Royal Baby

Wages?

 

I don't think it's unnatural to feel envious - that is what an unfair system provokes. As to your other points, this website should answer your questions in a clear and simple manner, backed up by facts and figures.

http://www.republic.org.uk/What we want/Win the argument/index.php

 

I'd rather our national figurehead was somebody there by chance, rather than a politician who wanted to be head honcho (Nixon, Chirac, Sarko, any number of others). And then it's the luck of the draw whether you get somebody good at the job (QE2) or not (Edward VIII).

But who would want their career decided at birth, and either spend a lifetime doing the same job (QE2) or else waiting until their dotage before they got it (Chas), not to mention having their choice of partner restricted by the convention that you can't be seen in public with a crack ***** or League 2 footballer?

 

Where's your meat?

 

I'm not singing a song worshiping somebody either.

 

Name should be Elliott, which can be shortened to El

Then we can have a King El

 

What about if it was Deeney?

 

...and of course you are right, about how their assets were accumulated, I also find some of the traditions tacky and i cringe at the sort of headline you mentioned earlier.

But we can't go through life trying to right the wrongs that have been occurring since man evolved, whichever side the spectrum were the perpetrators. We are where we are and millions of Europeans live under similar systems to ours and seem content with it.

The sort of views expressed by yourself and others on this thread, have been expressed for at least a couple of centuries, yet no-one has ever seemed to gather any sizeable support, even enough to form and significant anti - royal movement since. Yes, there are anti royals, but we only get to hear of them at times like this. Otherwise no one is interested enough to give them any platform at all as no one really wants to listen. Even in Australia, where discarding the Monarchy would give their Country a new total freedom and sense of liberty, the anti's don't seem to have any sort of majority.

Unless I am mistaken, if there was a referendum in the UK on whether we discard the Monarchy (maybe you'd like to guillotine them) or keep the status quo, then the latter would win comfortably. At the moment.

I say "at the moment" because I do see their popularity reducing, but it will largely depend on how Charles and William treat their reign. I have spent a couple of hours with Charles and found him very funny and (considering how he was brought up) quite "anti establishment" in some of his views. I think he will be torn between his responsibility to the Monarchy tradition and his personal views, some of which are rather quite "socialist" in outlook. His reign could go either way I think. But, I think it should be a natural process. If their popularity reduces and if they do start to become a financial burden, then I suspect the process will happen naturally. If their State income was reduced under those circumstances, I would think that their usefullness would diminish also.

 

Two complaints have come up. One saying that they have "huge influence" I ask where? The other saying they cost us a fortune , I say show me?

But apart from that there is enough meat in all the Countries I have mentioned, including the UK, for them also want to keep the status quo.

Surely, if people want to change the status quo they should come up with some "meat".

 

http://www.republic.org.uk/What we want/Win the argument/index.php

I've already posted this link - perhaps you missed it. It answers your two concerns - but I strongly suspect that any amount of facts won't sway the argument since an attachment to the royal family is more emotional than rational.

 

Sorry, I did miss it. I was rather hoping that someone would supply some unbiased information rather than the website address of the primary anti monarchy movement. I've had a quick look, but the problem is that they dismiss monarchy claims as propaganda, yet expect us to believe their claims as absolute truth, but with precious little facts behind it.

For example, they provide a list of royal expenditure, but admit they don't have access to the information! They include costs such as the military and police security and escorts (£100m out of a total of £200m), as if, if there weren't state occasions, the soldiers would all be sent home on no pay. They are getting paid anyway!!!! So are the police!!! It's just total nonsense.

Then they talk about how the Monarch has total power over who is our Prime Minister, although this has only happened once and that was when there was no democratic result.

