She acts as a kind of inoculation against real tyranny (Photo by Eddie Mulholland - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
At my step-grandfather’s funeral, after decades of marriage, my grandma looked tiny and fragile. But she didn’t shed a single tear. Afterwards, she spent three days in bed with a migraine; but for the public event, she kept it together.
I was reminded of her iron self-control and bird-like fragility watching our Queen enter St George’s Chapel for the funeral of Prince Philip on Saturday. She stumbled momentarily as she approached the chapel door; inside, she sat alone. Born 12 years after my grandmother, she has been our Queen since 1952 and remains so today, her 95th birthday.
And yet despite the dignified pathos of last Saturday, we can be sure that some will celebrate the Queen’s birthday by calling for her deposition. For many progressives view the Queen as an unacceptable relic of the past. Never mind personal travails; monarchy, they say, is undemocratic, even if the Queen never wields her power. We should have an elected head of state.
But far from being a relic of despotism, constitutional monarchy is our best protection against its reappearance. The story we like to recall traces a thousand years of royal continuity — the same deep history which progressives say demonstrates the obsolescence of our monarchy. But in truth this story skates over a profound rupture: the end of absolute kingship.
Medieval England was broadly Catholic, ruled spiritually from the Vatican by a Pope whose word was officially infallible. It was Henry VIII’s break from Rome in 1534 that signalled England’s secession from this absolute spiritual rule. But Henry retained absolute rule in the temporal world: he was not just a symbolic but an executive head of state, who believed his right to be obeyed came direct from God.
School history today doesn’t often dwell on England’s transition from the absolutism of Henry VIII’s day to the modern settlement. France had its Revolution, America had its Founding, but the significance of Britain’s “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 is under-discussed, despite its importance.
Perhaps it’s still too much of a sore point. After all, it was also the moment that completed the rupture with Rome begun by Henry VIII. Over a few tumultuous months, the Catholic James II was challenged and then deposed by a cabal of senior English statesmen, in favour of the Protestant William of Orange. Certainly, relations between Catholics and Protestants in the British Isles have been uneasy since, a fact that still drives political unrest in Ireland today.
Just as the Reformation represented England’s secession from spiritual absolutism, the Glorious Revolution represented something similar in the political sphere. Having got rid of one absolute monarch, the statesmen who defenestrated James II set about making sure their new monarch, William, knew his place. A 1689 Bill of Rights set out constitutional principles we have to this day, including regular Parliaments, open elections and freedom of speech. The Bill also limited and specified the monarch’s powers.
The Reformation and Glorious Revolution produced an England in which both spiritual and temporal rule had the same figurehead: a head of both Church and Parliament. The change was subtle but profound, as the authority of England’s priest-kings now theoretically extended across moral and political domains. But in practice, they wielded no direct power.
This homeopathic dilution of theocratic tyranny proved exceptionally liberating. The new settlement drove the emergence of our parliamentary system, our two main political parties, and — as the monarchy sought a new role — many of the High Victorian institutions such as the Royal Societies, whose grand buildings form the majestic backbone of London today.
The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were an age of public enquiry, noisy debate, scientific discoveries, imperial expansion and a fair few atrocities — but also of a bouncing, self-confident conviction that Britain’s destiny was in British hands, not those of fate, or of a despot or even God.
Two world wars, one collapsed empire and a de-industrialised North later, things look rather different. Today, younger adults widely believe the world has been getting worse throughout their lives, and are pessimistic about the capacity of science, government or their own agency to change this. In parallel, the freedom of speech first guaranteed in the 1689 Bill of Rights is increasingly regarded as a stalking-horse for hatred. Growing numbers believe that what’s right and wrong — especially where it concerns the rights of marginalised groups — are sufficiently self-evident they shouldn’t be up for debate.
But who decides on the exceptions to our post-Glorious Revolution norm of debate? It’s been nearly half a millennium since Henry VIII ended England’s official embrace of the Pope in this role. Progressives have yet to offer a clear alternative to either the Pope or the Defender of the Faith, though many assert that no hereditary ruler should be allowed such spiritual clout.
Unsurprisingly, then, progressives (such as Jeremy Corbyn) who support abolishing the monarchy, often also argue for disestablishment of the Church of England. Meanwhile a growing chorus of other progressive voices calls for a lengthening list of often self-contradictory articles of faith to be excluded from legitimate debate — a move that bears comparison with the religious ordinances of England’s Catholic and Anglican eras.
But what if the progressives are wrong and power can never truly be democratised? This was the argument advanced by political theorist Carl Schmitt. Schmitt argued that democracy is always compromised by absolutism, because no matter how flawless a set of rules you devise, and no matter how fair your electoral system, sooner or later a situation will crop up that doesn’t fit the rules.
When that happens, you have to break the rules: a situation Schmitt called the “state of exception”. Coronavirus lockdowns are a good example: of the past year, countless ordinary freedoms were abruptly suspended in the name of virus control. Schmitt argued that you can tell who’s really in charge by who gets to implement such a state: “Sovereign is he who decides the exception”.
Carl Schmitt was, of course, a Nazi. For him, exposing the traces of arbitrary rule that persist even in democratic government was part of a wider argument in favour of strongman rule.
Critics might argue that quoting a Nazi in defence of the Queen isn’t likely to make the monarchy seem more progressive. But if we accept Schmitt’s argument that even democracies can’t avoid the odd despotic moment, it’s far easier to understand why constitutional monarchies are so often more egalitarian than republics. For even if Schmitt is right, it doesn’t follow that because someone has to decide the exception, that decision-maker has to be a dictator. It wasn’t the Queen who decided to suspend our ordinary liberties for the pandemic, but Parliament, which is made up of our elected representatives.
The role of our Queen is to symbolise that tyrannical twitch we can’t wholly eradicate even in democracies, lest such twitches break out more regularly among our elected leaders. And she must do so without availing herself of actual power. As such, she acts as a kind of inoculation against real tyranny.
Our Queen has two birthdays: her actual birthdate, which is today, and her “official” birthday on the second weekend in June. This aptly reflects her double existence. On the one hand she’s a human individual with a family, a birthday and a recent, terrible bereavement. On the other, she’s an interchangeable cipher, a part not just replaceable but designed to be replaced by her heir apparent when the time comes. Her role is to act, with total self-effacement, as the fulcrum between tyranny and democracy. It’s a position that, once understood, is rightly seen as profoundly sacred.
That understanding feels fainter than ever today. It wasn’t just our monarch who seemed fragile and bird-like in mourning for Prince Philip. A whole world feels as though it’s wearing thin, and that with the death of Philip yet another of its underpinnings has sheared away: the world of enquiry, debate and optimism; one that felt liberated by having only a titular head of Church and State and responded with two centuries of flourishing culture.
Increasingly, I fear that a new generation feels less liberated than abandoned by such light-touch authorities, and yearns — under the banner of progress itself — for something closer to the moral and political strongmen envisaged by Carl Schmitt.
For ultimately, progressive calls to abolish the monarchy — whether as head of Church or state — amount not to a democratisation of power, but a removal of the principal safeguard we have against a return of the political and moral absolutism that preceded England’s Reformation and Glorious Revolution. Should the mounting demands for authority over the moral exception merge with similar calls for authority over the political one, the relative freedom guaranteed for us by our ceremonial priest-kings may be replaced by something far more direct and assertive.
If there’s any hope, it lies in the despised rural and post-industrial backwaters: Deep England. Perhaps only outside the bubble of elite discourse, our nation’s instinctive appreciation for the paradox of constitutional monarchy is robust enough to survive the progressives who seek to tear down its moral and political dimensions.
Never mind heaven on earth. On the whole, Deep England would just like to be left in peace. On this difficult birthday for Her Majesty, we can only pray that the destructive forces of progress accord her the same courtesy.
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SubscribeThe Queen represents virtues in the best possible sense. Duty, honour, discretion, public service, respect, commitment and many others. When I see the Queen, more than an individual I see the symbol of an idea. She also puts in sharp relief the squalid nature of our politicians.
The fact that her existence angers so many Guardian readers and make them foam at the mouth is an added extra.
Long may she reign.
What the Royals give is a sense of continuity, even as governments come and go. Whereas presidents, even constitutional ones as Israel has, are inevitably partisan and when they are changed there is no continuity.
I must confess that in 2019 when Parliament was tearing itself apart over Brexit I rather wished that the Queen could step in and say “the adults are in charge now”.
Constitutional presidents – elected or appointed with no significant power – are pointless.
Head-of-party presidents – as in South Africa – are a disaster waiting to happen because wrong uns are so hard to remove (compared to the way that in the UK partliament can get rid of an incompetent PM).
Definitely wished she stepped in more. 2019, MPs expenses scandal, grooming gangs. So much to take our MPs to task for.
It’s not her job. She is barred from “stepping in” to perform any political act. If she did she would soon be gone.
Only barred from stepping in by precedent, nothing more. If she was to be removed for preventing MPs from lying and defrauding the public, then perhaps the public is not worth saving.
Quite right but none the less she is and has been a very good influence. MP’s struggle for power but she is at rest in the role she has and doesn’t need to struggle about it.
Princes Harry,Wills &me Again ,Prince Charles are All Climate devotees,but princess Anne not so..
The governor-general of Australia, the Queen’s representative, dismissed our elected government in 1975. It is only recently that we, the people, have been allowed to read some of the correspondence of the time. It shows that “the palace” was quite involved in the whole process. Seems lots of influence goes on out of public view.
Not quite. The letters released showed the correspondence was by and large one way. That is from the GG Sir John Kerr to the palace. Aside from the political causes of crises, the GG was acting as something of a rouge operator and it unsurprisingly ended badly for him as it should have.
Grooming gangs under Labour councils prospered for years and they still exist today in many of our larger cities. The political correctness about this stinks.
The Queen should have stepped in when UK sovereignty started to be leached away, with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992.
She has always been more interested in dogs and horses, however.
Even monarchs need hobbies. When the day to day talk of ruling has been taken away by the parliaments who serve them. Should have and could have are the key words in this situation, should she? Maybe. Could she? No.
The throne is supposed to be the apolitical guarantor of the constitution. One of the key tenets of our constitution is that no administration may commit another to anything irreversible. The throne should therefore have questioned how Maastricht, which conceded sovereignty irrevocably unless Brexit, was in any way constitutional. Juan Major should have been summoned to the Palace and required to explain this and to produce the legal advice. She wholly failed to notice this or to do anything about this.
She also failed in the matter of Charles. She has had nothing to say about the small matter of Charles becoming a divorcee when in her own lifetime a king had to resign over marrying, never mind being one. Did she point out to Charles before he married Diana that he could not expect to 5hag around, get divorced and still accede? Did she warn Diana that no divorce would ever be allowed her? If not, why not – did she take legal advice on the matter? Do we now allow divorcees to ascend the throne? When did the law on that change? Where exactly was the throne in all this?
The throne, in the person of EiiR, has apparently made no contribution in respect of these matters greater than could have been made by a plank of wood. It’s a myth that her role is to wave, open things and own ponies, but it’s a myth she herself appears to have bought into. We still need a throne but we need more than a bag of sand occupying it.
I believe that the real reason for the abdication to which you refer was not the king marrying the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson, but rather that the monarch had strong Nazi sympathies.
Read ‘Operation willi” & ”Operation marburg” Where Anthony blunt’s Communist Chums got their hands on Files,Proving Edward v111 Was feeding information on Dunkirk to nazis.like von Ribbentrop..Also I believe Wallis simpson,was A member of American nazi party under Tyler kent
I find it hard to believe that Prince Edward (VIII?) was effectual enough to threaten much of anything, whatever his dubious sympathies. Especially given how easily he was bewitched by that gargoyle.
History has repeated itself with Harry and Meg has it not?
You need to google ‘Privy Council’!
And leaving the EU Treaties has always been a Sovereign option.
Bitter man
Not her role. However, per my comment elsewhere in the responses to this article, if we had a constitution that properly constrained governments, the outrages that were Maastricht and (even worse) the EU Constitution/Lisbon would not have been foisted on the British people.
How would you or any of us know?
Probably but Prince Charles Was legible for Common Agricultural subsidies,as per michael heseltine,David Cameron father in law etc..etc..
Why is a constitutional preseidnet any more pointless than a constituional monarch?
Because they are ex-politicians and therefore cannot be an effective unifier. Plus they have zero economic value as a tourist magnet.
A constitutional monarch can be a repository of national identity. I was reminded of this by the recent death of King Goodwill Zwelithini. He may have been a controversial figure due to his stanch traditionalism, but I can remember _nothing_ about any of South African’s ceremonial presidents except how the long walk past the president’s house & grounds in Pretoria.
There will be no serious movement to abolish the Monarchy during the lifetime of the Queen. When the male heir takes over things will change. England only likes female monarchs: Elizabeth I, Victoria, Elizabeth II. As for your 3 arguments, Mark H
Ex-politicians: Eisenhower and De Gaulle were not really politicians, nor Mary Robinson in Ireland. Its up to voters. who are not kids, to vote in someone with talent, which is not inherited via a Monarchy btw.
Tourism: no sensible Founding Father organising the UK would say “First thing we need is a tourism Magnet!” What – the White House + Presidents draw no tourists? Really?
Repository of National ID: so the rest of the world knows less than the Brits about what National ID really is?
Phew, the sooner Wales calls a Constitutional Convention and goes down the Ireland route the better. Non-violently, unless Anglo-Brits oppose, that is.
Charles II, Edward VII, George V and George VI didn’t do so badly.
Charles was a Traitor, as the ‘Secret’ Treaty of Dover showed.
And a philanderer.
On an epic scale, it must be said.
I would rather take my chances with a Monarchy than a succession of party creatures being greased into the top job thank you.
The Royal power has to be clipped but also too much is not good. A little bit of power might be helpful.
Edward I, Edward iii, Alexander ii, Alexander iii, David I, William the lion, james I, Charles I, Charles ii, james I, james iv, james ii, Robert the Bruce, james ii and VII, Edward VII, george V ane george vi, Henry IV, Henry V, Edward IV, Richard III, Henry VII, would suggest otherwise
The Monarchy cannot be dissolved as the cost would be far too high financially. The Queen gives the government £211 million per year.
