Greetings loyal blogjects! How are we doing? Super-dee-duper.
Today’s subject is the royal family and why I think they’re rubbish. Our American cousins from across the pond no doubt agree with me as they have been monarch free since 1776, but I am concerned that only a few people in my own country can see this (consistently a mere 1/5 of the population). My aim will be to demonstrate that the possession of a Royal family is highly anachronistic, wasteful and humiliating. Or if that falls through then I hope to at least make the surviving cavaliers among you cringe that little harder when a representative leader of our country gaffes or when masses of Brits congregate outside a hospital awaiting the ascension of Wills on to Pride Rock General so he can present Simba/George to the nation.
The most fundamental point underlying all of this is that surely in this day and age we can see that having one person at the top of a political tree is hugely archaic and embarrassing. Our culture despises the dictator yet admires the monarch? This seems to be a gross contradiction in principles. We have had royals in charge for a loooooong fricking time but it is not sufficient to suggest that just because a practice has continued for a long time that it is sensible by nature (see the death penalty and slavery). True – this is not the kind of tradition that you were really thinking of dear reader, more so the kind of pleasantly auratic, homely traditions like drinking on Christmas morning. Well for me it is no consolation to think that the Royals sit cheerily at the top table of democracy looking cute whilst being endearingly and ever-so-slightly racist just so that I may feel warm and fuzzy inside, I have always been a present man.
Now I know we all agree that having an unelected leader to rule for the masses is wrong. It is at this point that I feel I should remind us all of her main responsibilities: passing laws, head of the army, head of the church. The golden three! Imagine the minutes we have sat crying to ourselves over how the citizens from ‘those’ countries never had a chance with one person perpetually in charge of those things. But wait…she’s not REALLY in power is she Dave? This would all be pretty awful if someone did have power over all three of those things without needing to particularly worry what the public thought, but no such system exists in our country? You are right dear reader! The crux of our constitutional monarchy is that we have a government made of the people for the people (House of Lords aside of course) and they do all the running around, the debating, the double-checking of legislature and then the King/Queen signs off on it. The monarch gratefully receives the castration of their powers with a gentle smile but not before confirming that forever more they will not say anything subversive about governance nor will they even dare to have an opinion about any political issue…a public one anyway.
In Jeremy Paxman’s book On Royalty* he asserts that according to his research the Queen has NEVER in her reign said anything even slightly politically interesting. Think of that! Since 1952 the nominal leader of our nation has not thought to speak out or publicly influence the politics of this country. Maybe sweet fuck all happened? I suppose there was the cold war, the civil rights movement, the space race, various nuclear disasters, apartheid, 9/11, Iraq (episode I and II), and the banking crisis. Now fair enough many of these enormous landmarks are world events and it’s not that crazy that she wouldn’t shout about them but please do keep in mind that she doesn’t seem to have had anything to say about the way her own country has been led for 61 years. We can only assume that she has positively agreed with every government that has ever been in office. She is both left and right, red and blue(/yellow). She is Thatcherite, she is Blair…ite. She agrees with what the present government is saying and will heartily renounce her previous convictions when she joins a future government that climbed on to its perch only by lambasting the previous lot. I sincerely recommend that when you start tossing the blame at various MPs for borderline-retarded decisions that you also throw stones at the Queen. By signing off on everything ever we can adjudge her as being implicitly responsible for stagflation in the 70s, privatisation, EU membership, various middle-eastern wars and the credit crunch. If we’re going to shake our collective fists at representative ministers of this country we should also have a go at the very top of the government shouldn’t we? You simply can’t have it both ways, “oh this country couldn’t do without her leadership but her real genius is that she doesn’t lead”. Ready to call for a re-election of your monarchy yet?
Paxman tells a story about how he sought out the youngest monarchy in the world to try and understand why anyone has one. Albania began its search for a privileged ruling class in the early 20th century (English gentlemen preferred). Predictably a military coup led to the establishment of their Royal family and rather amusingly the man that took power was an international affairs correspondent for the Times whose job it was to report on Albanian issues. Having received a request for a report describing the ongoing search for a monarch the newly instated leader replied, ‘All good here. I am King now’. Decades later sexy Paxman spoke to a descendant of this person and asked why it’s better to have a King than an elected official. His reply was that it was important that the leader should lead as a matter of duty and should not have anything to gain from the position. Now we can see this is ludicrous. Ultimate power is quite a carrot! I can’t bring myself to think that having someone born into a position is a good idea, we’d never want it for anything else. Can you imagine what it would be like to have a surgeon that only gained the position because their parents had been surgeons? Oh they’re doing it for duty, which is most noble and it is far better that a dutiful surgeon whips out my appendix than a surgeon whose every thought would be on the enormous pay cheque awaiting them outside of the theatre. Maybe everyone in government should be born into it? I can see it now! Everyone from prime minister to minister of education could be born into the role. Then we’d never have to worry about the self-interest of anyone again!
