The title of this blog post is deliberately ironic. Or is it? The fact that I chose to tell you that it's deliberately ironic makes redundant any irony that might have existed. But then again, anything to do with the Royal Family of the UK is ironic almost by definition.
I'm an amateur republican, I guess. So once this post goes live I may be hauled off and placed in some tower somewhere until I swear allegiance to a monarch who - as it will doubtless be pointless for me to use as a defence - I hadn't voted for. A monarchy is just so utterly wrong on so many levels. Here are some examples:
1) In the case of Elizabeth II, and all of her predecessors, she has, apparently, been gifted this position of privilege and titular power by god. So, as one of her "subjects", I am supposed to kowtow to a monarch whose principal claim to her position is that a made-up super-being said it was OK for her to be in charge of stuff; like Mickey Mouse might have said it was OK for George W Bush to President of the US back in 2001 (which, in fairness, could have been what happened).
2) Her Maj, by virtue of this supposed god-given right, gets to keep all the wealth that her forebears accumulated by nicking off other countries, government and, ultimately, us...the proles. Not only that, but in order to maintain her lifestyle and that of most of her terminally stupid family, we have to give her another shit-load of cash that is dressed up as acceptable by calling it a "civil list". Let's look at that description. The word 'civil'; - adj. relating to ordinary citizens, as distinct from military or ecclesiastical matters. In my book, there couldn't be anything further removed from "ordinary citizens" than that represented by the legal freeloading achieved by the royals. And we're expected to be grateful to the spongeing bastards that the queen has 'agreed' to a cap on the cash for a while seeing as everyone else in the country is having "such a frightfully awful time" making ends meet.
| The Queen wearing one of her nice hats |
3) The queen can, constitutionally, be in charge. How mad is that? She could, if she wanted to, just dissolve parliament and go,"...fuck this for a game of soldiers, let's invade France!..." She can! Honest! But in the meantime, on the basis that she's not that nuts, we still have to go through all the constitutional crap to get her to open parliament, give assent to bills, consent to appointments of ministers and so on. And what was the point of Gordon Brown going to "The Palace" and asking if it was OK for him to dissolve his government? Like she was going to say "no"? That's another thing, why is the royal family framework referred to as "The Palace", like the building itself was a living entity? That odious little squit from the BBC, Nicholas Witchell, his predecessor, Jenny Bond, and all the other toadies, talk to camera with idiotic phrases like, "...the palace has commented..." or, "...I have heard from the palace that..." Name your sources! A palace can't talk.
4) The biggest problem is a sum of the first three I've set out. If you're given your job by something that doesn't exist and you're allowed to keep all the money and houses that were never really yours and then get loads more money for doing basically bugger all of any value...how can you possibly be in a position to have a constitutional right to run a country of around sixty million people, of whom only the tiniest nano-minority have any idea what it's like to be like you and you have absolutely no idea what it's like to be the rest?
And then a few days ago, we have a "big news" story at the front of the bulletins. The "Commonwealth" countries have agreed that, in the case of our monarchy, it will now accept that the first-born can accede to to the top job even they happen to be a girl! Wahey! That's it, then! Everything sorted. Euro-crisis...doesn't matter today. Global financial meltdown...non-story. Thailand under water...who gives a toss? They're not a member of the commonwealth so they haven't the prospect of the first British queen who might have a younger brother at some point in the future if Wills and Kate ever get round to producing "issue".
And of the fifty-odd commonwealth "countries" that voted on this monumental piece of constitutional reform, what do we know? Well, there's the UK, naturally. And Australia and New Zealand and Canada and Kenya. And Nigeria and Uganda, of course...great, upstanding nations of probity and deference to the "mother" country. Then there's all the other huge nation states that make up the bulk of the commonwealth, like Tuvalu and Vanuatu...you know, the ones that Vic Reeves extols on 'Shooting Stars'. Then there's those that might be a little closer to the royal family's heart like Brunei and the Bahamas. And Pakistan, India, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Maldives, Malawi, Malaysia, Seychelles...on and on the list goes. Fifty-three countries - that's about thirty per cent of the planet's nations and around twenty per cent of its population. And they voted to let girls be queen if they are the first to pop out of the womb instead of voting to just forget the whole thing and to take back the wealth for the common good.