Plus the Duchy of Cornwall brings in £18.3 million million per year. And the Duchy of Lancaster £16 million per year. The Queen owns all beaches and offshore coastal waters. Rent from wind-farms bring in millions more per year. So even without tourism, we could not afford to live without the Queen giving us all that money.
All together the Queen earns over £300 million per year, and gives most of it to us so that we don’t have to pay so much tax.
I understand that the income into the Treasury from the land is more like 2 billion of which one quarter goes back to the monarch for what used to be the Civil List.
The total taxes collected in uk in a year are 820 Billion. Of which 300 million are 0.00036%.
Numeral literacy is important to judge these issues without being fooled by those (mostly tabloids, let us be honest) with a political agenda.
Good reply Mark.
Because they are politicians or they wouldn’t want to be elected.
I’d rather have the UK armed forces owing loyalty to the non-political monarch than to a political president. Much less chance of them being used to enforce unwanted change or political decisions.
It’ll never be used but, in the UK at least, the government knows that there are limits to their powers. There was talk that Trump would use the armed forces, of whom he was the Commander in Chief, to overturn the election and the Chiefs of Staff may have been on dubious ground if they’d refused a direct order from their commander; in the UK the Prime Minister doesn’t have the authority to demand the armed forces do anything.
talk was all it ever was
My teen friends and I debated whether the monarchy was useful in the fifties. We came to the same conclusion that having the military and police owe allegiance to the Monarch. This was demonstrated when Juan Carlos persuaded the army back to baraks.
Through the daily briefings she receives the Queen also provides an important guide to prime ministers
Or maybe President Galloway…..
Well done. I just literally laughed out loud. 🙂
A UK President would almost certainly be more like the German or Irish model than the French or US version (because the PM isn’t going to ceded their powers) – a pointless ceremonial role filled by failed, past-it politicians. So more likely to be President-for-life John Prescott than Blair.
Which increases the power of the Government, this is to be avoided at all costs as the last year has demonstrated. The Monarchy may be powerless in one sense but it commands the loyalty and respect of millions of citizens in a way that Westminster never could. I have sworn two oaths in my life, one to my Wife and one to the Crown, I don’t remember swearing one to bumbling Boris, well in a roundabout way I did but only as being a subordinate of the Queen.
Another thing; the armed forces do not owe their loyalty formally to the government of the day, but to the monarch, which is a big potential obstacle to any government which decides to follow the example of, say, Turkey.
Because in the vast majority of cases presidents are self serving whereas the principle of a British constitutional monarch is to serve the people. One can debate whether a particular monarch has done a good or bad job of that, but I would argue that recent history (the Queen and her father) mitigates strongly in favour of a constitutional monarchy over a political Presidency.
The Queen has shown an absolute commitment to serve as has Phillip.
Only Remainers showed their contempt ,with A theresa Mayhem Coup d’etat …they conspired with Mainstream media to try to keep globalist Cabal on board,they NOW use Climate nonsense as another authoritarian bloc
Unfortunately it looks like her grandson & wife wish to take down our monarchy & have been directed towards this since 2016. They knew her reign would end soon and her successor is not popular so have been arranging everything (with various leading democrat supporters ) towards the demise of royalty. Why would the Prince fly back on the eve of his Grandmother’s 95th birthday other than to be part of the celebration of the guilty verdict of this trial? He & his wife are employed ( very handsomely) to break up the institution-the interview being the ‘big moment’.Biden actually made a public statement in support of Meghan ( ie against the Queen ) just as he has made a statement before this verdict. America was also one of last countries to send sympathy on Prince Philip’s death and have done little to mark his funeral. If the monarchy wishes to survive it will have to show some of that toughness that kept them there for 1000 years ( other than 17th century blip)
You are according the “spare” now 6th in line and the failed actress much more influence than they are ever likely to possess .
The interview was hardly the “big moment” . It showed the two of them to be whinging liars. Biden put his foot in it by supporting the z list actress and why should America be expected to mark the death of Prince Philip?
They just seem to be linked with too many influential people who have a political agenda, best friend daughter-in-law of former Prime Minister , in with the Soho crowd,linked with top democrat media etc. Harry has a certain cache being the son of Princess Diana-whose name is still well-known around the world 23 years after her death, but other than interviews recalling how lovely she was, what else has he got to say & hes hardly the brightest person is he ? Ms Markle would never feature on the Oprah Show in her own right , yet suddenly the cream of democrat society want to throw million pound baby showers for her and include her in their crowd and she is not even a significant royal?Plus why else would Netflix ( which seems to be the conduit of choice for the democrat voice ) wish to throw millions at them, as what can they say except banal generalities about saving the planet, unless this is a favour to their more significant contributors?
It remains to be seen how long their connection with “influential” people lasts. Neither of them have anything to offer.
The 1936 abdication aroused much argument, passion and anger between those pro and anti the Duke & Duchess of Windsor. Now they’re almost forgotten.
Princess Diana too is passing into history. And so will Harry and his wife with their absurd, unfounded, easily disproved allegations.
Muckle is a nothing, it would take someone with immeasurable superiority and brains to even scratch the surface of the monarchy. She wouldn’t dare show her face back in Britain for fear of being stoned, nothing less than she deserves.
Biden is practically a communist and we know what communists do to Royals.
Biden is A Senile old Fraud,especially postal ..he will either die in white house or be made to step down for Kamel harris &her st,George of floyd acolytes
I don’t think you know what real Communists are!
Not British royals, they won’t be brought down by a dementia patient.
More people watched the funeral than the interview.
The other day a former PM of Australia was interviewed on the radio. There were, he suggested, far more Elizabethans than monarchists in Australia, and many other places. That is, they think the present monarch has done as good a job as possible, but have serious doubts about the institution itself. I think it likely that the same applies here.
The argument about the monarchy in Australia is also about national identity. Understandable when, e.g., many Australians have no historical connection with Europe, let alone the U.K.
There’s also the matter of what replaces it. And what to do if any State wants to keep it.
Of course many ‘Britons’ have no historical connection with Europe, let alone the U.K.
However, they live here.
An Australian said to me “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, which I suspect is quite a common opinion in countries which, for all their faults, are both more stable and more desirable places to live than are many republics.
Charles’ agreement with Klaus Schab of the World Economic Forum and the secret Bildeburgers conferences is frightening. These are the globalists who have invented a new world currency and have ideas about everyone not owning anything (who will own it?). There will surely no place for Charles in this. Charles has not shown much sense here and should be more informed.
The difference between the royals with their understanding of their privilege and responsibility and the modern elites who accuse the rest of us of privilege and have a lack of noblesse oblige is stunning.
The arguments in the article and in the comments here are very poor. The only case for the monarchy seems to be that an elected politician doing the job would be worse, and I’m sure a majority will agree.
What the monarch actually does remains a mystery to me. We are told that she remains political neutral but I fail to see how anybody can claim that. We have absolutely no idea what she thinks about anything or what takes place between her and the PM, although she apparently can purr like a cat according to one PM. What is the point of having her read out words written by the government if she does not agree with them? It is no way to run the country. VS in a comment below says she should have stepped in over the EU, contradicting the impartiality she claims.If she does want a say, she should do it through the ballot box like the rest of us.
I have come to the conclusion that it suits the governments to have a compliant Head of State and I am convinced this is why Edward VIII was forced to abdicate. It was nothing to do with marrying a divorcee. He was further discredited because he supported appeasement, but so did many MPs. He was criticising the government over the poverty he saw on his trips round the country and they could not accept that. He was closer to the people than the government and saw the nonsense of an impartial Head of State. I suspect Harry thinks the same way, but his boss is leading him in the wrong direction.
Charles has made his views known on almost everything so what is going to happen when the government has him say something we know he does not believe? However, we now have a government that has completely lost the plot on a none existent climate emergency and how to deal with a virus that is harmless to a majority of the country, so it probably will not matter since they seem set on a course to destroy the country.
During most election campaigns it is common to hear people talking about electing a Prime Minister. We do not elect the PM, or agree to any of the people the PM appoints to the government. Perhaps the fact that we do not elect the people who have most power over us is the problem. We elect a representative to the Commons but our representatives then takes instructions from the political party they belong to and we do not matter. Gaining power is the objective of political parties, not serving us. They gain power by using the tax system to buy the votes through welfare. All parties are now the same and ultimately there will be no money left.
Before we get rid of the monarchy, we need to get rid of the political parties which create the power base for politicians, and also the House of Lords that they pack with their cronies. Our MPs should represent us and until that happens everything else is irrelevant. We should retain first past the post voting and nobody should be elected without gaining at least 50% of the vote based on the electoral register. That way the candidates would have to work hard to convince us that they were fit to represent us, rather than impressing the party elite.
Her existence mildly amuses this Guardian reader. I don’t think most Guardian readers do much foaming, generally. Poor old Telegraph readers, which I am also, seem to be in a state of permanent foaming about remainers, traitors, junior Royals and Union Jacks. Though some, of late, have been placated by the paper giving over a large chunk of it’s ‘news’ to coverage of Royal Family shenanigans.
We seem to be reading different versions of the Guardian. There is more venom and toxicity in the BTL comments in the Guardian than all the other papers combined.
Quite so.
I gave up on the Guardian some years ago.
I sometimes pop in to have an incredulous laugh at the worldview expressed there. It’s also fun to keep up with the various vituperative columnists with their outpourings of irrational hatred, who then get cancelled themselves.
A lot of the shoutiness and even venom BTL at the Grauniad is from migrating Telegraph and Mail readers — though, to be fair, some native Guardianistas can hold their own in this respect.
My point is that there are cranks, ranters and crackpots on both sides of the aisle – and it is a disservice to the debate to pretend otherwise.
The Guardian, BBC in print
Yes, I quite agree. But you and I probably think that is what a monarch is like. Which of the Royals could have navigated the disastrous nineties as well as she did? Do we trust Charles to handle the next onslaught of bad luck and trouble? William seems like a nice boy, and he has a smart wife, but can he match his grandmother? I hope Britain has a long stretch of calm and the Progressives turn their attention elsewhere.
This post is written in response to Vikram Shamra’s post beginning “The Queen represents virtues in the best possible sense.” which was written ten hours ago. No wonder I cannot make sense of so many responses here.
William & Catherine are a safer bet than Charles and Camilla who have a murky family history that doesn’t befit Royalty.
Historically royalty has very much been about murky family history.
Well said, as always.
The Powerlessness in the everyday sense that has a power within it is a very cool concept… tbh over the half the best Sci Films , probably more, beloved by people today have the exercise of prudently deployed, unsuspected power from someone as a *thing* in their narrative.
So I think the weirdly unarticulated part of the constitution in Britain works really well, and far from out dated in any way is superbly suited to the modern digital society and world…
Look at the alternatives…the UK has come through a hell of a difficult time with Brexit and various separatisms, trials and tests in the last few years in decent shape, and without any tyrannical regime assuming power.
And, let’s remember, the alternatives are not only tyrants like Putin, Erdogan or the CCP..it could be even worse, we might even end up with our own Macron.
Mary’s point has been made many times, but there is no harm in making it again. And I like the phrase Deep England. Just the other day we saw Deep England throw a politician out of a pub with very good reason. But whether or not Deep England can hold on remains to be seen.
The reason why I don’t give up on our society completely, in spite of all its symptoms of terminal decline, is that I perceive a dynamism still operative in its people which has been part of our DNA for centuries.
It is not a mere accident that the Royal Society and big scientific advances – theoretical, practical – began here; likewise the Industrial Revolution which those engendered.
With the Credit Crunch of 2007 and the near failure of most banks a year later, millions lost their jobs in the United Kingdom (as elsewhere). Yet huge numbers refused simply to sit at home on the dole, staring at the wall or TV and eating crisps.
First 3 million and then eventually (all told) 5 million Britons set up their own one- and two-person businesses; and made a success of them. In an adult population of c. 50 millions that actually is a lot – when one considers how demoralizing it is to find oneself suddenly out of work (and in many cases out of the kind of work that has been one’s choice and aim).
On the one hand I think (a) we are heading for – not the very end of the world, the ultimate Day of Judgement which the Germans rather beautifully call ‘the Youngest Day’ – but nevertheless a grand dress rehearsal, what the Lord Jesus termed ‘one of the days of the Son of Man’; and (b) that there is life in the old dog yet.
Well said.
Now, huge numbers are being paid to sit at home doing nothing. The Royal Society is a totally discredited organisation. It’s 2020 Christmas lecture claimed that temperature of a candle flame outside a tube of gas would vary depending on the gas in the tube. They were of course brainwashing children into believing that there is a climate crisis. The Royal Society and most of of universities left science behind a long time ago.
Fair points; but the Royal Society TODAY and the corrupted Natural Sciences (let alone the Humanities faculties of most universities) are not the People of the realm at large about whom I was writing.
Across the world currently there is a dreadful Ruling Caste, awful elites; but that is not the sum total of the human capital in existence.
In a few places, like the United Kingdom, there remains a substratum of virtue, get-up-and-go.
(Surprisingly, I admit.)
That’s encouraging. I wish they were represented in parliament.
Global Warming is one of the big deceptions of our time in my view. We don’t need Richard Attenborough to save our planet. It’s still going to be here when Jesus returns.
Faith is not necessarily against reason or evidence, or even science. What are your reasons for disbelieving in Global Warming? There does seem to be quite a bit of evidence for it, whatever its cause.
There is also evidence that suggests it is man made. But that’s not the bit you seemed to be objecting to.
Yes science is a thing of the past, as are most valuable subjects, the only thing taught in universities now is “wokeness” and how to turn yourself into an insufferable prat, passed with honours of course, by almost 100%
Lol excellent.
I would imagine, and very much hope, that when full opening of public houses is bestowed upon us, the landlord enjoys the uptick in custom he richly deserves.
If we were to replace The Queen with an elected president, where in the world would we look to for an example of how this would be an improvement in our democracy? America, France, Russia, South Africa, the various basket cases in South America? All of these seem to prove that presidents are little better than dictators, with the slight irritation of a national parliament to subdue or ignore. None are beacons of hope in this strange world. The UK is not perfect by any means but recent history, aside from the pandemic, shows that politicians can be held to account and that The Queen is a stabilising moderator in the national debate. Whether or not her heirs can achieve the same remains to be seen, but for now ….. God save The Queen.
