5 ms·

Crazy when you think about the time and money wasted stupidly because of this, that could have been used to improve public services instead...

frereubu 3y ago
I'm a republican, but this is an infinitesimally small drop in the ocean of public finances: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_Uni...
chris_wot 3y ago
It's only stupid if you don't like the monarchy.
- ews 3y ago
  I think the vast majority of people in any country would prefer a Head of State that is chosen by popular vote rather than by Royal Sperm. Changing an icon may cost a bucket, next to nothing, although monarchies are usually very opaque (regardless of what they pretend, we still don't have an account of all European monarchies properties and investments). However, the entire coronation pantomime is bizarre in a country still suffering from the Brexit fiasco.
  - chris_wot 3y ago
    That does not seem to be the case in the UK. Nor does it seem to be the case (yet) in Australia, which has rejected the move to become a Republic. Everywhere else, I'm sure that may be the case. Except Norway. And Thailand. Maybe Bhutan. etc.
    - ews 3y ago
      I did not know Bhutan, or Thailand had referenda on the composition of their government and decided to stay monarchic. Last time they asked in Norway it was roughly 120 years ago, around the time the Model T was all the rage. Things have change a tiny bit since then. Most countries where a referendum has been held (particularly in the last 100 years) have decided to go with an elected head of stated, not a monarch. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchy_referendums https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchy_referendums)
      - chris_wot 3y ago
        I never mentioned anything about referenda. Popular opinion in those countries is they are largely happy enough with their monarchy. From what I can tell, in Norway it does seem that things have changed only a little bit. Note I'm not a particular fan of any monarchy, but you did state that "I think the vast majority of people in any country would prefer a Head of State that is chosen by popular vote rather than by Royal Sperm." That's an easily falsifiable statement.
  - defrost 3y ago
    As an Australian (and for most directly part of the four lions in the UK) the "Head of State" part is viewed as highly symbolic and there's no love at all for having an actual active King or Queen that meddles beyond the purely ceremonial (swearing in new Heads of Government, etc). Australia barely accepted keeping the former Queen as head of state the last time this went to a referendum, and that was a member of the Royal family who served in WWII driving ambulances in London and stayed a steady constant since. It's questionable whether there'd be any love for King (formerly known as Prince) Big Ears should it come to a vote again. The part that is strongly liked is the notion of something constant and greater than day to day government, a sense of continuity of country. Day to day meddling in details is strictly for the people we elect and hire to debate policy and pass that on to others that enact it.
    - gumby 3y ago
      The problems with that vote last time were that neither alternative was particularly palatable (each designed to help someone be the first president, long term be damned) and worse, that there were two republican choices at all, in order to split the republican vote. So we still have a “constitution” that’s simply a law passed in Westminster. I despair that the country will become a republic in my lifetime.
      - defrost 3y ago
        I've no great love for the monarchy, I'll vote for a Republic if it comes up "clean" as a no strings attached kind of question, .. but I don't "despair" .. the last time UK lackeys meddled in AU affairs ( The Dismissal : https://www.thedismissal.com/ https://www.thedismissal.com/ ( bless the little bleeder ) ) goes back a ways and didn't go down well. Should that kind of stunt get pulled again it'd likely trigger a Republic.
        chris_wot 3y ago
        I hate to say this, but after Australia watched the utter chaos of the Trump presidency, I think the likelihood of us switching to a Republic is unlikely for now.
  - gnepon 3y ago
    We're ambivalent on whether we want King Charles, but we're adamant in not wanting a President Sunak.
    - billpg 3y ago
      Don't vote for him then?
      - mrweasel 3y ago
        That won't actually make much of a difference in countries like the UK. The prime minister is not an elected role. In the UK there are so few parties that you'd have to either not vote or vote against your conviction to keep a party's prime minister candidate. Technically you don't even need to be on the ballot in some countries to become the prime minister. Granted it would be weird, but ministers are appointed by the party or parties in power in parliament, so there's no rules that says that any minister needs to be elected or even on the ballots. It happens not to infrequently in parliamentary countries that ministers are pulled in from outside. Normally they'll the run in the next election, otherwise they'll have no voting power in the parliament. I can see the argument that it's not democratic, but it avoids the issues of a presidential election as we seen in the US. In the end, the prime minister is "elected" by the candidates the people voted into the parliament, it works best if you have more than the four parties you seen in the UK.
