Having a Royal Family with all its mad pageantry is like living in a Country that thinks Hogwarts is a real place and we are ruled by kindly wizards. Time for a change.
I understand that many people enjoy it and there is an argument that the history and pageantry helps tourism. But it is, in my view, looking more out of place with where we are in the world now.
In the last week with had Prince Gout literally sat on a throne of gold relaying the government’s message that they plan to do **** all to help people and a special trifle being announced for the old tart’s birthday or whatever it is. Can’t ******* stand it.
I think people underestimate the amount of soft power the monarchy holds. We can pretty much get any leader of any country in the world to come here and speak to us, if we offer a visit to the palace. Other countries are incredibly jealous of the draw of the monarchy, including the French, who got rid of theirs. Buckingham palace is also probably the most visited tourist building you can’t even get close to in the world. Bonkers. Such things give us huge, easy influence which would be hard to find elsewhere. It’s definitely illogical to have a monarch as head of state, whilst having one of strongest democracies in the world. But a great sell of our country is it’s illogical and contradictory historic oddities. And anyway, knowing the IQ levels of the standard Liverpool fan, I’d be tempted to oppose anything they agree with. So from this weekend, a staunch monarchist I shall become.
Posh folk pretending to like football always seem to choose a team in claret, but never Burnley or Scunny.
Maybe they misunderstand the question and think they've been asked if they'd prefer a glass of Chateau Lafitte or Gevrey Chambertin?
I know our hereditary monarchy has many imperfections, but I would still rather have it than an elected head of state. For me getting a properly representative electoral system is a far more important constitutional question than how our head of state is arrived at. At the last GE 56.4% of the electorate did not vote for Johnson - but he gets a whopping majority, to mis-manage the company in whatever way he likes..... Regarding the cost of the monarchy, I doubt whether a presidential head of state would be a "free". They would need a residence, staff, transport, security, etc.
Totally agree. An elected head would mean they have constitutional power. As we see in the US, that comes with additional issues, especially when they are in conflict with the elected representatives. I'm quite happy with a figurehead as head of state with the vast majority of power being exercised within the HoC. I do think it's time for PR and a written constitution though.
This is exactly where I am. The only thing more naff than a monarchy is a US-style presidency. Think about who we'd probably end up getting. The modern day equivalent of President Jade Goody, most likely. We'd probably have ended up with President Jimmy Saville back in the day (although Prince Andrew is allegedly doing to a good job of living up to that particular legacy).
TBF Frau Battenberg is literally a figurehead with no powers whatsoever - the prorogation omnishambles showed that the "...important constitutional role..." ******** was exactly that - ********. The troubles with states bound a written constitution (I've lived in three Germany, France and Lithuania) all had very busy Constitutional Courts with a continual stream of lengthy trivial/important cases challenging the various constitutions - the Litho case I remember (it was still on-going after 5 years when I left the country) was brought by an owner of a new hi-end car (Toyota/Honda it was an early keyless one that had been 'cracked') against an insurance company (where I taught English) who would only insure it if the owner bought and installed a named model of car alarm. At least with 'our' system rapid societal changes can matched by changes in precedent. I think a more worthwhile change would be employment by parliament as an MP should have written (contractual) TACOS detailing exactly what is mean by a second home, exes, jobs outside parliament, lobbying etc... And voting should be compulsory.
