AN OPINION ON THE VALUE OF THE MONARCHY
I will post this as a reply to Lord-loss but its intended for everyone.
Lord-Loss wrote:..... Cant stand the queen.
Thats your perogative. I have no problems with that whatsoever. If you got nasty to her face in public that would be different. But if we are honest and fair we can all choose not to disrespect her as a person without having to agree with her office. I have no end of contempt for some
SNP scum who cannot grasp this simple moral concept. Be a Republican if you want, but show
her some respect because of her own value as a human being, and because to many she represents our nation in a way noone or nothing else can.
Lord-Loss wrote: I never understood what's so special about a little old lady who is just a tourist attraction.
1. Lets start with the tourism, which is the point you recognised. Tourists dont come to see Her Majesty, because unless they are visiting dignitaries they generally dont. They come to see our nation and culture, something which the monarchy is an ingrained part of. This is of double importance because our culture has bee greatly eroded of late by Cool Britaninia, the rise of chav 'culture', ethnic tensions and other abominations. We, as in our elected representatives have all but abolished our infrastructure and filled it with crooks and yes men. Yes there were there before, but never on this scale. We have drowned out of historical rights and identity in the name of security and multi-culturalism. We have stomped on the rural economy and identity. In an age when quangos rule and you can get megaquids by screaming 'discrimination' farmers are still awaiting compensation for the foot and Mouth debacle. The just don't matter, the rural economy is gone, and the government doesnt care. What is there left of our nations core identity, what is there of the old England tourists come to visit?
Do they come to England to see the quangos, do they come to see the ghettos, do they come to see the BNP or Islam4UK? Her Majesty represents the best of what is left of what was and still can be the greatest cultural center on this planet since Ancient Rome. We have over 900 years of uninterrupted major world history here, a feat of itself, noone has come in and taken it away from us since 1066, we have built a lot, been a lot, seen a lot and are the
de facto the cradle of modern technology, industry, democracy and infrastructure. The foundation of western society can be found here in the
UK, from the Magna Carta onwards, but where can that be found now with the sorry regime and dogma heaped upon dogma to which we have been subjected. The one point of continuity is Her Majesty the Queen, mainly because they cannot get away with touching her.
2. Let us look at why this is and begin to see the real value of our monarchy. It is no secret that Blair and much of New Labour (I am not sure about Brown) want to rid themselves of the monarchy. I chose my words carefully here,
rid themselves of the monarchy, it is no secret to any with eyes that this government more than any ion the
Uk for centuries has little tolerance for opposition or dissent. Just look at other threads when even those who are normally quite blind to our growing junta have come to realise that arresting people for taking photos in public places is heavy handedness.
What has that to do with the Queen?
A lot, because the Prime Minister is expected to report to Her Majesty every week, normally on a Tuesday. He is actually formally accountable in some way. Only one Prime Minister has refused to do this, and I am talking about Blair - which should be no suprise. Blair didn't want to be accountable to anyone - this should tell you all you need to know. Apparently Gordon Brown doesn't take the short journey from No10 to Buckingham Palace often either and uses email from what I have heard. This is also evasive and insulting but less so.
The importance of this is that a constitutional monarchy places some limits on its elected representatives, limits that are needed due to the nature of man. Our Prime Minister cannot avoid any question from Her Majesty, or so it is supposed to go. Our state of readiness for war, oil reserves, diplomatic, budgetary and legislative policy must
all be declared upon request, with no room for exception, she is beholden to but if needed privy to any secret the state possess, though in practicality this is limited to 'I want to know exactly what you are doing and why' i.e. a pssrsonal scrutiny of the current Prime Minister. Without a monarchy this level of safeguard cannot exist. This for all politicians will at some point differ from what they profess either to the populace, their party or both. Her Majesty remains neutral, she is not in a position to be influenced and thus needs to hold no influence.
This scrutiny surfaces once a year in what is known as the Queens Speech in the state opening of Parliament. During this time an oath of layalty (for what its worth) is read by our nations politicians. The speech is more than a ceremony or gimic. The government MUST give an account of what it intends to do in the next twelve months to be read in the House of Lords by Her Majesty in person. New Labour wanted to reduce the Queens speech to once per term of office, the only reason to do so is to minimise accountability. I suspect that it is a first step to removing the ceremony and speech altogether adn thus eliminate this element of accountability altogether. In the US the State of The Union address holds some similar elements but is structured by the President himself and to his own agenda. The government does not have complete control over the wording of the Queens speech, the Palace (meaning civil servants of the Queen) has influence. So if you have been planning new legislation and don't want to inform the electorate you have to prepare it within the year.