A monarchy is the best idea of a bad bunch but the Queen’s own children are all such abject duds that, were the rather dim William and Kate not as well-liked as they are, there would probably be some pressure to find a different house to occupy the throne.
Who the monarch is is irrelevant. That William & Kate should be ‘duds’ matters not one whit (even accepting the term). The important thing is that impersonally-specified succession on hereditary lines will always be preferable to selection on the basis of dubiously-valuable ‘personal’ qualities or pre-designed criteria of ‘merit’.
I’m not suggesting William and Kate are duds, but that Charles, Andrew, and to a lesser extent Anne and Edward all are. If the next generation along were as vacant as these four – if Andrew were Charles’ direct heir, rather than his half-brother – then the frequent calls we hear now for Charles to step aside in favour of his heir would probably instead be calls for him just to step aside.
In what way does it matter that those you mention are ‘duds’? The Royals are not in charge of anything.
They are supposed to defend the constitution, a task in which the Queen has conspicuously failed. If they are conspicuously not up to the job they should expect, like the rest of us, to be hoofed out of it, to be replaced by someone else.
If you think that the Queen has conspicuously failed, then there’s no arguing with you.
Must be a jealous American with no history to be proud of.
It just shows what an excellent Queen we have.
Prince Charles should step down-he could use his divorce as reason can’t become king. Tough on W & K as have young children. Andrew & his ‘wife’ should go to America & sort out his problems & vacate the Royal Lodge. Only working royals to have titles & state homes etc and should concentrate on sensible national things not ‘save the whale’ stuff and should stop trying to be friendly & ‘ordinary’ and instead try to create the ‘mystique’ which separates them from other aristocrats.
You seem to be subscribing to the nonsensical idea that the heir to the throne should step down but “divorce” is not a reason. Why should he step down? The idea of a monarchy is continuity.
Well he could claim poor health-he does not seem to be as robust as his parents. Henry 8th started getting divorced only after he became king. Charles could remain Prince of Wales and support the young couple. I presume noone believes in the divine principle of monarchy & we have got rid of enough unsuitable monarchs-James 2nd and Edward 8th ( as is now apparent when released papers from 1936)for it not to happen again
??? If Charles stepped down William would be king.
It occurs to me that YOU are the rather dim dud.
Anne is known to do her charitable work without any fuss. Likewise Edward and Sophie of Wessex. Describing them as vacant and duds seems to be a rather desperate attempt to discredit them merely because they are members of a family which you seem to dislike.
How are Charles and Andrew “half brothers” ?
Edward has a very wise wife though. That would be a big asset.
I think that’s just another pathetic attempt on his behalf to cast doubt on the royal family, he’s trying to say” they’re not even of the same father, wink wink” as in a tasteless pub joke. And he calls members of the royal family duds, lol.
Why is Andrew Charles’ half brother?
Different fathers. Look at the Queen, Princess Margaret, Charles, Anne and Edward. Same face.
Then look at Andrew.
Who is his father then if he is Charles half brother? I cannot see that he would be the Queen’s illegitimate son.
Lord Porchester.
Ridiculous idea. My mother remembered a royal of a previous generation (c1920) who she said, Andrew resembled.
I think it’s quite appalling that you should accuse the Queen of adultery.
Even negative comments about you are probably better than you being totally ignored altogether. Such attention seeking is usually confined to slightly disturbed little children.
Anne is one down to Earth Royal I admire 1) She refused to be cowered when nearly Shot in 1974 incident 2) She Knows Climate change is Sh**** 3) She refused titles for her two Children 4) She refused Security for her children…she is No dud..
Quite so. We don’t want them competing on Who’s got Talent.
It has become fashionable to disregard or sneer at Charles. I think this is a mistake. We should reserve judgement and allow history to assess his reign.
Finland.
Safe suggestion, as nobody knows anything about Finland, apart from its cold, they seem both happy and more inclined to suicide than the average and they seem to good at rally driving and throwing javelins. Maybe suggest a country where someone in the UK can tell you who their president actually is.
They are also more resistant to internet-based fake news and conspiracy theories. Not sure whether that would make them more or less popular here at UnHerd.
Presumably the president would be a figurehead. Like Germany.
How is that an improvement? I can’t even remember his or her name.
How about Ireland? You can hardly claim that America is a bad example considering the wealth their political system has generated. I think the system is starting to fail because the Democrats are intent on destroying the Constitution which is the basis of American success.
Yes indeed, and a good start will be to prosecute the homicidal policeman who shot Ms Alisha Babbitt at point blank range in the Capitol Building.
Currently, unbelievably, no charges are pending and the wretch has been given total anonymity! Simply incredible!
I’m afraid her likely successors – Charles and William – seem to be far less impartial on political issues. Charles, for goodness’ sake, is a poster boy for The Great Reset and both are blindly green. Things will not improve with Her Majesty’s successors.
The constitutional monarchy serves a simple purpose. It serves as a constant reminder that there is a nation and a state above and around any politician or civil servant, that they are part of something bigger and more important. And that which lasts for generations and generations, before and beyond all of our lifetimes.
As Mary alludes to, the list of countries with this government system reads like a list of countries people would want to live in.
The monarchy is also interesting in that it really does expose republicans as petty and envious. They simply detest the idea that someone inherited the wealth and power of royalty by accident of birth. They never for one minute seem to contemplate the other side of that same coin; the duty, servitude and responsibility.
The last of all is a concept that is alien to too many across all of society.
Try telling that to all the people in the North and other industrial areas that saw their jobs and their livelihoods vanish.
Telling what? Are you making the ludicrous suggestion that everybody in these areas blames the monarchy for their situation?
That was Thatcher and the Tories . Nothing to do with the monarchy.
So what is the point of the monarchy if they do not care what the government does?
I don’t think it’s the monarchy’s fault that our steel workers’ jobs are now done by Chinese companies with 4x times the number of employees at a fraction of the cost (with a fraction of the job security and general safety also).
Have I missed something? Unless HRH has as yet undiscovered shares in Baosteel dating from 1980, I’m not so sure.
You talk about to telling them. Why not ASK them?
I’m from the north and never heard anyone blame the monarchy, everyone just got on with it and either turned their hands to something else or started their own businesses. I suppose you would have cried into your horlicks.
There is a New Culture Form video on YouTube in which a historian puts a very similar reason for the popularity of our monarchy.
Many countries have an Independence Day for the people to identify with and come together as a nation. Britain can identify as a nation around the monarch, particularly in times of trouble or national pride. Replacing the monarchy with a “republic day” is not an enticing prospect to most.
It doesn’t have to be only about constitutional rights and wrongs, important as they are. It seems to me that people actually enjoy having the monarchy, and to have ceremonies which actually still mean something.
Exactly, that’s why royal occasions are keenly watched around the world.
One of the things which make me feel that either our nation’s elites and ‘meritocrats’ are completely stupid or riddled with mean-spirited envy or completely self-serving is their regular opposition to the British monarchy.
Anyone desiring its abolition automatically has to answer the question, What would replace it? And one certainty follows: that whether we had an elected head of state, or the Crown were put into a commission, the Establishment, the Ruling Caste in our culture, would grant us a choice of only the sort of person they puff for senior roles in politics and bureaucracy, e.g. quango-heads.
HOW would we be better off with some such individual as the omni-incompetent Dido Harding for our national representative to the world and constitutional referee of last resort?
HOW would we enjoy having a Peter Mandelson or Chris Patten, Teresa May or Cherie Blair as our chieftain?
The Royal Family have accumulated so much celebrity and wealth that its most senior members – the occupant of the throne and the heir to it – are effectually unbribeable. They have everything to lose and nothing to gain by being politically partisan. Would that be true of the above-named I have mentioned?
Two-thirds of all Australians saw these considerations clearly and voted to retain the monarchy at the turn of this present new century.
Why are our elites, like theirs, so silly as not to share that perception?
The answer has to be either that they are STOOPID or they are riddled with mean-spirited resentment of anyone with more celebrity and prestige than themselves; or they want yet another quango-job for one of their own. – All of which impulses are disqualifications for their getting their way.
Yes. Douglas Murray’s question “compared to what?” applies here. Ok, so the monarchy isn’t perfect. But what system of government are you really comparing it to and why is that so much better? The list of constitutional monarchies is a list of the best countries on earth, even if you wish to ignore the UK (I don’t). And even the list of actual monarchies (compared to similar countries in the same regions) are for the most part better off (Morocco, Jordan etc)
I believe Churchill said something like he trusted the British people to make the right decision when voting. So perhaps you should do the same and see who we vote for. Perhaps we could start by voting for a Prime Minister.
Our Prime Minister isn’t a presidential office. The Prime Minister is an MP appointed by the monarch. The monarch’s appointment of the Prime Minister is guided by constitutional conventions.
The political party that wins the most seats in the House of Commons at a general election usually forms the new government. Its leader becomes Prime Minister.
I know all that and I was making an entirely different point. But look how many people say they vote for the PM. This is why we get such dreadful MPs.
Churchill had to ‘eat’ those words on his election defeat in 1945 did he not?
Who knows? A little chagrined at first but he seems to have recovered quite rapidly and had quite a good post-war few years. Time for more relaxed thought. Some quite memorable speeches. He seems to have recharged his batteries and made quite a good comeback until age caught up with him.
I suspect his respect for the British voter never wavered much.
So you put a value on Churchill’s opinions?
The anti-monarchists never seem to offer any post-monarchy arguments. They never explain what affliction would be remedied or what advancement would be realized once the monarchy was eliminated.
It seems to be change just for the sake of change.
As far as I’m concerned Megxit and the passing of Prince Philip have strengthened the case for the monarchy, not weakened it, because a clear case has been made that it is actually duty and dedication that endure, without which celebrity and fame are mere fireworks, dazzling and fleeting.
In theory we are supposed to resent the Royals and their privileged ‘free ride’ of wealth, fame and celebrity – it’s all so ‘unjust’, but what the anti-monarchists don’t get is that it’s quite easy for a nurse, a banker or a binman to identify with duty.
When you have a job to go to, a business to run or a family to raise and you have one of those days when you just want to stay in bed you get up anyway because like it or not it’s what you have to do. Aside from the obvious perks much of Royal life is like that – doing what you have to do – not just what you’d like.
I keep going through phases of half-hearted republicanism…but after Saturday’s lovely service I’m back on the side of the monarchists again. That was a display and a reminder of real, lifelong public service. A monarchy might be undemocratic but what is really the alternative? A president would be elected from the fetid pool of self-serving fools that populate political life. Even if you could get rid of them after a term in office – who’s to say the next incumbent won’t be just as bad, using the position as a springboard for personal gain? Modernisation might just mean you go from the frying pan into the fire, chucking away a precious and unique cultural tradition while you’re at it.
By doing nothing the Queen has avoid criticism. Where would we be if the politicians did nothing? People doing things inevitably make mistakes.
Yes, the Queen didn’t send ‘poor little me’ tweets sharing her feelings and gainsaying that her awful day was much worse than anyone else’s awful day nor did she set up an internet panhandling page.
The world could do with a lot more of that kind of ‘nothing’.
Where would we be if the politicians did nothing?
I pray for the day!
Apart from emergencies like COVID, it says little about recent politicians if there are still laws to be passed when a new lot is elected.
Competent monitoring of the public service is what I mainly expect. Careful minding of the shop has a lot going for it.
I don’t know what is so wonderful about democracy anyway. It hasn’t guaranteed us free speech or liberty.
You would prefer a dictatorship?
Certainly – if I am the Dictator
The point was “democracy” covers a whole range of conditions and evils.
An unlikely scenario I imagine! My daughter thinks the country would be much better if she ran it, that is equally unlikely!
So a lack of democracy is better at guaranteeing free speech? Give us some examples.
The UK in 2021?
God save the Queen. That is all.
God save the English Republic!
It doesn’t show much sign of existing in order to be saved. The support for it never gets to more than a very small percentage of the population.
We tried that under the ‘blessed’ Oliver Cromwell and it didn’t work.
Do you seriously think that is the only possible manifestation of a republic? Never heard of Germany or the United States – both highly successful modern republics, and richer than the UK.
…and the hundreds which are poorer?
The queen actually holds a very important role in our constitution. She asks someone to form a government, she controls the dissolution of parliament and most importantly she is someone the PM of the country can trust totally (probably the only person they can trust totally).
If we get rid of the monarchy you have to find someone else to take up the roles. If the person is a political figure the role of trusted confident and sounding board will be lost forever.
Agreed. I tried to up vote but it didn’t work. Again.
I think it’s good for a leader of the country to have to explain themselves regularly to the monarch – especially when the Queen is as experienced as she is in international relations.
And the PM having to defer to someone else (the PM is rather lower in precedence than the Queen) is an excellent thing.
Can you imagine how insufferable World King Boris would be if he wasn’t accountable – and in second place – to someone?
I am a proud Irish republican. Whether you agree with the system or not (I don’t, unsurprisingly, well certainly not with current setup), the British monarchy has generally throughout history and continues to be an effective fulcrum of unity for the nation. Also, the current queen is a v. admirable person. She embodies the role well. Current thinking on this is flawed IMHO. Ideally, monarchs, like popes, should be ‘occasionally seen and even less heard’. That’s the key to their objectivity, mystique and durability.
The problems (as seen from ‘outside’, if one may be so bold) is not the queen or her ‘line’ per se. It is (i) the wider family issue, which appears more and more as a ‘soap’, fuelled constantly by a fairly guttery press. This I suspect is perhaps one of the most serious current threats to the monarchy.
(ii) the hangers-on, the honours, etc. which reenforces an already deeply divided class system. This is very obvious in the UK, in great state events, education and popular culture. Those at the ‘bottom’ are resigned from birth to their place perennially v. much at the bottom. Those at the top are (as far as I can discern) completely ‘untouchable’. The changes, troubles, etc. such as they are, within English society always appear to come from the ‘middle’, part of whose motivation appear to be a desperation for acceptance by their ‘betters’. This conservativism is one reason I think why England is the only modern European state that has never had a real revolution … Which also helps explain a lot of other things it would be too long to go into here.
