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With all the coverage of the Royal Wedding reaching saturation point, i thought I'd you, the denizens of Planet Skaro whether you're for or against the Royal Family.
Are they an anachromism or do they contribute something to British society?
What are your thoughts/ views/ opinions?
Frankly, I'm an out-and-out royalist. For one main reason.
The monarch is Britain's de facto Head of State. He or she (henceforth, I will just use "she", since the incumbent monarch is female) is not politically aligned. She may have her own political viewpoints, but she keeps these private and does not allow them to cloud her duty.
Take any republic - America or France, for example. Their President is elected. He is a member of a political party. He normally only serves for a fixed term of two (but occasionally more) terms. At the end of the day, he will often do what he thinks is best to get re-elected.
The British system of a constitutional monarchy married to a representative parliamentary democracy is, in my mind, the best system that we could have. With the monarch as Head of State, there is always some continuity, regardless of who leads Parliament.
The armed forces swear allegiance to the monarch, not to the Prime Minister, and certainly not to a President who may be out of power in a few years.
Republics have much more scope for people to seize power and hold onto it, becoming dictators. Hitler's rise to power could not have happened had Kaiser Wilhelm not been exiled and the Weimar Republic established. Look at a lot of countries in places like Africa - where a President has achieved power and refused to leave.
The monarchy may not be popular amongst everyone, and it's certainly not perfect, but I believe that our constitutional monarchy is far better than the alternative.
Ant x
I honestly can't choose any of the options. I'm not a royalist at all, but Ant's points about the monarchy are fairly well made and I'm not necessarily keen on a presidential style leader to replace them. If there was an option for saying "I'd POSSIBLY like the royal family to remain in place but in more of a totemic way without any of the political power or the money they 'earn' from people" I might be able to justify clicking it. Otherwise, the only choice left is the 'meh' option - and that's a cop out.
The Queen also has no real power - none that she can consciously exercise at any rate - and replacing her with a President would either mean an expensive, divisive and ultimately pointless elected figurehead on an ego trip or the devolving of power from Parliament* and the Prime Minister which would have to be voted for by Parliament and the Prime Minister which seems a bit unlikely.
The Royals don't do any harm and are by no means the most expensive and most pointless thing we spend money on in this country. I'm not sure the Queen could actually stop David Cameron seizing power if he flipped his lid and decided to stage a coup but she'd probably say something cutting in Latin about him the following Christmas.
*actually Parliaments as I believe the Celts have been given their own little gatherings to keep them quiet.
I'm a Royalist - while I can't stand Edward, Andrew, and his useless children I have a tremendous amount of respect for the Queen she has done a hell of a lot for this country and I firmly believe that she genuinly cares about the wealfare of her people. Charles, for all his fault is the same and William and Kate, will also be a big positive for the Royals.
I have no real problems with the Royal Family. Members of.., maybe. I'm not sure if they all do anything useful, but I broadly agree with Ant and it is a part of the country's legacy and history. We have had royalty for centuries and is ingrained.
It also fascinates people (look at the tourists) and is part of our identity.
And I didn't vote either.
I'm with Thomas Pain when he described the Monarchy as little more than "descendants of French bastards" (William the Bastard no less). And that the idea of a hereditory ruler of any sort makes as much sense as a hereditory mathematician.
But I'm really against it because the idea of a Royal Family of any sort really flies in the face of the modern idea of all people being born equal.
Well, you're alright Mike because capitalism ensures that equality from birth is impossible.
I'm all for the Monarchy, because it reminds us that Britain has a long, long history. We've had a single hereditary ruler for over 1,000 years (I think) which is way beyond the timescales that most people normally think in.
Eventually though, the Royals will cock up and be removed. Whether that takes 100 years or 500, it'll happen eventually. For now, they're fine and apparently they bring in more money through tourism and land ownership than they cost to the economy. Apparently.
I listen to the Republican arguments about having a deomcratuic head of State, and one who represents the people, and works hard and doesn't sponge off the taxpayers..... and then I look at knobheads like GW Bush, Reagan, Sarkozy and Berlesconi, or real nutters like Putin and Kim Jong-Il, and think thank goodness for our Royal family.
I also actually like having a head of state who actually doesn't have to pay any attention to political dogma, or wheedling votes out of people, but who can say and do what she thinks to be right, even if it pisses some people off.
God Save the Queen !!