3. Technically and yes this is only a technicality Her Majesty has the power to dissolve parliament and remove representatives from office. This power is of course not used, but if we had a Feurer type figure rise up (and remember Hitler was elected) suddenly turn around and suspend relection Her Majesty could remove him from office. This is what the power is for. This power is also real. Ask Mattrym if you dont beleive me if the
PM overstepped his mandate and Her Majesty ordered his removal from office, who would the army obey?
Despite efforts by guess who - yes Blair, to party politicise the officer corps soldiers still swear alliegiance to the Queen not to Westminster and military doctrines support this. As a completist note the Royal Navy swears alligiance to Parliament by tradition because the Navy sided with Parliament in the Civil war, but this is only a ceremony. In all other respects sailors as well as soldiers are told the
Royal Navy serves the Queen,
not the Prime Minister. I will leave it to your imagination to guess what New Labour thinks of that.
Also don't believe it cannot happen here, western democracies can turn into dictatorships easily.
De Gaulle managed it in the 60's Greece was taken over by a junta in the 70's. The monarchy is long term, this system was built to last, this aspect of Her Majesties authority might not be needed now, but what in thirty years time, or a one hundred and twenty years ago. Karl Marx came to England partly because her believed the Revolution would happen here and many historians agree with him. If was a change of monarchical policy forced on the isolationistic Victoria that quelled the unrest and headed the way towards a different type of reform.
4. Her Majesty acts as a placeholder for long term institutional power in a safe and controlled way. Power corrupts and power accumulates, most countries have someone behind the scenes who runs more than they should. They appear very quickly in power vacuums as greed power and corruption do not wait. So Russia now was the oil oligarchs. In the US you have the Federal Reserve bank which is a
private company masquerading as a government body and unaccountable to the government or people. The FBI in its early form under J Edgar Hoover was also a government within the government Hoover was in a very real way the King of the USA for several decades and there was little he could not do, and no President could remove him.
I am not saying everything is perfect in the
UK, it never was and certainly isn't now, but there is a limit to how far the corruption can go. You see the available slot for an evil overlord in the
UK is already filled by an old lady who likes to drink tea, take corgis for walks and meet her subjects. Even if Her Majesty was not of the mold she is made from she has no real ability to abuse her power. Her soldiers would protect her, but cannot make her
de facto ruler. We haver seen to that long ago. She cannot really tell us what to do, but she can put out the 'vacancy filled' sign to anyone else who would try. This is why we cannot have a Hoover or oligarch here.
5. Her Majesty acts as a litmus for the integrity of the nation. Let us look at the poll for a minute:
Ah, good old Queenie...
- Doesnt indicate that you are aware of what the Monarchy really is, but you like it.
Meh, she's nice enough I guess.
- Positive neutral. this is proably the most dangerous as someone with out an opinion can have the slot filled by a dogma.
Meh, does bugger all. Why do we have her again?
- Oddlty more positive as it indicates some thought ion the issue.
Useless sodding *grumble grumble* Money could be better spent on...
- Me me me, it doesnt benefit me, so lets get rid of it.
You will notice that a lot of the argument against having a monarchy is roughly based around the concept of worth and cost.
Let us look at both these points.
Worth - We live in a free society where we can express ourselves openly and be who we aspire to be. The monarchy does nothing to limit that, though such freedoms have been eroded of late buy oither sources. We also now belong is supposedly a 'New Britain' which promotes tolerance for all, with 'equality and diversity' and multi-culturalism as the key. Good, I am a monachist, and this is my culture. I belong to an England that honours its monarch, which is my roots and my cultural identity. I bow the knee to the throne by free will and clear conscience. You need not follow me, but his should not be taken from me.
You need not bow before the Queen. You can ignore her. Its distasteful if you speak out against her in some respects because like it or not she does represent the nation and by that regard cannot represent herself. It was my first point on this post.
We live in a society where millions are spent on quangos and ethnic centers and putting into practice multi-culturalism. this is because it is seen that the communities of this nation have the right to empowerment of their cultural values. Fair enough. For myself and many many other Englishmen this means a monarchy with our sovereign Queen as Head of State.