(iii) related closely to (ii) above (and the reason I believe why many have and continue to oppose monarchy, is the habitual tendency to cover ‘a multitude of sins’ (especially by people at ‘the top’) with recourse to the excuse that if you criticize, attempt to reform, deal with a damaging individual, you are attacking, the system, you’re attacking the queen, etc. This was the trigger for most European revolutions.
As an aside, the monarchy suits the English people, clearly, and therefore should be defended. If I was English, I would support it. The English are however (and no offence is meant) a deeply conservative (stubborn even!) people, when it comes to all matters socio-political. This can be a strength or a weakness, depending on the given situation. For example, and this is only an opinion, a certain amount of creative constitutional thinking, fresh thinking perhaps on the monarchy’s relations re the ‘Celtic fringe’ over the last few years could well have gone a long way to ameliorating growing crises in Scotland and N. Ireland. Indeed, even a new relationship could have (albeit gradually) evolved that could well bring about a genuinely new unity between all the peoples in these great islands. Irish (Catholic) views of monarchy and indeed of the British monarchy have always been more diverse than may be assumed in Britain. If the British monarchy ever is brought to an end, it will be that unquestioning, unyielding-ness, on the part of a class using it as ‘cover’, that will be it’s downfall. It’s the people, not republics or monarchies that make tyrannies.
Yes, there are far too many ‘royal’ and hangers-on on the payroll and, as you say, the whole honours system is a corrupt racket. Nor do I understand why they need so many homes, castles and palaces etc. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want these places sold off to various oligarchs or Saudi princes.
The homes and palaces are not all owned by the RF. The country owns BP and Windsor, Sandringham and Balmoral are owned by the Queen and various other members of the family own others. Those who live in KP pay rent.
Yes and No. As an Irishman you will have heard of Cromwell who executed our king and ruled as a despot until his own death. Our Civil War predates those in other European states and the American one by centuries. And even after that one, we had major constituional changes with just the threat of force – as when James II was forced out and William of Orange invited in with strict curbs on his powers. We just had our revolutions so long ago that everyone has forgotten them. They were also less bloody.
Thank you for this insightful and refreshing analysis of the monarchy in the UK. You have hit the nail on the head in identifying the conservative nature of the English and also many of the Scottish, Welsh and definitely the Northern Irish (which the Labour Party is finding out to it’s cost). For me, if we accept that a “Head of State” is needed or is a good thing, then I want one which can represent the nation outside of party politics, which an hereditary monarch can do.In addition, they represent for good or ill, the many major examples of constitutional and social change and history which they have contributed to (George V support for the Parliament Act 1911 for example). Conservative but not unquestioning! I recall a visit to the EU instituions many years ago and an American and French aquaintance bragging about their respective revolutions of 1776 and 1789. They turned to me and sneered “What did the British do”? I replied “We cut the head off a king long before that practice became popular elsewhere”! That shut them up!
I think you’re right in many ways. Perhaps, in these islands we all need to lower our shields a bit, but we ALL must do it together. I am currently reading Desmond Seward’s new book on the Jacobite phenomenon. Readable and refreshing, an era which sadly is now forgotten about in Ireland, or is more ‘selectively’ remembered. It is a master class in the unforseen consequences of closed minds and religious and cultural intolerance. Ironically, it was the last great cause that united a whole smasgabord of people across these islands, who have since sadly been divided: Irish Catholics, Anglican Tories, Scottish Covenanters, English Quakers, even the Welsh and Manx. A remarkable insight into the great potential of monarchy, but also it’s vulnerabilities in the face people solely moved by intolerance or hard cash!
Thank you for that, but as I recall it was the English who cut off the Scotch King’s head.
The British had yet to be invented.
You are right, of course, Charles; I was trying to be inclusive! In any case, I think the English/British distinction would have been lost on my aquaintances!
Excellent comment thank you. The honours system in particular is a disgrace as are the bishops and hereditary peers in the Lords
Agreed, the whole thing is an embarrassing cesspit of mediocrity and should be consigned to the dustbin of history immediately.
However, sadly, the PM uses it as a form of patronage for the useless, difficult or otherwise redundant members of the parasitical political class (PPC). Even if ‘they’ demure, their wives adore the fact that they can book a table at say ‘La Gavroche’ as “Lady Muck” or whatever.
An interesting comment. I was beginning to worry about this piece’s Anglo-centricity. Granted, the separation from Rome was an English (Welsh) manoeuvre but, in 1603, so far as the monarchy was concerned, it ceased to be a solely English (Welsh) matter and in 1707 and the union of the parliaments cemented the situation politically. I am used to hearing some Americans referring to the “Queen of England” but not native writers of the more thoughtful kind, unless they have a point to make.
I was surprised to hear a popular broadcaster admit last year that he was not sure if Northern Ireland is part of “Britain” and I fear confusion about our national identity abounds. H.M. Queen Elizabeth II is — in the short version — the current monarch of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland but this does not seem to feature in the thinking of the BBC and some sporting bodies who continually shout about “Team GB”, when they seem to mean to say “Team UK”. Commonly and thoughtlessly used expressions which exclude Northern Ireland and Scotland exacerbate tensions and may make some of Her Majesty’s subjects feel resentful.
An elected head of state? In an old democracy? A guarantee that half the nation would always hate its own figurehead. See the USA lately.
What I like about having the Queen is that if I defer to her I don’t have to defer to anybody else. It’s very liberating.
What I like about having presidents is that deferring to them confers absolutely no benefit!
And yet your president lives in a palace and your elected representatives are all plutocrats! Go figure as you say in the land of the free….
I’m sorry I don’t mean to be facetious. The point I’m making is that I used to see the monarchy as an affront to a certain egalitarian spirit whereas now I see it as a guarantor of it. The Queen is a sort of embodiment of the spirit of the nation – once I accept her spiritual authority everyone else becomes my equal regardless of whether they went to a posher school, have a bigger house or more money. But hey, maybe that’s all bollocks?
Precisely. The Queen had as much say as we do. And it’s something bigger than you or I or her and will outlast it all.
It’s the nation, our society, all. And the monarch represents a part of it at the top.
The Queen probably has a little more influence than you or me, and one thing you perhaps overlook is the existence of the ‘black spider letters’. If Prince Charles’s letters were treated with the respect they deserved (and he deserves – ‘heir to the throne’ does not, I believe warrant political power greater than that of any other citizen), the replies he received would have been from a junior clerk, saying “You letter has been forwarded to the Minister and will be dealt with in due course.”
Not only does the Queen probably have more influence than you or me, she warrants it, given her experience.
Reflect on the fact that when, say, Trump or Obama meets the Queen, he meets someone who has met many more POTUSs than they have, and of course a great number of other leaders too.
The Land of the Free…hur hur..
Better than the wretched USA where a white policeman deliberately shoots a white woman protestor at point blank range and gets away with it.
As case of “blue murder” if ever there was one.
Please see my second post – sorry I didn’t mean to be rude!
That probably depends on if they like the person deferring to them.
I’d like the Queen more if she occasionally donated an MRI scanner to the odd hospital, or hosted injured servicemen at Sandringham.
Let’s not be too starry-eyed about how hard it is to wave beatifically from the back of a car on the way to or from opening things. Boring yes, hard no.
Fair enough – I personally would love to be able to see more of the artworks she owns but that’s another matter
Ever heard of doing good by stealth? If they were contributing to such things as you describe do you think we would be told?
You might not be impressed, but much of the rest of this nation is thrilled to have the chance of waving back at her, and I expect that compares extremely favourably with most nations lacking a monarch. Most people don’t even know who the head of state is of republics other than the USA.
Injured servicemen are very well cared for and rehabilitated at Tedworth House. Harry used to visit them before he went away.
“if I defer to her I don’t have to defer to anybody else.”
I am afraid you are deluding yourself. There are whole tiers of people to whom you have to defer – and whose existence is defined by their relative deference to each other and their expectation of being deferred to by you.
I don’t know who first said it, but there is a certain truth in the saying that the only person in the country who is not really a snob is the Queen, because to her everyone is merely a subject.
Ok maybe defer is the wrong word and yes I’m certainly deluded
Well Spain got rid of the King for Franco 1939, and that was a problematic thing. The king of Greece removed in 1973, not good, King of Iran, 1979, really bad, king of Afghanistan also 1979, really bad. King of Iraq, I think 1973, bad deal, king of Syria and Libya 1960s – 70s, bad ideas… king of Egypt removed 1953? Cannot remember, did not work well. Balkans, Russia, Caucasuss, not good losing the kings, Even the Dowager Empress of China beats Mao by a mile.
Remaining Kings of Morocco, Jordan, good deals, hereditary leaders in Kuwait, KSA (obviously), and the different Gulf states, worked well. Spain got its king back in 1978 after finally getting rid of Franco.
I totally agree with your argument and I want to keep our (Australian) Queen, but simple use of the most basic references would have helped you.
Spain got rid of its king in 1931, then had a Civil War. Franco won that war, had a referendum on the monarchy in 1947, and died in 1975, when Spain got a king again.
Afghanistan 1973.
Syria 1920.
Libya 1969.
Iraq 1958.
Good on you for Greece and Iran.
I did it from memory, and my memory around late 1970’s got a bit of a pounding, although I know Afghanistan and I think 63 was when the Communists took lots of power, 1973 the Republic formed (The Kings commie Cousin) and the king exiled, and 1979 was the Russian invasion –
And was trying to make the point how Kings are Stability, and thus mostly a good thing.
This ignores some important factors. For example Russia:
1) Tzar Nicholas was an ineffective and ineffectual leader, whose blind fealty to a mad monk and innabilty to run a country was the reason for his overthrow, rather than a comparatively better alternative to what replaced him. That the regime that took the monarchy’s place was worse is ultimately his fault for not being capable of holding his country together. Much the same can be said of many of the monarch you reference. The regimes were not working to begin with, and we’re overthrown by worse regimes they could not stave off.
2) the king of Egypt was overthrown by Alexander The Great in 332 BC. After which they built a cool lighthouse, and a pretty great library.
OK, forced to google;
“King of Egypt was the title used by the ruler of Egypt between 1922 and 1951. When the United Kingdom issued the Unilateral Declaration of Egyptian Independence on 28 February 1922, thereby ending its protectorate over Egypt, Egypt’s Sultan Fouad I issued a decree on 15 March 1922 whereby he adopted the title of King of Egypt” wiki
I forget the hole chain but the downfall of the Egyptian King led to the Pan Arabism and the 6 day war, and all kinds of bad things, I need to have dinner so will not try to remember how his downfall helped lead to the current mess.
Part of the reason Nicolas was killed is because he WAS Liberalizing, modernizing, and the Commies had to get him before he made things too good for the post-serfs.. Like the shot heard around the world, the Francis Ferdinand killing starting WWI was because the Monarchy was Liberalizing so the radicals killed him because many were getting what they wanted, and thus were not so angry with the monarchy, and thus not so eager for rebellion. He was shot to force a rebellion he was stopping by liberalizing. Ironic. And so the cascading alliances, and so WWI.
He built a railway across Siberia out of cheap low grade steel that fractured in subzero temperatures. Whatever he may have been trying to accomplish, he couldn’t execute it correctly. Maybe if he had the people would have seen the obvious benefits of modernization.
On that reasoning, if the U.K. got a republic and it was a disaster it would be the fault of the deposed royals.
If they got it because the monarchy wasn’t working, then yes.
This is not a zero sum game. Cuba would not have turned communist were not the previous regime hopelessly corrupt. This does not make Castro’s Cuba good, nor does Castro’s oppression justify the previous regime. Revolutions often (perhaps more often than not) result in worse governments than those they replace. But they don’t happen when the existing government works.
Then the fact that very few want a republic proves the monarchy is working.
When Alexander conquered Egypt it was a satrapy, part of the Persian Empire. The ‘kings’ of Egypt, whom I presume you mean the Pharoahs, were long gone. That was in 331. One of Alexander’s generals, Ptolemy, annexed the satrapy of Egypt in the anarchy following Alexander’s death. His dynasty was responsible for the various innovations you mention.
before sneering at other contributors historical perspective, maybe get hold of a few facts of your own?
Even across the Channel, get rid of the dreadful monarchy and you get……Robespierre, Napoleon, a succession of short lived republics. Plus a string of petty and larger intrusions on French life, such as the attempt to crush French linguistic diversity. Everyone must speak French. The obsolete regional tongues must perish, even if an overall majority speak them.
Even in modern Bavaria, the Wittelbachs are fondly remembered. The Bavarians lived with them for hundreds of years and they were hardly worse than the Communists or Adolf H. Even Ludwig’s lunatic 19th century extravagance on fairy tale castles produced a collection of tourist attractions.
Silly sausage! You looked at the evidence not ideology.
George III kicked out by America to create one of the most successful countries on Earth.
Give it time, and remember ‘self praise is no recommendation’.
Incidentally the scandalous failure to prosecute the murderer of Ms Alisa Babbitt is an appalling example of the US Justice system at its nadir.
Would you say that the USA is more successful than Canada?
It WAS Lord North …dummy
They may well continue, so long as America can resist the urge of a hereditary presidency, rotated between dynasties from the two main parties.
But having got its King back, Spain forced him out because of his wrongdoings
Not the whole royal family though.
I often thank of Haile Selassie. OK, he was no model ruler, but how has Ethiopia fared since then? At least monarchies have often evolved into constitutional monarchies, and found that it works, despite abstract theory.
All you have to do is imagine Jeremy Corbyn elected by 50% plus one vote on a low turnout to dismiss the idea of an elected head of state.
Like the vote to implement the London Mayor or the Welsh Assembly.
“For ultimately, progressive calls to abolish the monarchy — whether as head of Church or state — amount not to a democratisation of power, but a removal of the principal safeguard we have against a return of the political and moral absolutism that preceded England’s Reformation and Glorious Revolution. Should the mounting demands for authority over the moral exception merge with similar calls for authority over the political one, the relative freedom guaranteed for us by our ceremonial priest-kings may be replaced by something far more direct and assertive.”
