FOI act and gave the BBC the right to use these exemptions. I can see why the BBC being forced to release costs of everything whilst sky news and other news broadcasters dont have to would put the BBC at an unfair disadvantage competitively.
There for the exemption is justified. And as Eccles says, it got their highest audience share of the year,, and probably for quite a few years (although ive not looked into that). So expenditure is justified.. especially as they actually have an obligation as our state broadcaster to cover this national event. Sky News could have chose to completely ignore it, the BBC could not and their services / feeds were used by other international organisations.
June 8th, 2011 at 10:40 am
“It seems to me that the lack of balance in the coverage would be a much more reasonable grievance.” Eccles.
As you helpfully point out, with 20 million fans tuning in, an audience share like that not only justifies a pretty huge price tag for us all to pay, it also might reflect just how little coverage in real terms the BBC feels it should give to those not in favour of the monarchy – for example republicans.
Some of us have tried to raise the issue of bias with the BBC of course; some examples have been highlighted on Republic’s ‘BBC Watch’. I am sure that as a staunch republican you are complaining via an email on the BBC site, every time you think that they show bias in favour of the monarchy.
June 8th, 2011 at 10:49 am
“There for the exemption is justified. And as Eccles says, it got their highest audience share of the year,, and probably for quite a few years (although ive not looked into that). So expenditure is justified.. especially as they actually have an obligation as our state broadcaster to cover this national event.” Simon.
Everything is OK then. At least Simon and Eccles agree. The BBC does not function as a vehicle for state propaganda in any way. The ‘extremely secretive’ BBC, unwilling to divulge its costs in all areas rightly or wrongly, is underpinned by the government having designed the FOI act and gave the BBC the right to use the exemptions.
The BBC must not be questioned or provide full accounts, unlike other publicly-owned corporations, along with the Windsors, who enjoy a similar exemption. There is no connection. It is not for us to ask why. So that is an end to the matter.
June 8th, 2011 at 11:08 am
Phaedra – Republicans have to accept the fact this is a constitutional monarchy, you may want that changed but until you get it changed the media coverage will reflect that. Republics event was shown on the One Show on the night of the royal wedding. promoting one organisations event during the main coverage of the Royal wedding would be totally unacceptable. Also over 1 million people vs 1000 claimed people (although it was meant to be around 300-400 which seems more likely) at republics event, i think the coverage fairly reflected the national mood and nation as a whole.
June 8th, 2011 at 11:15 am
I’m starting to get a little concerned for Phaedra…
All differences aside and please dont see this as an attack or anything, but maybe take a break and sit in the sun or have a cup of tea? I know myself how frustrating the Internet can be. You don’t seem yourself.
June 8th, 2011 at 11:16 am
Simon, there were less than 1m people in the Mall and attendance at our street party was closer to 2000.
Those figures, however, do not reflect public opinion or national mood. We were always at a PR disadvantage given that we didn’t have rolling BBC coverage or a multi-million pound tax-funded press office. Public opinion on the wedding and on the monarchy are two different things and both are more complex than simplistic ‘for and against’ positions.
It is that complexity and the nature of the BBC’s reporting that raises serious questions about the BBC.
June 8th, 2011 at 4:27 pm
adam
Guy Fawkes and friends wanted the king out and parliamenmt with him, as they were thwarted i would sugest that this constitutes a failed revolt or failed attempted revolt if you want to be pedantic.
Most times it happened, so sometimes it didnt which proves my point.
Spies? If you or i or anyone else were going to plot a revolution some inside knowledge of the person / persons/ institution(s) you were trying to oust might be very useful. As opponents are hardly going to give you that then I would suggest some sort of spying would be useful, happens in industry all the time.
June 8th, 2011 at 11:05 pm
Graham Smith: “there were less than 1m people in the Mall and attendance at our street party was closer to 2000.” Excuse me, but where is your evidence for ANY of that? The photos posted on your site of the street party do not support the latter part of that statement.
June 9th, 2011 at 7:19 am
The photos also don’t contradict it Hugh. Those were the numbers based on counts done on the day and sales and donations.
June 9th, 2011 at 7:43 am
“the numbers based on counts done on the day and sales and donations.”
That rather sounds as if you added all three together, which would give a false figure since you would be double- and triple-counting. Is that what you did? Also, did you exclude the press who attended?
June 9th, 2011 at 7:50 am
@ Simon
“I can see why the BBC being forced to release costs of everything whilst sky news and other news broadcasters dont have to would put the BBC at an unfair disadvantage competitively. ”
But for one very significant point:-
Sky is not a publicly owned broadcaster whereas the BBC is.