Money - People talk about the civic list and what it costs. Who are you to care. The monarch owns much of the land in this nation, no not the government the monarch. If you own x farms or y plots of land you would expect your rent yes. every ladlord does. The Crown estate monies go to the government even though they are the Queens personal property. She pays us more than we pay her.
I will not talk too long about Her Majesty's income gathering potential, but I will remember a quote from a US industrialist (I forget who) commenting on the aftermath of the Queens visit to the USA sometime in the Reagan era. He said that he could not have possibly purchased the advertising space the Royal Visit generated. Royal visits often promote our industry and a visit by Her Majesty and senior Royals nets for our economy more money that we could have possibly made had the industries been marketed by normal means.
Her Majesty doesn't do commercials. But if she turns up to a
UK Expo you can bet the press will be there and you can bet sales will flow. Its cleverly done, it doesnt even look like advertising and the Royals do not of themselves advertise, they are a vehicle by which others around them do.
it is estimated that the
Uk Expo to which to quote refers raised over a billion dollars in sales. This is far more than the nation will ever have to pay for the civil list for the entire monarchy for decades - which is an employer as and of itself, and that was the fruit of one visit.
6. Is anyone unclear that we would have no greater democracy in the
UK if we had a President instead of a Prime Minister. is anyone unclear that the elected Prime Minister really does run the country. All that changes is that there are some safeguards behind the scenes which manifest in the in the shape of the monarchy. The guys who worked out the Restoration knew what they were doing, after all they had just had a dictator in the form of Cromwell. in a very real way England was the first modern fascist state, The Commonwealth has a lot in common with Franco's Spain and Mussolini's Italy and little with other government types. I will stop well short of saying the Commonwealth resembled the Third Reich mainly because there is a difference between fascism and nazism, if you must know its a matter of extremes. But we are not going to go Off Topic aren't we.
Our nation has lasted through any turmoils and disasters because of this inherently stable system, like every political system it is not entirely fair, but it is fairer than most and a whole lot safer than many. You dig out the foundations at your peril.
7. Her Majesty is one of the most well known and respected faces in the world today, and her grandson and hopefully her real heir seems to be following this fine tradition. Royal visits are kept few and far between for a number of reasons. Not only that but in her own case (I am an apologist for the monarchy in general not just our present Queen) her Majesty is one of the most skilled diplomats and ambassadors ever to walk this planet. There are few nations where she would not be made welcome, if only for the benefit of the local regime. Even communist nations courted Royal visits. The possibility of Royal Visit is a strong diplomatic card in the hands our elected government. If our government approves of you (being a foreign head of state), you might be allowed to be seen with the Queen or even better she might pay you a visit. While the average guy on the street might not think too carefully on that, it is undoubtably of huge interest to any government.
After all if Bush or Obama visit your nation, it makes the news a bit, and with a bit of PR you can milk that, if Her Majesty does, the nation stops and watches, many of the nations worries are forgotten for that while and people feel good about their iown government. If the nation is full of Aussies they might be stopping to complain instead, but there is no pleasing some people.
You just cannot mimic this level of diplomatic or media intensity with almost anyone else, her only equal or near equal in that regard is the Pope. You will notice that the Vatican also does not overuse visits.
8. Other royals while consider hangers on by many are the same on a smaller level. Prince Andrew and The Count and Countess of Wessex are not useless by a long shot. Though Prince Edward did need to get a decent partner for that to work - and I am glad that at least one of Her Majesties sons got their marriage right. Many are senior patrons of major world organisations, and these positions are not wasted on them.
I remember when muppets in the media call on why send Princess Anne as a UN goodwill Ambassador when you can send a starlet or singer. They have no idea, just because some celeb is big name here or in the
Uk it doesnt mean squat globally. Even if you chose someone everyone did know a Bob Dylan or Paul McCartney it doesn't have the same ring internationally. If you want someone to mouth off at regimes Bob Geldof et al are better choices, the Royals cant do that and we all know it. But that is not what ambassadorial conduct is about and you might be suprised to find out just how far someone like Princess Anne can go. Not only is it often a political nighmare to offend one of the Royal, many in fact most do have re reputation of having earned their status, and for doing a lot more than cavorting on stage or making a buck.
This is doubly true in Africa, Royals even minor ones with not chance at the Throne can get a lot of attention. Jimmy Carter, who is he?
Hope this helps. Sorry about the textwall, but there is far more to the monarchy than most people realise.
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