I completely agree. For those reasons and many more, but I know I won't convince anyone otherwise.Quote:
Originally Posted by WhiteCrowNZ
But what about Edward VIII? If he'd not met Wallis Simpson and buggered off, he would have been King during the second world war. And as a pro Nazi sympathiser, things could have taken a very ugly turn.Quote:
Republics have much more scope for people to seize power and hold onto it, becoming dictators. Hitler's rise to power could not have happened had Kaiser Wilhelm not been exiled and the Weimar Republic established.
And with our constitutional monarchy, his private support would have meant bugger all. The Chamberlain Government would've still taken us into the war, and he would've been bound by his royal duties to give speeches against Hitler and the Nazis, regardless of his private avocations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex
Ant x
Would we have gone to war though? Chamberlain was pretty pro-Germany right up to 1938, and with a Nazi loving King beind him, who knows how long it would have been before we'd have welcomed the Germans in with open arms?
But then what about Prince Phillip's sister Sophia marrying an SS General?Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex
I didn't vote for a Republic as I'm more into the idea of anarcho-syndicalism anyway.Quote:
Prince Philip’s sister, Sophia, was married to Christopher of Hesse-Cassel, an SS colonel who named his eldest son Karl Adolf in Hitler’s honour. Indeed, all four of Philip’s sisters married high-ranking Nazis. The prospect of the former Nazis and Nazi sympathisers attending his 1947 wedding to the future Queen of England meant he was allowed to invite only two guests.
The Queen has no political power except in very specific circumstances, such as a hung Parliament. She does not rule (Parliament does) and therefore is not a hereditary ruler. The Monarchy is the ultimate source of legal authority in the absence of a written constitution. The Queen is therefore a political referee, not a political player like an elected President. As long as the Monarchy exists it makes it more difficult for an over-ambitious politician to set themselves up as a dictator. As long as the Queen appoints judges it keeps the judiciary out of the politicians’ pockets. As long as officers of the armed forces swear allegiance to the Monarch it keeps the armed forces non-political and makes a military coup less likely. The Queen’s only power is to deny the ultimate authority to anyone else. And the best way to keep it that way is to make the position hereditary.
Both Spain and Cambodia have discovered this fact after suffering dictatorships, both of which evolved out of republics. A republic is, in theory, fairer but is much more politically unstable.
Spain is actually quite a good example of how a restored monarchy helped a country to overcome the divisions caused by the collapse of Franco's dictatorship- what they needed was a figurehead who was above the recent past. In the same way, most people would probably say that Sweden, Denmark and Holland are some of the most egalitarian and socially progressive countries in Europe, but they've kept their monarchies. Even in countries like Hungary and Poland where the royal line died out and the Austro-Hungarian Empire took over, the relics of the old monarchy are still treasured as symbols of nationhood and independence.
One of the good things about keeping our monarchy is that it means that big state ceremonial occasions are above party politics- the moment you replace a monarch with an elected president, everything gets politicised in terms of which groups get the best seats and who needs buttering up ahead of the next election. However, being a Jacobite, as far as I'm concerned it's the wrong family and the sooner we get rid of these Hanoverian impostors the better...
Quote:
Originally Posted by WhiteCrowNZ
technicaly are royal family are German.
They're still descended from William the Conqueror, which is who William the Bastard is also known as. They have German, French and Scottish ancestors at least, and there are probably more nationalities in there too, so I'm not sure why some people still talk about them as if they were solely German and nothing else.
We still would have, as we had to honour our treaties - let us not forget that Britain was still the most powerful nation in the world in 1938/39, and our word was our bond. Our treaty with Poland would've ensured that we'd have to go to war with Germany. Only way out would have been if we'd never signed that treaty, and whoever was on the throne at that point wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alex
Ant x
However, the present King over the Water is Duke Franz of Bavaria! We can't get away from those Germans:-DQuote:
Originally Posted by Captain Tancredi
Welsh, Norse, Danish, English, Spanish and Irish; Greek once Prince Philip's descendants come to the throne. The Jacobite line has Italian and Polish blood in there as well. (Spot the pet hobby and the obvious interest in the royals!)Quote:
Originally Posted by Logo Polish
I don't really see why getting rid of hte monarchy would necessarily mean we'd have to have a president, or indeed any change to the current political system. The monarch's role is pretty much symbolic, as far as actual governing is concerned, and the current parliamentary system would work just as well as it does now if you removed the royal family from the equation and dispensed with the few token rituals they are involved in.Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Tancredi
