The MOnarchy

With all this recent scandal, the arguments for, and against, keeping the MOnarchy will no doubt kick off again soon.

I can see things for and against.

The obvious things against, are why should they be allowed to inherit titles/power because of their ancestors past doings. The bill for keeping them. And why should they seemingly be above the law!

For them would be, the "tourist attraction" argument.

Your thoughts?

 

String 'em up, but do it slowly. One a year. Sell tickets and worldwide TV rights and use the money for the greater good.

-- Ian

 

bugger 'em all, I say - and then roger them sideways for good measure. Then make them watch 'pop idol'..no maybe thats going too far? I don't mind them existing as long as 95% of their land is used to build new towns, and we stop paying for them

 

Get rid of the lot of them I say.

This country can really do without that buffoon Charles as the heir to the throne. Hopefully, the country will come to its senses and get shot of them before he becomes king.

Robbo

 

As a form of entertainment they are currently almost earning their keep – the whole rapist / payoff / gay scandal is hysterical, and there is plenty of mileage in the Diana death conspiracy yet (my theory is the whole car load of people inc D were coke'd up to hell hence the cover-up and apparently deliberate destruction of forensic evidence). This kind of gossip is definitely more use to the country than that moron Charles single handily wrecking British architecture (all because modern buildings don't have tacky Greek columns like what palaces do…).

We do however desperately need a constitution – I refuse point blank to be a 'subject' to these morons. They should also get no money from the state and not be allowed to keep their land (which was taken by force in the past). They should make their living by selling gossip to Hello magazine or becoming a 24x7 'reality' show like other useless 'celebrities'.

Looks like the Mail on Sunday (a truly horrific paper) is actually going to ignore the injunction and publish tomorrow – there have been a couple of TV ads to that effect tonight. I find it hysterical that the most stayed, narrow minded, right wing and bigoted 'middle England' paper is so happy to hang the royal family out to dry – I may even buy it tomorrow!

Tony.

 

I've always wondered what would happen if some resourceful individual (i.e. me) sauntered down from sunny Blackburn to The Palace and siezed the throne room and offed the Queen. Would that make me King like in the olden days? Can you still do that?

 

hmmm,
yet another indication of the monumental british guilt complex and the wish to throw the baby out with the bath water and sweep our past under the carpet (if you can stand the mixed metaphor). the royal family is part of british culture and heritage, of which we have precious little left. they may not be as relevant as they used to be but the monach, i believe, still serves as final arbier of whether certain laws are passed and could if they so chose decide not to formally aprove a prime minister and as such represents one more level of separation from a totalitarian state which i'm very much in favour of (the removal from NOT the totalitarian state i hasten to add). yes they have dug their own hole but the press are not letting them climb out. they are encouraging every money grubbing idiot who can make up a story to crawl out of the woodwork and kick these people while they are down. on purely humanitarian and decency grounds i find it disgusting.
i suspect that if you did get rid of the royal family (how do you do that exactly? - would it just mean removing them from the public payment list? i'm sure that they'd miss that given that they own 1/2 of london and large lumps of land everywhere else in the country) i'm sure there would be a deal more upheval than you all seem to think.

anyway despite the above if charles has done something wrong he should be punished for it, just like anyone else. what exactly IS he accused of? i deliberately avoid the news these days as listening to the latest acts of human atrocity is just not something i need in my life, call me an ostritch but i'm happier and have lower blood pressure for it.

cheers

julian

 

A non-elected entity which arrived at its position through force and theft many generations ago that can oppose a democratically elected government does not represent one more level of separation from a totalitarian state. It represents quite the reverse.

Most of the land was originally taken by force, so there is a strong argument for it being given back to the country as a whole. To my mind they don't own the land they occupy any more than some scally twat owns the car stereo he is attempting to sell down the pub...

Tony.

 

it's this attitude of holding long past grudges and grievances that is a major contributor to a lot of the problems in the world. serbia, afghanistan, israel, ireland even a lot of the internal strife within iraq are all at root fights over stuff that happened over a generation ago which to me is not just pointless but lunacy. whatever happened to forgiveness.

the monarch is bound by tradition to aprove whatever prime minister or law is put in front of them. however if a truly abhorrent law is passed by the publicly elected body then there is at least one line where refusal of the law or minister would create extreme publicity allowing the matter to be brought to the fore. certainly it would get those not usually interested in politics involved if the queen refused to acknowledge micheal howard in the unfortunate event that he was elected as prime minister and decided to start bar coding ethnic minorities.

it really does seem, tony, that your objections are due to the fact that they had canny ancestors who although they may have been brutal (although at least they were honest about it and stuck a sword in you, they didn;t downsize you or kill you with lawyers as is done today) they decided to work and fight to better their descendants lot. whilst yours didn;t.

cheers


julian

 

It's a totally different thing – no one is currently getting killed as a result of us having a series of irrelevant outdated curios as a national figurehead. My view is simply that they should finance themselves and receive no money from tax payers and get no tax breaks. They are the UK equivalent of Disneyland, nothing more, so they should pay their way in the same way and also pay rent to the state on the land they occupy. No one should be in any doubt that they are the direct decedents of mass murderers and tyrants, but in this day and age that is a pretty marketable commodity.