      - gnepon 3y ago
        Nobody votes for the PM directly unless they're running in your local constituency. Beyond that though, we have gone through various PMs since our last election, so nobody did vote for him. For those that will vote for him in the upcoming election (directly or indirectly), they still do not want him to be president either.
    - a_dabbler 3y ago
      Strange that he's the PM then, seems undemocratic...
      - deleted 3y ago
  - cameronh90 3y ago
    The monarchy still has a plurality of support in the UK, possibly because the only suggested alternative is an elected head of state. The monarchy is an silly institution, but there’s something nice about having a (mostly) apolitical symbolic head of state. People look at it and think instead of Liz and Charles, we could have had someone like Trump, Macron, or President Boris, and that scares them off republicanism. Germany is perhaps a bit better with their elected but mostly irrelevant president, but nobody even knows who they are, and in the end the prime minister acts like the head of state. The most absurd thing about the monarchy is that it does its job quite well.
  - fomine3 3y ago
    I'm not a fan of monarchy system, but it's fair to say that Trump or equivalent as a "top" for both power and authority is nightmare.
  - mrweasel 3y ago
    > I think the vast majority of people in any country would prefer a Head of State that is chosen by popular vote rather than by Royal Sperm. I think you are very wrong about that. The Danish royal family remains the head of state because no one want any of our politicians to become president. If feels like a nice safety net to have the king above the prime minister, not an effective one, but still. Politicians are short term, think short term and fickle minded, at least the royal family thinks generations ahead. As long as the royal family is well behaved, polite and appear interested in the people, I think most countries will prefer to keep them as the official, but neutered figure heads.
lupire 3y ago
In US they redo branding like this every election.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  Exactly, it's not even unique to the monarch in countries like Denmark. Government offices are rebrand, restructured and renamed far more often than the king or queen. The major difference is that the government offices rarely do a slow transition, they change everything at once, rather than just replacing the logo on things like uniforms, tools and buildings when the object needs replacing or refurbishing anyway. Personally I feel like the rebranding of government office just because some one is "up for a ministerial post" so we need to create one, is far more wasteful.
karaterobot 3y ago
In order to do that, I'd need some idea of what it cost. If it's just somebody on salary doing this job instead of some other job, I don't see it making a huge difference. If it's a few days of a designer's time and a few hours of a developer's time, which is what I would think a simple logo swap would be, I doubt that's the difference between functioning public services and a lawless, Mad Max wasteland where people sell their children for canned corn.
- kypro 3y ago
  I suppose I have some insight into this as I've worked for the public sector in the UK for several years. The Gov.uk estate is absolutely enormous. There's obviously all the public facing stuff, but many many more internal tools and services too which need updating too. But the change is even bigger than just this, because there's also documents and resources which teams will need to update in the coming weeks also. Additionally guidance needs to be issued across all government departments and although I've not been following this personally I have seen lengthy comms issued about the crown change. There's a huge amount of bureaucracy in the public sector so changes like this are extensively documented and planned by various individuals on 6 figure salaries before teams will even pick up the work. If I were to guess we're probably talking about a thousand people spending several hours on this at least. That said, for it to be wasteful it would need to be less productive than what people would otherwise be working on. Compared to building stuff that's never used or scraped shortly after building it, this is probably more productive than most things people work on in the public sector.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    > Compared to building stuff that's never used or scraped shortly after building it, this is probably more productive than most things people work on in the public sector. That only holds water if this project means that they're never going to work on the never-used or soon-to-be-scrapped project that they'd otherwise be working on if the cypher never needed to be updated. Ultimately, of course, this project is a tiny rounding error in the government's budget, so it doesn't really matter either way.
- 3y ago
macleginn 3y ago
"It is the intention that the new cypher and new rendering of the Crown will be introduced gradually, and generally only when equipment or uniforms which bear them needs to be replaced. This will be similar to what happened in the 1950s and 1960s as Queen Elizabeth II's cypher came to replace that of King George VI." (https://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/news-grants/news/item/205-royal-cypher https://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/news-grants/news/item/205...)