Now allow me to appeal to the thing you hold most dear my incredibly intelligent and attractive reader – your wallet. I’m sure you know that about 50p of your tax payments per year go to her royal highness (creepy title for a leader), that doesn’t sound too bad does it. The total sum given to the royal household is slightly more disconcerting, the crown’s official books tell us that we contribute around £40 million per year to the most privileged family in the country, this would be annoying enough even if they actually did anything! But Republic actually estimate the total cost to be around £200 million as the crown fails to include costs for things like their round the clock security, parties and excursions to far off lands. The past two years have been enormously expensive for hosting the Royal family with events such as: the Royal wedding, jubilee and birth of a future head of state (all good things come in threes). You may be interested to know that it cost £7 million to ensure the security of the Royal wedding, which was entirely taken out of the police budget, NOT the Royal purse. To add insult to injury they own £7 billion worth of land! Their property portfolio extends to key properties in London, farm land and much of the coastline (none of which they have to pay inheritance tax on like the rest of us). They make an absolute fortune from it, much of which goes to the state. Now that’s great and everything but ask yourselves why do they own it in the first place? What right do they have to British land that they do not explicitly own? Well I’ll tell you, they have it because we live in a country that hasn’t fully grown out of its embarrassing medieval traditions.
To make things worse it’s actually incredibly difficult to find out what the real costs of the monarchy are as the freedom of information act does not apply to them! Think of that! Even if it’s in the public interest we don’t have the right to know what the royal household is spending its money on. When they were briefly open to the public we discovered that the Queen had enquired as to whether the state poverty fund could be used to heat Buckingham Palace and that Prince Charles had repeatedly lobbied ministers. Incidentally, please reflect on the fact that our newspapers were outraged to discover that the future head of state was trying to influence the politics of this country, that should provide some perspective as to what we really think of an unelected leader getting mucked in. Furthermore, if you would be so kind dear reader to reflect on the fact that future King Charles is politically interested. We may laud the current ruler for not being into politicking but Charles could have a real influence on how this country handles the issues he’s spoken on including but not restricted to: nanotechnology, environment and alternative medicine. Generally, any sane person must be able to recognise that making an offering of tax worth millions to a family whose head of house is estimated to be worth $450 million is laughable. Basically, one Queen is worth 9000 nurses or 8000 policeman. Which would you rather your 50p per year paid for?
I shall promptly assault the most common argument for why we should have an unelected, super-powerful, god-endorsed family running our country. Tourism. They bring in loads of money! Chill out and let the people flock to join the queues that wind through the streets of Britain, she is our Mickey Mouse! It’s largely overestimated how much tourism the Queen brings in. First of all, how does anyone know that all the tourists are here to see our fearless leader? Is that the only reason they came? Would we remove the arrivals department at Heathrow if we didn’t have a monarchy down the road? Of course not. No-one is actually going to meet the Queen. If you come for that then you’ll be disappointed to find out that what you’re going to see is the outside of Buckingham Palace. Will you be able to get in? Probably not. The property is closed off to the public for most of the year and when there are open days then only a fraction of the grounds are actually open to the public. Not the greatest resort it could be! It’s estimated that Buckingham Palace attracts 0.4 million visitors per year, compare this with the Louvre in Paris, previously the residence of the French Royal family before things got a little heated. It is considered one of the greatest museums in the world and receives 8.5 million visitors per year. It’s not like we have nothing to show! Buckingham Palace houses one of the greatest art collections in the world, if we did consider the Royals to be a cash cow that’s only good for tourism then we certainly should start milking them better. Ponder the fact that the highest earning Windsor resort is Legoland not Queenland.
All I want is for the Royal family to shrink politely into the background and live as the harmless celebrities they are**. We acknowledge that they’re not actually powerful and that if they dared to use their powers there’d be a revolution. So what’s the point in having them? The Queen would still be allowed to open motorways and supermarkets up and down the country. She could still visit presidents all round the world if they wanted her. It would just be off her own back! What are we afraid of? Do we think she’ll quit if we don’t pay her taxes?! Not very dutiful. I am perfectly content for the royals to continue as purveyors of fuzzy family values, but not for them to continue as political leaders, it’s just not what they’re best at. As a previous trainer of the new staff in the royal household put it, “we are in the business of making people happy”.
I promise you, we will do fine without her! We have a lot to be proud of in this country, we are a nation worth celebrating. However, we can’t claim to have fully joined the enlightenment movement until we toss off the self-imposed shackles represented by our monarchy. We are a country that has led internationally for centuries in everything. We took a stand as one of the world’s ethical leaders during both world wars. We have pioneered in innovation and science, arguably producing the two greatest scientists ever in Darwin and Newton. We abolished slavery and championed civil rights long before the more eye-catching Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King did so for the Americans. We invented all the best sports: football, cricket, rugby, tennis, baseball. We even hosted the first iteration of the modern olympics for goodness sake!