I’ve been saying this for some time myself, and it’s not just the Monarchy, but also the various other institutions that separate Church and State which are under attack. All forms of these attacks have one thing in common: they would lead to the fusion of moral and political power in a single monstrous regiment. It would not have to become concentrated in the hands of single dictator, it would be enough for it to be a single political party which would then ensure it became the government of a single party State. We are being dragged towards this danger at an increasing rate it seems, towards a form of government that is intemperate, intolerant, morally tyrannical and yet devoid of any of the various forms of intelligence required to understand the likely consequences of its own actions.
I would in times past have argued that this danger is only coming from the political Left, but the attitude displayed by the Tory Party to the principles of liberty over the past year have left me aghast, so I can’t do that any more. The danger is real, it’s just all around us.
As her maj reduces to gruanidads to foaming at the mouth, we must organise weekly state visits to islington until they all choke on their own bile.
Well said Vik !
The monarchy and its associated pomp and ceremony are one of the main reasons tourists want to come to our country in their millions, spending billions in the process. In cash terms the value of such a world-renowned brand, established over millennia is beyond calculation.
Only a complete idiot or the worst kind of ideologue would want to dispense with such a golden goose without good reason. And no, jealousy of people who are born rich when you aren’t doesn’t cut the mustard.
Utter nonsense. Legoland Windsor receives more visitors annually than Windsor Castle. People come to the UK for many different reasons, not just the monarchy. In any case, France has the greatest number of visitors in the world and they haven’t had any kind of monarchy since 1871.
The Queen is probably the most famous woman in the world. Head of State of 16 independent, sovereign countries, her image on the coinage of some 30. She regularly travels all these countries, meeting rulers and small children alike. The monarch’s soft power reach is enormous.
The end does not justify the means.
Tourism is the least of reasons for retaining the monarchy. In fact, it’s not a reason at all. The monarchy stands for something much higher than sordid foreign exchange earnings.
I agree it is the least of reasons. Others here have written much more eloquently on the main ones. It remains a reason nevertheless.
Long live the Queen.
And all who sail in her.
it does make you wonder what kind of ‘progress’ the progressives are seeking. It’s mainly the left, as they want to change the most, and as we saw in the case of Portland once they get their way the future is not bright.
I tend to agree with them the world has been getting worse. Lots of that though is for the very reason that they have abandoned enlightenment values.
Science has massively improved lives in so many ways that I just can’t understand how they can doubt it. Yes it can be politicised I mean you just have to look at climate change (I mean seriously if the world is going to explode in 2030 or whatever unless you reduce carbon, logic says start with big carbon producers such as China, India and the USA, maybe boycott them until they do their part for the planet but woe betide you if you say something logical like this and instead its up to the UK with its 2% of emissions to sort it out – this is just obvious nonsense) and covid to see that science has been politicised and scientific “Facts” that really aren’t are now the norm and facts that are inconvenient give rise to the scream of denier. Nevertheless in so many other areas science has hard a largely positive effect on most people’s lives.
Government I am completely with younger people. Politicians and our civil service are in the main corrupt to the core. It is pretty much irrelevant how you vote (certainly the main parties – tory, labour, lib dem, green, snp) you will get the same outcome more or less, and I guess I agree our agency to change in the current system is non existent. but hereafter we disagree.
Freedom of speech is sacrosanct, yes words can hurt but if you prevent enough people saying what they want for long enough they will eventually turn to tried and tested methods. Minorities should have the same rights as everybody else (which they have long had, if they werent always enforced then there was the problem, also I have experienced plenty of occassions where minorities have blatantly discriminated against a member of the majority, how is that good or reasonable), giving them protected status is a licence for resentment. The “Equality” act is state sanctioned discrimination (no doubt deliberately created by an elite following the old method of divide and conquer). I am baffled how younger peoples reasoning can’t see this but I doubt their ability to reason in the classical sense.
Finally agency. If our current representative system is a complete failure and a farce (and it pretty much is) then again I cannot understand why the solution is not to get rid of the representatives as much as possible and vote directly, perhaps its laziness or fear of making poor decisions or I don’t know what but the idea that giving all the power to a “strong man” will improve your personal agency is again just a complete lack of reason.
I am very pessimistic for the future, we are basically already in an authoritarian world where dissent if not of the prescribed kind is not allowed and people are routinely bullied and cancelled for it. It will only get worse as far as I can see.
Oh and I guess to make it relevant to the article, this is with constitutional monarch or president, it doesn’t make much difference.
Doesn’t the UK’s Equality Act 2010 also outlaw discrimination against a white person, on grounds race, by persons of whatever colour?
just a point of pedantry,
“Henry…….his right to be obeyed came direct from God.”
Why does everybody, especially journos, say “direct” when it should be “directLY”?
The importance of the monarchy is the power it denies to politicians.
Nice thought, but in reality is is very useful to PMs to give a glossy imprimatur and patriotic veneer to their policies and militarism. The monarchy is part and parcel of the military industrial infrastructure.
Military Industrial Complex is USA,which is why biden was shoehorned in Dubious Election victory…..Eisenhower warned on it in 1961 Stepping down to JFK inauguration….”jFK” suggested it hand a hand in Lax Security in Texas ,love field,dallas on november 22,1963..Although jFK ,would probably have died of Addison’s by 1966 if
The huge advantage of the monarchy is that we have a Head of State who is above politics, and can represent the country (e.g. on overseas visits) without the taint of election (which means that many people voted against them). If Prime Ministers became Head of State, I can’t imagine many people who would have been happy with both of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair in the role.
There may be better solutions, but an elected Head of State is not one of them.
So, let us have a new Royal Yacht. It is a great advertisement for Britain. I am afraid the Queen may not benefit from it, but Charles and William could certainly put it to good use for the country.
The novelty of the British constitutional settlement was the radical but paradoxical separation of authority and power. Authority requires permanence and abstraction, the latter being necessary for the former. Power is, by its nature, temporary. Power with authority is temporary too and is too often undone by death or by blood. Democracy is the least bad way of transferring power, however ‘the people’ do not provide the continuity to be the ultimate source of authority. The easiest way to undermine democracy is to invest it with authority, the easiest way to undermine a monarch is to give her power. As an example of the virtues of pragmatism, the British model takes some beating.
What on earth is “progressive” about any of the pureist republican views on the Crown?? It is almost as if the crew who wish to ditch history either in favour of “feelings” or a purer society, are forgiven their idiocies through this description. After all, “progressive” lawyers formed the core of the remainer project, which – & I hadn’t understood this at all until the Brexit arguments were fully aired – were “progressively” working to replace the UKs common law with a codified euro-version. Progressive?? Not at all – simply working to consolidate power for the few, because they know better than the ignoramuses who voted against their centralising instincts.
This is a very strange argument. Mary herself says that a ‘cabal of senior English statesmen’ got rid of James II – in other words, organised a coup against legitimate government. And far from being a despot, James II had tried to work within the Elizabethan religious settlement by promoting toleration. You could see a lot of England’s, and later the UK’s, problems coming from 1689: a cosy coterie of the established powers making decisions for the country, often without accountability.
If James had stood and fought the Dutch invader, rather than running away, things would have been very different.
Suppose we have a ceremonial president, of the Irish model, granted exactly the same duties, responsibilities and limits as the Queen has today, but appointed by election, rather than by birth.
It is a strange thing to say of a monarch, but the Queen knows her place, and I am not convinced that a superannuated politician, buoyed up by his, or her, “democratic legitimacy” would know it as well. The temptation to interfere would be too great. People go into politics to exercise power, and to be seen to do so, not to smile, wave, and say a few quiet words in the PM’s ear behind the scenes.
There are negligible “progressive calls to abolish the monarchy”.
This is just a straw man for the sake of clickbait – increasingly common on Unherd.
I’m not sure that the Queen’s position as nominal head of state is able to prevent tyranny – that may have been so at one time, but that’s doubtful now. The pressure on her to agree to the prorogation of Parliament, and her obvious powerlessness to intervene over planned destruction of her subjects’ rights and liberties (e.g. the planned “vaccine passports”) shows how the modern monarchy is little more than window dressing, all theatre. We’re disturbingly close to tyranny now, and I can’t see the Queen being able to do a thing about it.
God forbid that we end up in the same situation as the USA, electing a new King every four years who then spends most of his time either sucking up to or, ( very rarely), bravely attempting to challenge the established DC Aristocracy, this was the undoing of DJT in the end, despite the voters of middle America liking what they saw.
A point of information: the Pope wasn’t officially infallible until the XIXth century. His infallibility only applies to dogma.
Imagine for a moment the Commander in Chief being President Corbyn. Enough said.
And imagine the current “head” of the venerable Anglican church being the current Archbishop…
It is strange that so many who objected to female Bishops were happy to be part of a church with a female Head.
Ironically, the “Glorious Revolution” deposed a King who granted civil liberties to religious minorities in favour of an Anglican hegemony. Penal Laws in Ireland saw Catholics and Presbyterians denied basic civil, political and economic rights for well over a century, condemning society to poverty and ignorance. Catholics and non-conformists were not allowed to sit as MPs in Parliament until 1829. But why let truth get in the way of a good story?
None of us like to admit to the rotten parts of our history. If there is a silver lining to the Whig hagiography of the Glorious Revolution, it is the belief that Britain had an obligation to defend civil liberties, even if you had to be a member of the established church to enjoy all the perks of citizenship.
The arguments in favour of constitutional monarchy essentially boils down to “if it ain’t broke, why fix it?” The Queen strikes me as an exemplary public servant, whose devotion to duty is manifest. It’s less clear why electing a Head of State in future would be worse than having to put up with a hereditary monarch for the rest of his or her lifetime.
The monarchy as an institution could certainly do with some reform. It is both bizarre and sectarian to insist that the head of state must also be the head of the Church of England in the twenty-first century. That doesn’t necessarily require the end of constitutional monarchy, or even the disestablishment of the Church of England.
The only way you can be correct on your last point is if you can provide an alternative arrangement in which the separation of Church and State is maintained. The Monarchy is a pretty good way of achieving this, because the Monarch’s abstraction from politics also achieves the abstraction of politics from the Church. There are other ways of course, notably the French system that guarantees secularism in the operation of the State while nonetheless being a Catholic country, but that system looks even more open to the sort of dangers mentioned in the article, namely the back-door entry of moral authority into politics facilitated by keeping the established moral system away from power.
As regards the rest, I think it might be a bit harsh to judge the sweep of history in such terms: we could also point out that the oft-repeated claim that modern democracy began in Britain 300-odd years ago clashes rather abruptly with the awkward fact that women didn’t have the vote for the first 2/3 of that period of time. This is is of course true, but that doesn’t mean that the first claim is necessarily invalid, because it refers to a process, not a fixed state of affairs.
To minimize tinkering I envisaged a transfer of authority from the Monarch to the Archbishop of Canterbury whilst keeping all other institutions intact, which might also allow Charles to fulfill his stated aspiration to be Defender of all the Faiths.
Certainly not trying to be harsh historically. Britain has a great deal to be proud of, including pioneering parliamentary democracy. It could be argued that universal (white) male suffrage in the US by the 1840s was a direct descendant of that tradition, even if the UK lagged behind. All men didn’t get the vote in the UK until 1918. What frustrates me is the all-too-human tendency to remember the good bits and forget the bad bits.
What Archbishop Mucus Welby, totally wokeist & unable to form A coherent argument,for his ”Climate change” religion!! & devotion to Harry &megham
“The role of our Queen is to symbolise that tyrannical twitch we can’t wholly eradicate even in democracies,… And she must do so without availing herself of actual power. As such, she acts as a kind of inoculation against real tyranny …
… Her role is to act, with total self-effacement, as the fulcrum between tyranny and democracy.”
This is an interesting, nuanced interpretation. It brings to mind Jordan Peterson’s analogous conceptual realms of order (eg; democracy) and chaos (eg; tyranny) and the line (eg; the fulcrum) between them.
That was an awesome piece, totally with the grain of my instinct, but providing the intellectual and historical underpinnings. And now I know a little about the Glorious Revolution. Notably our robust and durable, but unwritten, constitution is in fact the outcome of a grubby, backdoor deal with a foreign interloper! Quite an argument for immigration.
And the “homeopathic dilution of theocratic tyranny” is a phrase of such beauty I will long remember it.
Thé Pope was not infallible before 1870, so your view on the Middle Ages Catholic Church is not quite right
In New Zealand the representative of the Monarchy is the Governor General. They’re widely respected and well picked and have modest terms. It doesn’t seem a stretch to have a figurehead president using the same system we currently have for picking the Gov Gen.
In the meantime the Queen is widely respected and there’s no real republican movement, but I suspect when she ‘leaves’ there may be a move towards becoming a republic.
It doesn’t say much for schooling in any part of the UK that in 2021 an intelligent well read columnist can treat the Glorious Revolution of 1689 with such confident claptrap. Ask yourself who James II’s European backers were. You will find the answer doesn’t include Rome. Ask yourself how the Ulster Protestants (whom Winston Churchill’s father predicted would “fight and be right” against self-government for Ireland) got themselves into Ireland in the first place. Not with the Norman or any medieval invaders. The great absence on which this piece erects its foundation for the three centuries which followed the Glorious Revolution and on which it sets out to expound is the British Empire and its Imperialism, to which it conscripted not only the Scots and the Irish but the eager and ambitious Central European class of professional monarchs of which the late Duke of Edinburgh was one of the last, and whom, as an individual, it would be churlish to blame for any of the results and progress of the Great Imperial Gamble, which followed the theological Brexit the author describes. If the Queen’s constitutional role is still open to debate, that debate should only be embarked upon when we have established who exactly DOES govern the UK, in practice, in these days, on what principles and in whose interests.
It might be possible that the existence of an unbroken monarchy in England for hundreds of years has saved the country from the terrible experiences other nations had to undergo. Countries like Germany and the Sovjetunion where the roll of monarch was abolished without even the most basic democratic structures in place to control conflicting concepts about how life in a good society should be formed. We live in a time of spiritual erosion. Life becomes a commodity, up for grabs, when human beings don’t accept powers higher than themselves anymore. The Queen of England as the Head of State and Head of Church comes as near the Divine as is possible when the Divine itself no longer enjoys the obvious place it should have in people’s attention. Britain would enter on a dangerous journey should the constitutional monarchy be abandoned. Who would be there to centre the conflicting interests people in a country rightly have? She serves as a sort of prism for all sorts of mindsets, philosophies and designs on what life should be about. As queen, even as the human being with personal failures she certainly is, she symbolizes that which is higher than even the highest goal any individual might pursue and helps to keep the sometimes overheated atmosphere in society grounded. In this roll she is indispensable. It’s the Queen or tyranny.