Rupert Murdoch (and others) have often made the point that there IS indeed an unfair advantage in that the BBC is state funded and therefore has not had to carry the same commercial overheads nor sell advertising to make ends meet.
The BBC recently came under the scope of Ofcom and the watchdog has found against the BBC in a number of cases (e.g. the Blue Peter phone-in competition).
Ofcom has also investigated Sky (e.g. pay per view sports channels) and made proposals to cap costs and make specified channels available as free-to-air services.
June 9th, 2011 at 7:52 am
No Ryan, that’s not what we did and yes, we did exclude the press.
June 9th, 2011 at 11:08 pm
jon brown
Guy Fawkes and friends wanted a change of monarch; they want to kill the current one James I with a catholic monarch one. It was a plot to murder people, not much more to it. It was a failed “plot” not “revolt”, even the name gunpowder plot tell you that.
The lard ascending
1, it is not an enforceable poll on the poor, it is forced on everyone for a start.
2, we all know if you want a TV you pay for it.
3, we also all know that, the BBC is the reason behind it all and that the money paid to them pays for the shows on there.
4, they did nothing that broke the law, whether you agree with it or not.
June 10th, 2011 at 6:39 am
adam
Your original statement was that the monarchy must be popular because noone rose against them and threw them out as happened in some other places.
My answers which I have substantiated with facts is that just because they were not swept out doesn’t automatically mean that they are therefore popular, it can also be an indication that noone was able to organise a successful plot, revolt or revolution which ever you chose.
June 10th, 2011 at 7:48 am
Monarchs who provoked mass uprisings.
William I (or “The Bastard”) – mass uprisings against the Norman occupation. Billy gets his own back by engineering a proto-stalinist famine – killing around 100,000 people.
John – hated by just about everyone – many people preferred being invaded and annexed by France to being ruled by him.
Henry III – the beginnings of modern parliamentary rule are developed by Simon de Montford – who is hacked into very small pieces at the Battle of Evesham.
Richard II – Peasants Revolt. The boy king met the rebels just north of London and agreed to a constitutional settlement. He instantly broke this agreement and enacted bloody reprisals.
(I’m missing out what might be called purely dynastic squabbles – nonetheless involving the mass slaughter of ordinary people – these include the reigns of Stephen (or Stephen and Matilda), Henry II, Richard I, John, Henry IV and Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII)
Henry VIII – mass risings against the imposition of the Church of England – bloody reprisals etc. etc.
Elizabeth I – mass rising in Munster – bloody reprisals etc.
Charles I – well – we all know that one…
(skipping Charles II – but noting that if the secret terms of the Treaty of Dover had been made public – then all hell would have broken loose).
James II – not popular and toppled.
Plenty of popular support for the Jacobite cause in Scotland in the reigns of George I and George II.
Now ever since the end of the seventeenth century, we’ve put various legal mechanisms in place to make it harder for monarchs to kill us. And from the nineteenth-century onwards, a vision of constitutional monarchy has been rather successfully promoted. But our “glorious popular monarchy” is not something that echoes down the centuries. It was invented in the late nineteenth century by politicians like Disraeli – and it’s on the way out now.
June 10th, 2011 at 9:19 am
to-cb
You could also have mentioned-
Elizabeth I- O’Neill rebellion in Ulster, leading to flight of gaelic leaders, appropriation of land, removal of natives & settlement by Anglo-Scottish planters.
George II – mid C18th. Ethnic cleansing of french people from N.American province of Acadia. Many fled to Louisiana-now they’re called Cajuns.
June 10th, 2011 at 10:15 am
Thanks Paul,
It’s so hard to keep track of all these atrocities. And in any case I was running out of characters.
June 10th, 2011 at 11:38 am
c brunstrom
paul roberts
thanks for your listings, will make my weekend reading more enlightening
June 11th, 2011 at 6:47 pm
David Cameron actually lives above Number 11 Downing Street!
June 14th, 2011 at 9:13 am
“For Prince William, the meeting must have made him aware of the onerous duties that lie ahead of him…”
Propaganda, propaganda, propaganda, propaganda.
“In an indication that Prince William is already being groomed to take over the Duchy of Cornwall, a portfolio of land and property interests that is valued in the region of £700 million, the second-in-line to the throne has attended a meeting of its controlling Prince’s Council at Clarence House.”
Everything is ok then…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/royal-wedding/prince-william/8571130/Prince-William-prepares-to-take-charge-of-the-Duchy-of-Cornwall.html
June 14th, 2011 at 10:24 am
‘..For Prince William, the meeting must have made him aware of the onerous duties that lie ahead of him…”
Hilarious. Anyone would think his body was about to be used for medical experiments or he was going to be kidnapped by Barbary Corsairs.
You’d never guess it was all unalloyed self-interest.