Forgiveness is all well and good, but all the royal family have is their history. If they are trading on their violent past (which they are), then they should be subject to exactly the same laws and taxes as the rest of the country. To suggest otherwise has to mean that Gambit's excellent idea above is the way to go – they either live by the rules of the country or can be overthrown by violence as they did to others in their history. There is no acceptable middle ground.

I suspect the ever eloquent Prince Phillip would be first in line for a bar code reader. There is little doubt that this man is a racist.

Just as 'canny' as Robert Mugabe / Saddam Hussain / Ted Bundy etc. Ok my family was probably digging for that ever elusive perfect potato somewhere in Ireland at the time, but at least as far as I am aware I am not descended from mass murderers…

My main objection is the lack of a UK constitution; as I say above I refuse to be a subject to these people. I am happy for the royal family to be kept as a self financing tourist attraction, but to allow them any additional powers is absolutely insane.

Tony.

 

Looks like they didn't in the end, AFAIK anyway. So what exactly are these allegations. I believe the Italian media have already published details in one of their newspapers - anyone got an appropriate link?

 

I couldn't agree more.

The UK should follow the example of all the other remaining European royal families which (AFAIK) are pretty much what Tony suggests. A rich family with a few ceremonial duties, that appears a lot in Hello, Hola etc, is self-financing, pays taxes and is otherwise subject to the constitution (which the UK badly needs) and laws of the country just like anyone else. Provides the masses with a reality soap opera as well

Michael.

 

Bare in mind that the UK court injunction is still in place - it would be very unwise to place any direct links on this forum and doing so may get Michael in trouble. It is probably perfectly safe to relay the fact that the story is alive and well on the alt. newsgroups though - google has an excellnt 'groups' search facility that gives the appropriate results if you were to input suitable keywords...

The Mail on Sunday has the story pretty much as reported on the web, but has not named the alleged rapist... He is featured in the paper though!

Tony.

 

Looks like the injunction only applied to England and Wales....but not Scotland So the Sunday Herald has printed the allegations:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3252911.stm

...of course the BBC site can't repeat them because it's subject to the injunction. There's even the absurd suggestion that if a paper in Scotland publishes the allegation and that paper makes its way South of the border it's commiting a libel

Perhaps it's best that if you find out what the allegations are NOT to repeat them here or, following Tony's advice, to post any direct links either

Michael.

 

Indeed. Elizabeth von Haus der Vindzor and Phil the Greek are as British as warm beer. Gawd bless 'em, eh?

-- Ian

 

tony,
i'll agree with you and others that some form of constitution is desperately needed but does this preclude the royal family.

also i feel that if the royals were to charge the country for their public duties, ambasadorial visits, goodwill tours, etc. then the cost would probalby be a lot more than they are paid now. it costs something like 20 million dollars to emply a top holywood actor for 3 months or so. i reckon the top members of the royal family could easily ask that as their fee so maybe it's not such a bad deal after all.

do you believe in social evolution? i ask because mugabe, hussein, etc... are all present day monsters. back in the 7th century that's how things were done. i hope society has evolved otherwise what's the point?

i agree the royals lack relevancy today, just as the church of england does as does catholicism (now there's a bunch of red handed buggers if you ask me, #1 in the league for historical murderers in my book the crusades, the inquisition, various purges). what grieves me is that none of these institutions are willing to bend and find a place in modern society.
cheers


julian

 

Michael,

I agree absolutely. relagate their role to a ceremonial one like other european royals, preferably self financing too.

 

Right then, I'm coming round to burgle your house tonight. Doesn't sound like a very nice thing to do but then in a generation's time, about 30 years I guess, you will have forgiven me and we'll be best friends again. Even though I won't have given you back any of your stuff (except maybe the Naim ). Marvellous!

 

The whole thing about how they got where they are, and forgiveness and such isn't quite so straight forward as "oh it's in the past". It's true that you can't really hold bad feelings towards individuals, or families, because of their ancestors. However, for them to hold on to land, special treatments, and such in the MOdern day put's them up for negative feelings.

 

chris,
if you can get past the alarm system and the 20+ stone angry person wielding sharp things then fair enough. still 30 years in my bad books for a smashed window and some stuff covered by insurance that i can get back by calling the police is hardly fitting punishment and to be honest eating my own heart out with a lust for revenge is just something i'm not really into anymore, my divorce and custody battle kinda burnt that shit out of me forever.
yes i'd be pissed for a while but i don't think in 100+ years time my offspring would try to wipe out your (hypothetical) offspring in a raging fundamentalist war of genocide... death to the technobears...
my point is that tony, ian, et al seem to have had a major button push at the mention of the monarchy especially as they are likening them to some of the most vile dictators in the recent past and demanding massive property confiscation this seems a little errr obsessive to me. as i've said the royal familiy is mostly ceremonial with any real power they have bound by tradition and unused by monarchs since the 1700's. tony, ian, et al's reaction to the monarchy struck me as congruent with the darker side of human nature, the unwillingness to forgive that is producing atrocities like sadams extermination of the kurds, the twin towers, northern ireland and irael / palestine. if both sides accepted the status quo and dealt with the situation as it stands now rather than trying to claw back the past then the planet would be a much more pleasant place. of course as long as people are getting rich and feeding their lust for power thanks to human misery this just ain;t gonna happen.
cheers



julian