And if we do happen to continue with our monarchy and in the unlikely event that the queen ever dies (see above - appointed by a god), then our monarch might be:
His Royal Highness The Prince Charles Philip Arthur George, Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles, Prince and Great Steward of Scotland, Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Royal Knight Companion of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Member of the Order of Merit, Knight of the Order of Australia, Companion of the Queen's Service Order, Member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, Aide-de-Camp to Her Majesty.
| Chas: What's my name? |
So divorced from reality are these people that they think that to have a name and title comprising just over one hundred words is entirely reasonable. I wonder if Alex Salmond has checked the constitutional issues of Scottish independence? It looks from Chazzer's list that he might not only be in charge of the the principality of Wales but also of Scotland. The queen's list is even sillier, seeing as she is regarded as a monarch in the majority of her "realms", i.e. these commonwealth countries that, every now and again, hold referendums on whether they wish her to continue as head of state or not. Even Australia's last referendum came out in favour of her retention.
It is often argued that having a constitutional monarchy - and all the pomp that goes with it - provides the UK with unfathomable revenue of invisible income through tourism. I'm not a huge fan of the French or the Russians but they had the sense to get rid of their royals. I'm not advocating bloody revolution and execution, however. In all fairness, it isn't the royal family's fault as individuals that they're in the position they find themselves. They just haven't known anything different. In France, the tourist trade thrives on their royal past with attractions like the Palais de Versailles enthralling millions and, similarly, in St Petersburg, the Winter and Summer Palaces of the Czars. Tourism income would, if anything, increase in Britain if we no longer had a royal family as visitors gawked at where and how the royals used to live. And I wouldn't even insist that the whole lot of them were moved to social housing in Neasden, either. No, they can take a few bob and keep one of their houses, (Sandringham, maybe - I mean, who really wants to go to Norfolk?) and live like a proper family. The £9bn worth of Crown Estates will pass to Government and, if at all possible, the Duchy of Cornwall business, if only to stop some legislation having to be "approved" by HRH, as we learned about recently.
There are a number of royal households around Europe that have so modernised such as those of the Scandinavian countries. There is no reason whatsoever why ours shouldn't do the same and perhaps this primogeniture matter is the first step on the way to constitutional change. Regrettably, such change predicates the establishment of an alternate "Head of State" separate from active government as in republics around the world (although notably absent in the USA). How could we stop Blair becoming President?
Maybe we'd better keep Her Madge after all; better the devil you know and all that...
Told you I was only an amateur...
It is often argued that having a constitutional monarchy - and all the pomp that goes with it - provides the UK with unfathomable revenue of invisible income through tourism. I'm not a huge fan of the French or the Russians but they had the sense to get rid of their royals. I'm not advocating bloody revolution and execution, however. In all fairness, it isn't the royal family's fault as individuals that they're in the position they find themselves. They just haven't known anything different. In France, the tourist trade thrives on their royal past with attractions like the Palais de Versailles enthralling millions and, similarly, in St Petersburg, the Winter and Summer Palaces of the Czars. Tourism income would, if anything, increase in Britain if we no longer had a royal family as visitors gawked at where and how the royals used to live. And I wouldn't even insist that the whole lot of them were moved to social housing in Neasden, either. No, they can take a few bob and keep one of their houses, (Sandringham, maybe - I mean, who really wants to go to Norfolk?) and live like a proper family. The £9bn worth of Crown Estates will pass to Government and, if at all possible, the Duchy of Cornwall business, if only to stop some legislation having to be "approved" by HRH, as we learned about recently.
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| King Carl Gustav of Sweden in one of his nice hats |
Maybe we'd better keep Her Madge after all; better the devil you know and all that...
Told you I was only an amateur...
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