There is much to be proud of as a Brit. But the notion that I should sit quietly by my union jack sweetly smiling to myself whilst I listen to my bulldog belt out God Save Our Gracious Queen upsets me. Surely we have the most creepy national anthem in the world! No-one would think it was so great or cosy if the words were God Save Dave Cameron or any other leader for that matter, how odd to sing about the head of the country rather than the country itself! Furthermore, our government puts on a weird panto every year to celebrate how we nearly became a truly democratic republic. Basically, it’s all about how the house of commons refuse to allow the monarch to enter their chamber any more. This is represented by a door being slammed in a gentleman’s face before he tells the Queen (panto villain) that the public won’t be taking her shit any more. The Queen says cool and then goes on to read what the government will be looking in to for that year. Please remember this is the official state opening of parliament for one of the leading countries in the world! This practice is frankly embarrassing to broadcast on national TV, why do we still do this?! The American equivalent would be to have Obama dress in blue 18th century attire and chase the red coats into the sea before reading out the declaration of independence! Note – there always follows grovelling letters testifying to how it was the greatest reading of a list ever when it’s really not. Whilst I’m on this thread, her Christmas speeches aren’t incredible either, they’re nice and everything but hardly inspiring. I struggle to remember a single one! Normally some stuff about how family is important, charming, but no-one would listen to it if it were anyone else giving the speech, I’d rather watch Jingle All The Way.
Finally, I want to explain the rationale for the title of this piece. In several arguments about this subject I have been told that it’s not a big issue and that I should stop worrying about it. Now in practical terms these people are quite right, it does not compare to many issues that surround the world at this very moment. But in principle I struggle to think of anything bigger, it is highly embarrassing to be led by a person whose only right to be there was established by the violent kings of times gone by. She was not picked by the people and I am resigned to the fact that her great grandson George is going to be my leader one day. I don’t know what he’s like, maybe he’ll be fantastic, maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll be the kind of servant torturing psychopath that other ‘democracies’ like North Korea have got used to. I remember when gay marriage was the headline in this country. I was told then that it’s not a big issue and that they basically have marriage it’s just not called marriage. Yet I insisted that there was nothing more important in principle than giving homosexuals that equal right. I repeat it now, we may have an acting democracy, we all know that the politicians are the real leaders; we know that they make the decisions and that the Royals are there for decoration, we are in theory a pure democracy. But in terms of principle we must be categorised with the medieval civilsations of times gone past, it’s important for this country to grow and throw off the training wheels that royalty provide to governance. Currently, we are a democracy in all but name, weakly choosing to have a monarch represent us. I believe it is integral to our own self-respect as a nation that we become a democracy in practice and in name.
Scenarios I would like:
Best: The powers of the Royal family are taken away and they are told to move from their publicly-owned to privately-owned estates. They can live out the rest of their days as an incredibly well-off family – the upper class dream.
Meh: We AT LEAST take away their tax benefits, there’s no way we can be content as a country with the most privileged family in Britain not being subject to the same rules as the rest of us. Call on the anger you feel when you hear about expenses scandals and dodgy tax-cutting deals!
Now I shall pack up and head for the border. Next time you hear from me I expect I will be trapped in the stocks or my head will be on a spike outside Buckingham Palace. Feel free to toss your rotten tomato my way! It’s only through debate that this issue will ever be settled.
TTFN!
*In the interests of full disclosure I’m going to break down and admit that I haven’t read the book. I have merely watched a lecture he gave about the book on youtube. HAVE YOUR WAY WITH ME INTERNET!
**I feel it is worth noting that this celebrity status is not always healthy. I don’t want to fully commit myself to this view but I know that some claim that the public response to Diana’s death was not wholly appropriate. It was a response unlike any other seen in this country, much greater people that have contributed more to the world will get nothing like that mourning. Some people even claim to have been threatened for choosing to work on her memorial day! Members of the press accuse the public of forgetting how they felt about her leaving the Royal family for the repugnant Dodi Fayed. Something forgotten largely by the country that sent its condolences to the wrong address…Buckingham Palace. The most amusing example given is from a journalist who wrote the week before her death that she had behaved shamefully and like a whore at a time when the princes needed solidarity. Following her death, this same journalist engaged in the self-flagellation that the rest of the country did by wishing that this angel’s candle had not blown out in the wind. Now, I am too young to really have taken in the mood of the country at this time but I thought it was an important view to put out there, maybe the celebrity status of the monarchy is excessive.
psychopolemic 