They dismiss tourism, with no real facts whatsoever except they say that US citizens wouldn't want a similar system in the US. But that doesn't mean that many Americans don't come over here partly because of Royalty. I know it happens, I've spent a lot of time in the US and my parents have lived there. Every year, now back in the UK, they accommodate their former friends and neighbours who have come to the UK. They don't say to my mum and dad, "We're off into London now to visit the London Eye or Trafalgar Square" as your website would have us believe. The Japanese certainly come here partly due to the Monarchy, (they are justly proud of their own system) you only have to spend an hour outside Buck House to see that! There is swarms of them.

They Republic website also says that the royals don't work hard. Now the Queen does around 400 official engagements a year, hosts 90 banquets and 50,000 visitors. And is is 86 years old!!!

I have just read an article that calculates that the Monarchy earns £100m more than it costs the nation and that is without the tourism factor. I don't know who is right and without any hard facts, I'm happy to go with the status quo.

 

what do thin lizzy have to say about it?

 

And when the UK were the first to abolish slavery? Should we have looked to the USA and said "Well, slavery's doing OK over there, so why get rid of it here?"

The point is people have given their reasons for why they think it's wrong but you've chosen to ignore them and produced no reasons for why it's right.

 

But but but Denmark do it and Denmark isn't some hell hole like the Congo!!!!

What do you know about DR Congo other than apparently it's lack of a monarch contributes in someway or other to a lack of democracy.

It is one kind of frustration reading people debate about the royal family, but a whole new world of pain reading someone just blankly ignore all reasoning put forward by the other side and cast off all but 'petty jealousy' as the real reasons for people's opinions on the monarchy.

I'm not going to convince you though as there have been plenty of interesting points for you to engage with prior to this and you've chosen not to, but I will say that I'm glad to read some people have opinions I really see eye to eye with, it makes me feel a lot better after seeing nothing but fawning across certain media outlets.

 

Just a little point. The Crown Estates date from Edward the Confessor times and then consolidated by William The Conquerer. The lands seized were not from peasants, but were unclaimed prior to 1066 (apparently) and not seized following torture and murder like is often claimed. They have been significantly reduced over the years to a tiny fraction of their original size, but even the Cromwell parliaments couldn't see the moral or legal judgement allowing them to seize the rest "for the country".

Then George III handed over the running of the Crown Estates to the government. Nowadays, the estates provide well over £250m to the treasury. Any new Monarch, on taking the crown can legally "seize" them back and take the profit, and then presumably pay a tax on them. But, thus far, have not done so. So it seems that you would have no more right to the Crown Estates than you have to my house.

 

John Terry & Royal Baby

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepag...5029603/royal-baby-funny-virals-and-gifs.html

 

And what moral right has Betty Windsor got to them?

 

Call it Sprog Leech after both of it's parents

 

Well, in this case I don't pretend to hold any higher moral high ground than you or anybody else, but, in the same way as you can leave your assets to your kids when you die, then I would think she has more right than any other individual. That is enhanced by the fact that she donates the income to the Treasury. As I said, if the anti royalists in the cromwellian government could see no moral justification to seize the assets, even while beheading the King, I can't argue with their conclusion.

Having said all that, if the ridiculous media hype over the last two days is anything to go by, then I can see me switching sides if it happens too often. It's been painful.

 

No, I'm not asking if you trust Cromwell, I'm asking you for facts. For meat on the bone. Why should QEII have these lands? She's no more related to William the ******* than I am.

 

She inherited them according to the rules of succession. That's good enough for me as it has been good enough for hundreds of years, including by anti royalists.

 

You're over simplifying it. The "rules of succession" have been open to interpretation on numerous occasions in the interim and caused numerous wars, murders and deposing of "rightful" monarchs.

So why oh why, does Elizabeth of Windsor have the right to these lands?

 

I have to simplify it as I am not an expert on Royal protocol. I leave that to the experts, on both sides of the argument (including the anti-royalists) over 100's of years.

I take it you have some meat on the bone as to why we are all wrong? Tell us about it!

The danger of just giving the Crown Estates to the State, is that they could just be sold on a whim, by any government to private business and the £250m pa income would also be lost in a one-off deal.