I used to be a republican and can pinpoint the day I changed my mind – 23 May 2014. UKIP topped the poll in the European elections. This was before all that followed, of course – the 2015 Tory majority, which in turn led to the 2016 referendum and all the fallout that has followed that. Before the election of Trump. It struck me then that if the UK population was capable of voting in such vast numbers for Nigel Farage in a European Elections, they were capable of electing him, or someone like him, as President too if we gave them the opportunity to elect their head of state.
I remain convinced of the theoretical principles underpinning British republicanism: it is utterly bonkers that our head of state is decided by birth-right. It baffles me that we worship and obsess over one family for pretty arbitrary reasons in a way no less weird than anything the North Koreans do for their head of state. The central claim of this article, that it’s hereditary monarchy or tyranny, seems absurd to me – sure, if we introduced an American-style constitution here that could well be true (it became true there in 2016), but it wouldn’t be inevitable and would be avoided if we had a president with a role and powers akin to Ireland or Germany. Abolishing the monarchy, disestablishing the CoE (to properly separate church and state), abolishing the House of Lords, would all be progressive moves to help dilute our still rather medieval class-dominated society. (And as a side point, I rather resent
being chucked in with Jeremy Corbyn in the article’s definition of ‘progressives’ – I regard him as anything but progressive – hard-left is just as regressive as hard-right).
Most people who hold these views have great admiration and affection for the Queen. I think she has been an incredible servant for this country, and I don’t think republicans can just cast aside the legitimate arguments about the stability and constancy the longevity and impartiality of her reign has brought. We just feel (or in my case, used to feel) that in a modern democracy, our own boys and girls should grow up knowing they have the opportunity to become their country’s head of state one day – and not have to fawn over a random family who are just people with the same fallibilities that the rest of us all have too. It’s a simple argument of meritocracy that we shouldn’t be teaching our children deference towards others purely because of the family they were born into.
But on 23 May 2014 I concluded, imperfect and academically unjustifiable though I might find the notion of monarchy, the upheaval of trying to abolish it and all the fallout that would cause, only for Britain to duly elect Nigel Farage or someone similar, would not be worth it. I’d far rather have the Queen, or Charles, or William, cutting ribbons at community centres and holding banquets for world leaders than someone who would divide us (I’d be just as against an ‘arch-remainer’ type being President for the same reason).
Besides, we’re a democracy and – by-and-large, that means majoritarian decision-making. And a clear majority of the public want a monarchy, so a monarchy they shall have.
To bastardise a popular phrase – monarchy is the worst constitutional system, except for all the others.
“Her role is to act, with total self-effacement, as the fulcrum between tyranny and democracy.” So tell me, what are the ‘fulcrums’ in other democracies without a monarchy, because there’s plenty of them out there, and they aren’t tyrranies (yet)? Ergo, a monarchy itself is not necessary to preserve democracy against tyrrany (ironic it has come to this…) even if it might appear to be useful. Checks and balances of various kind seem to do the job otherwise. Sure, a president in place of a king or queen is hardly ideal, but at least the people elect their president in democracies, which you know, is kind of the whole point of a democracy! The ancient Athenians would have a thing or two to say about this…
Sure, we can argue all day long about how effective this whole revolving door process is, and there are arguments in favour of the monarchy as a moderating, stabilising force, impartial to political whims, but then as they have no political will of their own, what’s going on exactly? They’re a symbol yes, but for what – stultification? They’re just doorstops, just ‘there’ and everyone can feel better because they at least keep the door open as opposed to constantly opening and shutting it? Well, maybe this country needs the door to be slammed in their face every now and then to avoid getting complacent! I’m not saying it would necessarily be better than having a monarchy as is right now, but it would be more democratic and could be just the shake-up this country needs politically speaking. Or not, it could be a disaster, but hey, change is usually painful after all.
That is one seriously roundabout argument to make a dubious point. Head of state or figurehead of state? Essentially powerless, but essential bulwark against tyranny. And “spiritual” head? Of what? The decrepit C of E? The article is full of words like “symbolic” “homeopathic” “a sort of” this or that. An essential “symbol of continuity” who nevertheless can be switched out by elder statesmen. It would seem your most notable bulwark against tyranny in recent history was Mrs. Thatcher. Well, if the monarchy is robust enough to regularly occupy the progs’ attention and keep them out of real mischief, I guess that’s something. Oh, and I did like the late Prince Philip and his knack for blunt remarks.
It is staggering that a single country, let alone dozens of them, manage to get by without a monarch. Do they realise they are living in tyranny? The question you should pose to yourself is this: if we had no monarch would we feel the need to create one. Then it becomes clear that a monarch is not the necessity which you claim it is.
I’d class myself as a republican and would certainly vote as such if/when we get another vote here in Australia….but….. even i admire the strong sense of duty to the country exhibited by Queen Elizabeth. She is a remarkable person. I suspect her son will not be anywhere near as steadfast and competent.
Across the country I think that quite a majority would agree that we need the Queen. But if you were to ask, ‘Do we need Charles?’ ………………
Yes!
What is the problem which you and others have with Charles? Somebody mentioned his divorce. But really? A reason to disregard the right line of succession is …..what?
What’s wrong with Charles? Anyway, your answer is irrelevant, because he will be King, God willing.
No! Definitely NOT! How can Charles possibly become king when he openly supports the quasi-fascist Klaus Schwab in his eagerness to see a new world order which involves Chinese style domination and the eradication of democracy? And all this because Charles feels we haven’t paid sufficient attention to his ridiculous warnings about tipping points and a non existent climate crisis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeykREAlYSg&feature=youtu.be
I’m with Thomas Paine.
PS. The Royal Society began before the Glorious Revolution and as the name implies, was approved by Charles II.
Why did hundreds of millions follow Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pt et al?
And through a century where countless millions of people were massacred due to the policies that the great dictators espoused?
I believe more and more that it is because we all need a figurehead to follow and honour.
Apart from the huge respect and affection that I have for our Queen, I believe that the benign figurehead provided by her and the Royal Family is irreplaceable.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/863893/support-for-the-monarchy-in-britain-by-age/
I think the monarchy is safe. No real need for this article at all.
“Progressive calls to abolish the monarchy forget the sinister alternative” Sadly, I think these ‘progressives’ might prefer that sinister alternative.
The theory that the British Constitution rides on is the idea of the “Monarch in Parliament”. This evolved in the 19th Century to what might be called the “Decent Chaps Rule”. Under it, the Monarch will not refuse a request made by the Prime Minister but, at the same time, the Prime Minister would not make a request that the Monarch might have qualms about refusing. This has been constantly eroding since the war; Prime Ministers, for example will always have a request for a general election approved because the Queen will never refuse such a request. The decision to prorogue Parliament in 2019 was approved after the Queen was advised by just three of the 600 members of the Privy Council, hand picked to advise her to agree. The courts over-ruled that but the government has threatened to remove any such power from the courts and will probably do so.
We actually have now a dictatorship; the Prime Minister simply regards parliament as something he occasionally attends when he feels he can make political capital out of it. The days when important announcements were made to Parliament first went years ago. The Prime Minister can lie to Parliament and any member who says he is lying will be suspended for doing so. A general election is now a once every now and then opportunity to elect a Prime Minister subject to virtually no constraints save rebellions in his own party, most of whom can be threatened with punishment or bribed with preferment not to do so.
Instead of waxing lyrical about a system of government that is visibly failing the press focusses on the tedious personal bitcheries of members of the Royal family (nothing new here, the Regency period was the same).
That period was what was known as “Old Corruption” where the Monarchy, Parliament the Law and the Press worked with baneful inadequacy and allowed Money to rule unhindered. We are back there now, a malfunctioning democracy praising itself on the public spectacles it can put on.
Excellent article Mary, thank you. I am not as educated as you, left school at 16 to join the Army in the 70’s, but have always felt that the Monarchy inhabits the space that a potential tyranny must have and will not be capable of taking. Even now I know that most young people kind of know this in the same way as I do….instinct. Don’t worry too much about the half-educated lefty youth of the media studies generation, they will grow up.
Perhaps you forget that the sovereign can also be removed by Parliament e.g in the so-called Glorious Revolution. In that case it replaced a monarch with another more suited to Parliament. It could equally replace the monarch with no one or an elected dictator . Your argument also ignores the alternative to monarchy , an elected ceremonial President who can genuinely represent the people and not be a reflection of an outdated class system . Imagine perhaps President David Attenborough . Are you arguing that Ireland ,with its poet -president is on the road to tyranny?
Like with most European nations its a bit early to tell.
I do indeed take the point about the value of a constitutional monarchy but the reality is that our liberties have been taken away in the last year and a tyranny established, so it didn’t matter when the issue was put to the test.
Sorry, but this is utter tripe.
Having an apolitical monarch provides absolutely zero protection against the rise of authoritarianism. If we’ve got this far it’s not because the Queen is some magical British-identity-affirming mascot whose image invokes calm when contemplated with tea and biscuits, but because the British people are relatively moderate in their politics.
“The Left wants to murder the Queen! And then England will collapse!” is alarmist horseshit, and wherever you sit on the political spectrum it’s dishonest to pretend otherwise.
Long live the Queen. We should count ourselves very luck to have her as head of state.
It’s an emotional thing for the Brits.
People should start to realise that the monarchy are in fact parasites on the tax-payers.
They have been given a roll to play in return for non-interference in the system. They still have ultimate control behind the scenes and she controls the banksters though.
We have been indoctrinated that there is something called a democracy, but we can see from the current behaviour of the of the politicians during this Covid hoax there is no such thing, they ride roughshod over the citizens, destroying their lives and livelihood while they play the game.
Did the queen not commit the ultimate treason in 1992 and allowed and abetted the surrender the country to the EU under the Maastricht Treaty?
Was the Magna Carta 1215 ignored by the queen?
Not really.
Any treaty involves compromising our absolute sovereignty, in an agreement with other states which also compromise theirs. You could describe it as pooling sovereignty to achieve shared objectives. Similarly, contracts and even relationships compromise our ability to do exactly what we want all the time.
And it turns out that we could leave the EU, so it wasn’t even a permanent or irrevocable pooling of sovereignty.
As for the monarchy’s ultimate control of the Banksters – I thought that was the Illuminati, under the influence of the Lizardmen (or is it the other way round)?
It was just a couple of years ago that I learned that the Glorious Revolution featured a 500-ship Dutch invasion fleet. And I thought that Britain hadn’t been invaded since 1066! Or was it 1326 when Edward II’s Queen Isabella and her boyfriend invaded, again from the Low Countries?
And why did the Dutch invade? To keep the Catholic French under control. Yep, pretty soon they sent Marlborough to Europe to start the Second Hundred Years War that ended in 1815 with the End of France as We Know It.
Know what won the Second Hundred Years War? Dutch Finance and central banking, that’s what. And in 1815 the National Debt hit about 250 percent of GDP. Yay the Bank of England.
There perhaps hasn’t been much meddling by the monarchy in the affairs of state in Britain in recent centuries but, alas, the office of the monarch has allowed itself to be used to sack two elected governments in Australia, one in 1932, and most recently in 1975. In the latter event the Australian Governor-General carried out the actual sacking but this was after extensive documented consultations with the Palace. At no time did QEII instruct her Australian representative, the G-G, that this was not to occur in her name.
That’s a somewhat misleading comment if you don’t mind me saying and provides a perfect illustration as to why the UK monarch, be it in the UK, Australia or anywhere else where she is constitutional head, should not be dragged into everyday domestic politics by self-interested domestic politicians of the day.
I’m sure that the Palace and hopefully others learnt a valuable lesson back then in terms of its reluctant and forced role in the dismissal of Gough Whitlam’s domestically very unpopular at the time government, but it was essentially orchestrated by the Governor General, an Australian, and the also obviously Australian opposition leader, Malcolm Fraser, who immediately formed the caretaker government that replaced Whitlam’s and then went on to form Australia’s next government after an overwhelming election victory.
Following an FOI request, letters show that the Queen was not herself party to Whitlam’s imminent dismissal and it was also likely that had the GG not been the first to approach the Palace seeking Whitlam’s dismissal then Whitlam would have sought the GG’s dismissal if he’d been faster out the blocks.
These events to you seemingly constitute constitutional meddling by the UK and its monarch but it seems perfectly obvious to me, given her legally defined position, she was damned either way and it behoves all politicians in all 16 countries where the UK monarch is constitutional head to sort out their own mess without involving her and only as a last resort and, if entirely necessary, recognise that if forced to act, she is only doing so within the realms of her specific legal remit at the request of the leaders of the countries that ask her to do so.
I did not say that there was “constitutional meddling by the UK and its monarch” in Australian governmental affairs, I said that “the office of the monarch … allowed itself to sack two elected governments” over the course of Australian history. The important qualifier is “allowed itself.” There was certainly no agency on the part of the monarch in the sacking of the Whitlam government. The matter was clearly planned and executed by Australian actors, but the copious communications between the G-G and the monarch’s office (not the monarch herself) provided ample opportunity for the office to caution against abrogating the convention that governments should expect to run their full terms and time their elections according to choice. The monarch did not sack the government in a real sense but in a formal constitutional sense she did.
As an Australian myself I have no problem with this country’s status as a constitutional monarchy. A presidency, especially an elected one, while the powers of dismissal remain on the books, and for a number of other reasons, could potentially be worse. My preference is that the role of the head of state be a purely decorative one with zero capacity to exercise power. While this happy state of affairs may exist in the UK, it is not yet thus in Australia.
Of course, all of this is an Australian constitutional matter and can only be resolved in Australia.
So, every country in the world without a monarch is a tyranny?
Or is it something about the British that makes them inclined to tyranny?
Conspiracy theory alert.
Not really. Remember that all the stories about Camilla and about Diana’s bulimia were also dismissed as potty; all were of course true.