 

They do offer facts, if only you bothered to read them. They do make a mistake though. They have a list of most visited UK tourist destinations with Windsor castle at no. 17, but on the most up to date list, it doesn't even make the top 20 - but they make the very reasonable assumption that if the public were allowed unrestricted access to the building, it would receive a higher number of visitors.

I agree about the security costs involved - these wouldn't be much different if we had a president. But at least we would have voted for a president, and a huge amount of the country's money wouldn't be spent on the upkeep of the president's relatives.

I would love to go to 90 banquets a year! You talk as if she has any role in the organizing of them.

But cost and what a great job she does/doesn't do is completely irrelevant. The objection I have is that we have no say in it all. What kind of democracy do we live in?

 

The fact that the Queen has, by some archaic rite, inherited billions of pounds worth of assets and that people like yourself can't justify it beyond "Cromwell didn't stop it" is, I think, tantamount to a braai.

 

You expect me to read an entire website when I don't even know what I was looking for to support YOUR argument. You couldn't even be bothered to take the salient points off YOUR site and post them. Strange world you live in!

Attending 90 banquets, would not be much fun. It sounds great, but similar to someone staying in Hotels for their job, it's exciting at first, but it quickly becomes a massive chore. She has been doing it for 60 years and she is now aged 86, 20 odd years after when most people retire.

I don't agree that how well she does her job is irrelevant, it is entirely relevant. I know for sure that if she was doing a c**p job, you'd be finding it relevant then!

You do have a say. Start or join an anti royalist movement, use this massive support you seem to think you have, put it in a manifesto and seek election - and then carry out your manifesto.

It's simple, it's called democracy.

 

Don't talk nonsense.

 

So does your argument against it rest entirely on the fact that you don't think that my explanation is good enough?

I'm flattered.

Surely you can do better than that!

 

Any explanation, or don't you bother with those.

 

Who cares. It gets the Japs over in record numbers spending cash.

 

You said:

Start a political movement, write a manifesto, get yourselves elected, make the change from the government that you now make up the majority of.

THAT'S the way we make change. THAT'S democracy in action. THAT'S the kind of thing you see every once in a while and it makes you remember DEMOCRACY IS LIKE THIS, ISN'T IT?

 

I don't know what you point is. Molly said that he has no say in the Monarchy, and I say he has. Through the democratic process which has existed in a pretty stable form for 100's of years. The queen wouldn't be able to interfere in him or you getting elected.

What on earth is you point, you say I am talking nonsense. Why? Be specific, I don't understand this republican claptrap.

 

I was picking you up on what may have been a figure of speech. 'Go get elected' is not exactly something that is in the realms of possibility for most people. It has very little if anything to do with republicanism.

 

However unlikely, at least it's possible, but it's 1000% more possible than him ever becoming king.

 

Ok, yes I think I understand now.

I thought that Republicanism is about democracy. Hence several posters on here saying that Royals have no place in a democracy. Back in the 50's and 60's our democratic government made changes to the Civil List Act and more recently changes have been made voluntarily, in the face of some pressure, so it is clear that, in modern history, the democratic process can have a say in Monarchist matters.

What I suggested wouldn't be easy, I agree. But that is largely because there is so very little support for getting rid of them. If there is large support, they are hiding it well.

I have the same issue in my local constituency which is a very easily held Labour seat. I vote every opportunity, and i may as well not be bothering. That's life, and if I'm not prepared to get off my arse and tackle it (and I'm not) then it will continue.

Everyone can have a say, but I would suggest that they go armed with more than just the waffle they have come up with on this thread if they want to change the status quo, as the present generations are content to leave things as they are.

Personally, I don't think that there is a hope of changing things materially for at least 2 generations, unless Charles makes a complete cods ear of it. But, although he can be described as a bit of a "fuddy duddy" I think he continue to move the Monarchy towards the "people", steadily, but recognisably.