If you look at the Queen’s children, all of them – and indeed Prince Philip – are thin and the males are bald, except Prince Andrew. He’s dumpy, has all his hair, square-faced, does not look like either Tsar Nicholas II or a horse (as the other three children and his mother do), and for some reason his birth was the subject of a Cabinet discussion that has been sealed for 100 years rather than the usual 30. Why would that be? Well, one reason might be that should anything happen to Prince Charles, the heir to the throne would be someone who was not the legitimate issue of the Queen’s marriage. Viscount Linley, as King George VI’s grandson, would actually have had a better claim to the throne than Prince Andrew. You bet the Cabinet would want to talk that one through.
Nobody seriously doubts that Philip had a series of affairs in the 1950s, including with Helen Cordet, Katie Boyle and one with the Queen’s own cousin. At that point, the royal couple became estranged and remained so for about 40 years.
Prince Andrew’s father is reputedly Lord Porchester, whom he decidedly resembles, and Prince Edward’s to be Lord Plunket, whom he likewise resembles and who bizarrely is buried in the Windsors’ family plot; the only non-Windsor who is.
It’s sweet but inexplicable that people imagine this generation of royals to be the first not to behave as royals always have.
Some excellent points, but if the Queen has a failing it is in the generations that follow her: none can be said to be as selfless nor as self enslaved to service.
In fact William’s half brother (unrelated to the Queen) said as much with deprecation when he spoke of his half brother and step father being stuck in that world and unable to get out.
The Queen and her sadly late consort had no desire to “get out”, they understood very well the deal that her birthright and their marriage struck and have spent near 70 years delivering on their side of that bargain in spades.
I do not have the same hope of Charles. Anne aside, neither Andrew not Philip offer any person much less position of respect. William may yet prove more of a man of service and stoicism than his father, but given his history, in particular the maternal aspects that he shares with Harry, I doubt it.
Harry’s childish outbursts driven by unresolved childhood anger are in public because he dragged them into public. Has William been as risible, but more privately?
“But what if the progressives are wrong and power can never truly be democratised?”
I believe it is more subtle than this. The “progressives” are not really in favour of truly democratic processes (no, this is not one of those tiresome diversions into PR), rather, they prefer to hive off power to unelected committees, commissions and – of course – to the EU (where wrong-thinking plebs can’t upset things).
The British monarchy represents a ‘living’ but ultimately symbolic constitution. I am a supporter of the continuation, for the same reason I admire the structures of the US constitution. They key, in my view, is to enable constitutional change but to make it hard.
I prefer the US constitution, as I think it does a better job of constraining activist governments while enabling the systems of government to change at a pace broadly in line with large scale social change. The counter-argument people throw at the US constitution is the Second Amendment. My response is, the clue is in the name. If you do not like it, amass enough support among your fellow citizens and change it.
Why is it ‘progressive’ to want to end a thousand years of history? And why are today’s liberals so emphatically illiberal?
The monarchy, which I think the late Prince Philip called “bonkers” is the keystone on which our mostly unwritten and frankly bizarre constitution depends.
None of the contributors has so far suggested a term of office for an elected president. Nor has anyone proposed an electoral system. If the post was purely ceremonial, would anyone of real quality want to do it? And if it wasn’t ceremonial, what power would it wield?
I can understand the argument that says ‘this is all a mess so let’s start again with several sheets of clean paper, and while we’re at it get shot of the monarchy’. That is a not unreasonable point of view. Most of the republicans are, it seems to me, simply destructive.
My worry is that modern medicine being what it is, we may be stuck with ancient kings and queens for ever. Charles might be eighty by the time he inherits. Likewise William, and so on. I think part of the success of Her Majesty is that we have all grown up with her. She thus represents a degree of stability as we experience much turbulence. The monarchy would survive Charles becoming the King Father and shuffling off to talk to his vegetables. King William and Queen Katherine would get my vote, if I had one.
Without the monarchy we wouldn’t have had the very funny Channel 4 satire ‘The Windsors’. But that’s finished now so the monarchy has outlived its purpose.
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As Head of State the Queen does wield power, she can sack a Prime Minister, as she did in Australia,she can dissolve a Parliament and call a new election at any time.
She can use the Army to defend the people against a possible take over by a dictator.
The Queen gives the government £211 million per year.Plus the Duchy of Cornwall brings in £18.3 million million per year. And the Duchy of Lancaster £16 million per year.
The Queen owns all beaches and offshore coastal waters. Rent from wind-farms bring in millions more per year. So even without tourism, we could not afford to live without the Queen giving us all that money.
All together the Queen earns over £300 million per year, and gives most of it to us so that we don’t have to pay so much tax.
“far from being a relic of despotism, constitutional monarchy is our best protection against its reappearance”
I entirely disagree. It is the pomposity, state-supported wealth and grandeur coupled with a lack of substance euphemised as “service” that makes it a justifiable target for despotism.
“But what if the progressives are wrong and power can never truly be democratised?”
I’m hoping the progressives are wrong. Democracy isn’t all it’s cut out to be. Somewhere between the spinelessness of idealism democracy and the worse examples of absolutism lies powerful progressive leadership.
“if we accept (Nazi) Schmitt’s argument that even democracies can’t avoid the odd despotic moment, it’s far easier to understand why constitutional monarchies are so often more egalitarian than republics”
They’re not really more egalitarian than republics, they’re just faking egalitarianism to ingratiate themselves to the mass of commoners who would otherwise resent an establishment of such royal privilege. One should never underestimate the naivety and hypocrisy of the common man
“Queen symbolises that tyrannical twitch we can’t wholly eradicate even in democracies, but without actual power and therefore an inoculation against real tyranny”.
Even with Prince Phillip, who had no other career option than to be the verbally delinquent antidote to Royal stuffiness and reticence, there is not one iota of tyrannical twitch in British Royalty. On the contrary, its soft centre life of privilege and fake stoicism offers a persuasive case for republicanism, although why the author thinks that has to morph into despotism is beyond me.
“our nation’s instinctive appreciation for the paradox of constitutional monarchy is robust enough to survive the progressives who seek to tear down its moral and political dimensions”.
I doubt there is instinctive appreciation of this paradox of constitutional monarchy. Too much binary thinking going on here. A pared down Royalty (with fewer trappings, fewer courtiers and fewer third rate royal hangers-on) can not only reduce the more odious examples of Britain’s class-consciousness but still confirm Britain’s historical substance without the absurdly extravagant pomp & ceremony that positions Britain as a real-life Disney World. That could even encourage Government to run a modern-day Parliament that means business and cuts out yesteryear’s verbiage.
Unelected vs. unelected heads of state seems to me something of a red herring. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands (even Belgium) seem to operate quite reasonably under constitutional monarchies. On the other hand, Finland, which seems comparable to its Nordic neighbours has a president. Thailand seems no more liberal or illiberal than its S.E. Asian neighbours.
Nations are what they are; and the forms of government might to some extent reflect how they are, and how they are may reflect into how their forms of government operate.
I have no real problem with having an unelected head of state – though I think that most of those palaces might reasonably be brought back into public ownership, together with all that wealth, stolen over the course of the last thousand years when England was taken over by a foreign power, which took to governing without any real regard for the rights of the indigenous peoples under its control. English sovereigns didn’t even speak English for the first three hundred years. The legacy of that, as I see it, is the English class system; and that is a problem.
Oddly enough, though I regard myself as a life-long socialist, I have no real problem with an unelected House of Lords (though it might usefully have its name changed?). What I notice is that, once legislators no longer have to worry about future elections, they seem to become a lot more responsible. That fact might reflect a deeper fact of our democracy – something peculiarly hard to define. The reality which makes our social setup so different from the Nordic monarchies which we superficially resemble.
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I was taught in history that the monarch in parliament is sovereign, and a PM freed of all restraint would be sovereign a la Schmitt. The monarch as head of state is the only safeguard against autocracy. I see in Sunday Times profile of Prince William, he picked up that the Palace had been steamrolled by No 10 in the prorogation of Parliament.
God save the Queen! . . . although Prince Charles is the Royal who will truly need a little Providential prompting if he is to navigate an accession in this age of extremities.
I wonder how much the religious divide influences today’s Scottish situation. Glasgow is still a city of Rangers and Celtic and the core of SNP support.
We are reasonably safe as long as the Constitutional Monarchy is inhabiting the space that a despot, supra-national entity, or even some cretin like Corbyn needs. It allows me to despise and ridicule whichever parcel of clowns is preening it’s collective self at Westminster at any given time and give’s us all a focus for non-party, collective loyalty to each other.
Bravo and Cheerio! Our presently unstable world scenario would not allow for such a disruptive intervention. A Cromwellian or rumpian intervention would not go well for Britain. Such extremity would surely require a second Glorious moment, which may not be possible in our present world situation.
This is no season for placing confidence in a strongman, or blustery regime, who think they can grab the bull by the horns. That’s what Trump tried to do over here on the other side of the pond. And look at how that turned out.
Just keep that HMS Britannia steady as she goes.
Yes, sailing into the Black Sea to confront Russia, with Lizzie’s full support.
I’ve read these comments, some good and some bad but I would put forward the absolute reason for the Monarchy. Imagine President Thatcher and even worse El Presidente Corbin. Need I say more?
It’s clear, or should be, bourgeois democracy has been a disaster for Western Civ.
The dialectic, Castle v Cathedral, will-to-power vs. truth-beauty-goodness, is the engine of civilizational maturation. In modern times neither Queen nor Pope have man-up’d to their full institutional-historical roles. They do embody (largely passively) Tradition, cultural heritage, and that is of the essence; but, are pitifully inadequate in the critical task of applying it to the moment against the ravages of power.
Yes, let’s replace the Monarchy, because elected heads of state have been such a success around the world.
After a fractious election – and elections seem to be getting more and more fractious almost everywhere – an elected HoS or HoG cannot “bring the country together” because half the country has been stirred up to hate his or her guts.
Although we have been extraordinarily fortunate in our current Queen, it doesn’t really matter if the Monarch is useless, as long as they do their minimum constitutional duties, because none of us can be blamed for voting them into office. Thus a useless Monarch can be put up with as he or she is not a focus for division and there will be another one along in due course. On the other hand, a good Monarch can be a terrific unifying force.
If our HoS has a merely ceremonial role, where is the need for him or her to be elected?
One further advantage of a monarchy as compared to an elected head of state – even an ostensibly neutral one as in Germany – is the inevitable existence of so-called “minor royals.” When a niece or nephew or grandchild of the reigning monarch opens a new hospital or museum or school or whatever in some unimportant little town, then the very presence of royalty surely has a unifying effect that no local dignitary could ever have. It reminds the local people that whatever differences they may have at the local level, they are all part of the larger entity embodied by the royal visitor. I find it extraordinary that the same people who are willing to spend huge sums of money on diversity and inclusion officers cannot see the value of the kind of work done by Princess Anne, Sophie Wessex and others.
Very incisive argument Mary.
My fear too is a dictatorial elected Republican Head of State. We only have to look around the world to see how the vicissitudes of a ‘competitive’ fashionable cause creates ever increasing polarisation towards the extremes.
Having a symbolic Head of State that morally represents the exception to the rule is the most direct (heuristic) representation of the fallabilty of human Nature.
Perhaps the reason why Progressives are yet to learn this important paradoxical lesson is because they can’t (heuristically) see the fallabilty of themselves.
Totally agree with the thrust of this piece, akin to Churchill’s democracy is the worst form of government, apart from all the others quote.
The monarchy, as well as offering that much-needed sense of continuity that the neverending carousel of elected politicians obviously can’t offer by definition, its supreme constitutional power lies essentially in its complete lack of it in terms of its ability to act on it in any meaningful way beyond what is clearly and long been laid out.
It’s this constitutionally enshrined neutrality and the continuity that the monarchy in its current form provides and without it, only in the last few years mind, I have come to the conclusion that this country would be so much worse off without it, for all its many faults.
Without the Queen there would be no We Are the Champions. And what would be the point of winning at sports without that?
Sung by a Turk; the Ottoman Empire dissolved 1922 after losing WWI and the king deposed, Ataturk, a secular, democratic ruler, replacing him, worked out pretty well. Then there was forming the Ottoman Empire by Mehemed, and later, Suleiman The Magnificent brought it to its peak, although the Ottomans had the practice of killing the son of every relative of the King, and the son of every top official, and even the Kings younger sons, back then to avoid civil wars over succession, something the British forgot to do so had lots of succession problems, something one remembers when thinking of Markle.
Your argument would hold more water if the Queen actually stepped in and stopped this corrupt mob from robbing the people of this country. There’s nothing. And if it’s happens behind the scenes – why? Let us know there is power in monarchy, and where those interests lie. Otherwise, get rid of the entitlement purely based on the family of your parents. I take the point of Schmitt though – there’s need something to stop the worse. But it’s not working with the monarchy.
What are you blathering about?
She is a constitutional monarch not a despot.
I can see the value in having a constitutional monarchy – but there is no way at all I would be prepared to curtsey to the Queen or any member of the royal family should I be put in the position of meeting them. Only a dancer can do a curtsey with grace and dignity intact, and it is a mark of inferiority and low status unless done by a performer to acknowledge applause. A short bow should be sufficient to show respect for the position.
The notion of having to bow and scrape towards a bunch of royal brats is even more demeaning.
The royal family should be trimmed down, and those who are working royals should be paid a salary and get a pension when they’re too old to work. The rest should be expected to earn their own living.
Nobody is expected to “bow and scrape” , a small bob to the Queen only seems to be the custom now.
The family members who perform royal duties are the only ones who get money from the state. And the state/Treasury gets money from the royal estates, handed over by George 3rd (I think). The Treasury gets about 2 billion GBP per year of which one quarter is handed back to the RF to run the state owned Buckingham Palace and Windsor castle and pay staff.
The rest of the RF do earn their own living.
Still, the truth never gets in the way of people who don’t know what they are talking about…
‘Still, the truth never gets in the way of people who don’t know what they are talking about…’
Oh, you mean like Giulia Khwaja?
It is on record. Try a search.
‘Nobody is expected to “bow and scrape” , a small bob to the Queen only seems to be the custom now.’
A bob is even more stupid and demeaning. What’s wrong with a short bow for everyone, and nothing at all for those royals that haven’t reached the age when they are undertaking royal duties? Are you serious in believing that homage should be given to children?
Those who don’t perform royal duties should get no bowing and scraping at all. Or do you think we should all have to bow and scrape to Harry and Megan?
As for the money handed back…..it’s only relatively recently that the royal family was brought into the tax system. They used to be exempt. The state has lost £billions in tax reveues as a result of that policy.
Nobody bows to the children.
Im in favour of a small bow to others as a greeting, like the Japanese. Much more dignified than that ridiculous elbow bump which some tried to bring in with Covid.
If you’re smarting over lost tax from decades ago there’s no hope. It would make more sense to worry about all the lost tax which big business causes.
This shows the limits of representative democracy, the dilemma of either a monarch or head of state.
If we had direct democracy, rule by plebiscite as much as possible, we would not need either, as the people would fill that role with a referendum the solution to any constitutional crisis that may occur with the abolition of a monarchy.
Direct democracy would guarantee endless Fascism. And a 52/48 plebiscite seems hardly to have improved ‘commmunity’ relations in the UK.
That’s because the losers refuse to acept the result – a key requirement in a democracy. Which is why we are no longer a functioning democracy.
You won. Stop going on about it.
Suggest you read the thread before making an inane comment
I did read it. Yes, the comment was flippant. The point I was making is that there is a tendency for some to bring in the Brexit issue to every debate and blame those who voted remain, even though they lost and Brexit has happened, for every democratic flaw and problem with the UK.
Until Boris removes Theresa May Surrender treaty from 1) Imposing Anew border in irish sea & reverts to 1922 Border …there will be continual ramifications on streets of belfast..
Very stupid article. Since when are Germany, France, Finland, Iceland, Switzerland and the USA ‘tyrannies’?
To be fair I think the headline changed – the content of the article is not quite as binary
I wish the Queen retires and Charles takes over as the King.
Fortunately your wish will not be granted.
What a load of nonsnse! Without seeking to impugn the personal qualities of the present monarch, it is abundantly clear – from many, many examples around the world – that it is perfectly possiblt to have a republic without ‘tyranny’. Further, the logical political arguments against monarchy (and against an established church, to take the other piint which the author has tried to throw in) are surely overwhelming.
I would vote for a secular republic any day of the week.
Even with President Russell Brand, Neil Kinnock, or Richard Branson?
Never mind Zuma, Maduro, or Bolsonaro!
Straw man argument. Nobody would vote for those people as President. The whole point of a republican President is that you VOTE for your President i.e. the most popular candidate wins.
Macron?
On the contrary, those are exactly the sort of people who would stand. Look at who does stand for that office in countries that elect their head of state.
Mary Harrington seems to misunderstand the problem in Northern Ireland. It’s not Catholics against Protestants but the indigenous Irish against the English invaders!
Rubbish! It’s one mob of organised underworld criminals against another, dressed up in pseudo romantic claims of being underground resistance and defence movements.
They were Scots not English!
Except for Londonderry for obvious reasons.
The City of London and other English financed the colonies of the Ulster Plantation, whose settlers were mostly Scottish.
Scottish invaders put there by a Dutch King.
No, put there by James VI/I in the early 1600s.
When did the English invade?
You miss the point: the article does not rely upon the idea that it is impossible to have non-tyrannical forms of government that are not monarchies. It is arguing that within the UK’s specific political, constitutional and social fabric, the forces that would replace the Monarchy could not achieve their aims without also producing a tyrannical State.
The biggest argument against a republic is President Blair (or name your own poison)
I find the ‘Windsors’ a poisonous soap opera. What’s your point?
If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.
And if you don’t get the point, you don’t understand anything about the constitutional monarchy of the UK.
‘the logical political arguments against monarchy…. are surely overwhelming’
In what way?
If we assume we would continue with the same political system with a mostly ceremonial head of state, a la Ireland, the logical arguments appear to me in a favour of monarch. An elected head of state is necessarily divisive and has a likely bias against their political opponents, and more importantly, with a democratic mandate it would be easier for them to behave in a biased way.
I agree completely.
It’s perfectly possible, but is it less likely to end in tyranny one day?
It is an extraordinary phenom that you Brits continue to be so attached to both God (COE) and the monarchy, aka “God save the Queen”.
It reminds me of the movie where a man keeps a POW prisoner in his basement for years after the war has ended, because it gives his life purpose. Or, perhaps Stockholm Syndrome. The prisoners in the Palace believe blindly and totally in the brainwashing of their captors. Yes, they are in a gilded cage, but neither captors nor prisoners seem to realize it is all absurd fantasy.
That this fantasy plays such a large part of the collective psyche of the public would worry any psychologist. But the Church and State love it and the power and control it enables.
Had the Queen abdicated to prevent the Gulf War, or demanded truth from government about the Skripals, or any number of other nefarious deeds, then I’d be a supporter. She is a mere front for every evil, dishonesty and misdeed of government and the Chief Oppressor of the people.
May your god go with you.
How silly. Of course we all know it is an absurd fantasy (princesses, golden carriages and castles) I would go as far as to say completely bizarre, which is exactly why we love it so. Its not so much keeping a POW as maintaining an endangered species whose natural environment has been destroyed. Its like we have a woolly mammoth in our zoo and we breed them. I have no idea where you are from but I assure you that your storeys of the “evil, dishonesty and misdeed of government” are apocryphal and that the British are not oppressed.
As for the COE, nearly as good. Great buildings, singing, funny outfits and of course only 56% of British Christians believe in God what’s not to like?
Agreed! Again unable to uptick
I always find baffling that the British people try to use the idea of a state religion as an example, or cause, of freedom. The average person thinks this is archaic because it is. The United Kingdom is the only developed country where a Prime Minister (Blair) had to wait his retirement to change his religion. This is the reality of a state religion.
I find interesting this new argument to defend the monarchy. This is better than the usual argument (Tourism! It brings money!), but I find it that it does not corresponds to reality. The problem is exactly that the monarchy is a figurehead that hides the real power and is useless as a moral leader. Again, I am talking about what is actually happening. The British case is different from, for example, Spain.
The Queen has contributed nothing and said nothing useful for the public life or spirit of the country during all of its reign. Her only objective has been to be inoffensive to avoid any risk of being noticed. A symbol should mean something. Can any British subject remember something the Queen has said or done that helped the country? In the most dramatic times of our lives what the Queen had to say?
Constitutional monarchy and moderate Anglicanism, used with the subtlety and generosity they are designed for, create a blend of freedom and unity that allows society to cohere. That they are largely unnoticed and unappreciated is part of their genius. They are self effacing. But this also leads to the impression they can be dispensed with without damaging society. Your last paragraph will no doubt generate some responses. I would begin by mentioning the Queen’s Christmas speeches which seem popular and meaningful.
Can you remember anything she has ever said in one of her Christmas speeches?
No.
Maybe that’s what we like about the monarchy? They stay quiet which is something politicians never manage – even when they have nothing sensible to say.
Annus horribilis? Which was a moan about her own bad luck with family and a fire.
And she had no right to moan about the fire. She hadn’t bothered to insure Windsor Castle but she didn’t lose out because the taxpayer forked out to recover it. So it became clear that it was hers to live in, but ours when it burns down, and she doesn’t even have to pay to insure it.
Are you sure about that?
I think you will find ‘we’ the State own Windsor and for that matter Buck House.
The Windsor’S ‘private’ properties are Balmoral and Sandringham, which are almost certainly properly insured.
The country owns Windsor Castle. The monarch does not.
Yes, well remembered!
I do think the quality of her advisors has been slightly lacklustre (annus horribilis? surely should have been corrected to horridus) but the Queen has been a woman of character and a rare exemplar of duty first, in these decadent times. And please cast your eyes beyond Europe, for instance, to the Japanese, with an even older unbroken royal line, who seem to have found the preservation of their monarchy, parliamentarily denatured, to be worthwhile as a unifying avatar. While we Americans did address some deficiencies arising from the Glorious Revolution, we have only been able to come up with an Eagle as a unifying symbol. Although the bald eagle is often a thief, even a scavenger, his boldness and resolution have far outshone any elected politicians as a unifying image. Presidents, not only American, seem to occupy a shady middle ground between a king and his fool.
That you think the Queen has “done nothing” – in our times where everything and anything is deconstructed and reconstructed to the point of absurdity is actually a testament to the monarchy’s effectiveness really. Just going about their business. That you also think the Queen should be wading in on “the most dramatic times of our lives” suggests you do not understand the monarch’s role in government.
For one, it may seem trivial but I think the ceremonial and state role played by the monarchy is extremely undervalued.
Having worked for a public/civil figure before, where every minute of every day of the year is micromanaged between engagements and obligations – having a monarch to represent the state is priceless. The government and PM can focus on the more serious business of running the country.
Meanwhile the monarch can represent the UK (and commonwealth) at less crucial, yet still important, ceremonial and traditional engagements.
This is just what the typical head of state does. A monarch can just do it worse because it cannot say anything meaningful. The fact that you think that, exactly because this Queen has done nothing meaningful, she can represent the country, tells a lot about what you think the United Kingdom means.
No the opposite is true – the Prime Minister cannot possibly attend all engagements – but the head of state (monarch) is able.
A typical head of state might do it – but how many of those are necessary? How many come close to being a waste of time, if not strategically or politically so? That’s where having an internationally respected statesperson (i.e. monarch) serves perfect. Represents the country, conducts diplomacy. The UK has an advantage here – even outside of the EU we are still the world’s most active international member in terms of treaties and organisations that we belong to.
Most engagements are not about big decisions or influencing directly. I don’t think you realise that.
You may believe the monarch does nothing meaningful, many of us would absolutely disagree with you. She keeps politicians in their place for one. She, apolitically, represents the UK for another, not the Government but the people as a whole.
Can a political president do the same thing, Americans spent 4 years saying that Trump didn’t represent them. Does Macron represent the whole of France or only his electorate, certainly he makes too many decisions, as president, that are only designed to help him and get him re-elected to live in his palace for another term.
Well said, good point. When people prattle on how much better an elected head of state would be over an inherited, they are ignoring what is unavoidable in an election, which is that there is a competition , and then a winner, and losers. These days, they don’t even remain polite to each other.
If all remains good mannered in a republic, it is because the position has become virtually meaningless.
‘We Will Meet Again’ Her Majesty’s concluding remark during a speech at the beginning of lockdown 2020. A poignant conclusion to a poignant speech.
I agree with you – there is very little that is rational about it. But she represents something inchoate that is felt very deeply by most of the population of the country, a country that generally despises its politicians. As for Blair, he left his conversion until he left office because in a country like Britain that has been functionally atheist for well over a century, mentioning religion is very damaging for your political prospects and reputation
Why do you think Tony Blair had to leave office before becoming a Catholic? There is no legal bar against Catholics holding public offices, including prime minister.
Because the Brits automatically distrust anyone who appears to be religious.
Especially one who leans towards Catholicism.
We Brits distrust anyone who appears to be a religious extremist and this is not confined to Catholics but encompasses all religions, including Islam. The reason the Anglican Church has lasted as the state religion is that it is moderate and does not try to interefere in people’s personal lives.
I think you need to go back to school. A British PM can be any religion he chooses. If the madman Blair really wanted to be a Catholic earlier, he could have adopted that faith. It would have made no difference (unfortunately). As for the Queen, she is a uniting figure. If she started to take sides, she would then be as divisive as a politician. She represents continuity – something sorely needed especially at present. She hardly aims “to avoid any risk of being noticed”. Obviously you’re not a Brit.
Well, whilst a certain couple were bleating how unfair life was for them and how victimised they were, HMQ, on being told about reluctance to take up the vaccine, responded by saying “They should think of others, shouldn’t they?”. I know which message I prefer.
Oh, and of course, 24 m people listened to her message of hope, determination and resilience last April. if you missed it, catch up on YouTube. Again, it is more about others than self; be warned!
‘Can any British subject remember something the Queen has said or done that helped the country?’
To be fair, she did make a speech on TV re the pandemic which was better than the usual royal offerings.
He could easily have changed his religion. I can easily imagine a time when we have a Hindu or Moslem PM, and what’s more, he or she will probably be Conservative!
As a North American, living abroad for several decades, I am always bewildered by Brits discussing the relevance of the Queen and monarchy. To anyone outside Britain it looks beyond bizarre. It must be something in the water.
It’s more to do with character and restraint; see Spiro Spero’s comment above. Also, it is about history, see Willian Devane’s advert on buying gold sovereigns!
Perhaps we like to discuss our constitutional position. Perhaps we have something to discuss. Perhaps we at least can still THINK. Perhaps that is bizarre to someone like you (who is not “anyone”, BTW)
Anyone? Not that bizarre for people from The Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Luxemburg, Spain, Japan, Canada*, New Zealand*, Australia*.
Lots of funny water 🙂
(* granted it’s the same monarch, but doesn’t diminish the point)
Only because you don’t understand!
So true. The Brits will never grow out of their childlike sycophancy and fundamental failure to grasp the nature of democracy.
I very much doubt not having a monarchy would be an issue. The royal PR machine tries to justify the exorbitant cost of the monarchy and the fumbling house of lords – but lets face it in 2021 its a hopeless relic of a bygone era when a corrupt elite ruled us and took advantage of their position. We still see this in ground rent taxes which are absurd – Scotland abolished this and rightly so. We now live as serfs to the banking sector being preached to about how we should lead green lives. What bs. Time for change.
You clearly don’t understand there is no power or financial link between the monarchy (hereditary) and the House of Lords (appointed by politicians). You may live as a serf, but I don’t. Nor do I know of anyone in such a position. Grow up, get an education, and achieve something. Or are you just waiting for the Revolotuon which will hand over my hard-earned cash to you?
What did Scotland abolish?
The members of the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha and their predecessors have been cynically leveraging their financial interests off their constitutional position for hundreds of years now. It’s time for an elected head of state and proper separation of powers in England. It’s time to finish off the work started in 1649.
Not that boring old mantra about the RF being German please.
Not German but greedy?
I don’t care that they are German (I like Germans). However, I do care that they are using their constitutional position to steal from the people of England, Scotland, Wales and NI.
What are they stealing?
She has no idea, but it sounds good. Well, at least to her.