frereubu 3y ago

I'm a republican, but this is an infinitesimally small drop in the ocean of public finances: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_Uni...

chris_wot 3y ago

It's only stupid if you don't like the monarchy.

ews 3y ago
I think the vast majority of people in any country would prefer a Head of State that is chosen by popular vote rather than by Royal Sperm. Changing an icon may cost a bucket, next to nothing, although monarchies are usually very opaque (regardless of what they pretend, we still don't have an account of all European monarchies properties and investments). However, the entire coronation pantomime is bizarre in a country still suffering from the Brexit fiasco.
- chris_wot 3y ago
  That does not seem to be the case in the UK. Nor does it seem to be the case (yet) in Australia, which has rejected the move to become a Republic. Everywhere else, I'm sure that may be the case. Except Norway. And Thailand. Maybe Bhutan. etc.
  - ews 3y ago
    I did not know Bhutan, or Thailand had referenda on the composition of their government and decided to stay monarchic. Last time they asked in Norway it was roughly 120 years ago, around the time the Model T was all the rage. Things have change a tiny bit since then. Most countries where a referendum has been held (particularly in the last 100 years) have decided to go with an elected head of stated, not a monarch. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchy_referendums https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchy_referendums)
    - chris_wot 3y ago
      I never mentioned anything about referenda. Popular opinion in those countries is they are largely happy enough with their monarchy. From what I can tell, in Norway it does seem that things have changed only a little bit. Note I'm not a particular fan of any monarchy, but you did state that "I think the vast majority of people in any country would prefer a Head of State that is chosen by popular vote rather than by Royal Sperm." That's an easily falsifiable statement.
- defrost 3y ago
  As an Australian (and for most directly part of the four lions in the UK) the "Head of State" part is viewed as highly symbolic and there's no love at all for having an actual active King or Queen that meddles beyond the purely ceremonial (swearing in new Heads of Government, etc). Australia barely accepted keeping the former Queen as head of state the last time this went to a referendum, and that was a member of the Royal family who served in WWII driving ambulances in London and stayed a steady constant since. It's questionable whether there'd be any love for King (formerly known as Prince) Big Ears should it come to a vote again. The part that is strongly liked is the notion of something constant and greater than day to day government, a sense of continuity of country. Day to day meddling in details is strictly for the people we elect and hire to debate policy and pass that on to others that enact it.
  - gumby 3y ago
    The problems with that vote last time were that neither alternative was particularly palatable (each designed to help someone be the first president, long term be damned) and worse, that there were two republican choices at all, in order to split the republican vote. So we still have a “constitution” that’s simply a law passed in Westminster. I despair that the country will become a republic in my lifetime.
    - defrost 3y ago
      I've no great love for the monarchy, I'll vote for a Republic if it comes up "clean" as a no strings attached kind of question, .. but I don't "despair" .. the last time UK lackeys meddled in AU affairs ( The Dismissal : https://www.thedismissal.com/ https://www.thedismissal.com/ ( bless the little bleeder ) ) goes back a ways and didn't go down well. Should that kind of stunt get pulled again it'd likely trigger a Republic.
      - chris_wot 3y ago
        I hate to say this, but after Australia watched the utter chaos of the Trump presidency, I think the likelihood of us switching to a Republic is unlikely for now.
- gnepon 3y ago
  We're ambivalent on whether we want King Charles, but we're adamant in not wanting a President Sunak.
  - billpg 3y ago
    Don't vote for him then?
    - mrweasel 3y ago
      That won't actually make much of a difference in countries like the UK. The prime minister is not an elected role. In the UK there are so few parties that you'd have to either not vote or vote against your conviction to keep a party's prime minister candidate. Technically you don't even need to be on the ballot in some countries to become the prime minister. Granted it would be weird, but ministers are appointed by the party or parties in power in parliament, so there's no rules that says that any minister needs to be elected or even on the ballots. It happens not to infrequently in parliamentary countries that ministers are pulled in from outside. Normally they'll the run in the next election, otherwise they'll have no voting power in the parliament. I can see the argument that it's not democratic, but it avoids the issues of a presidential election as we seen in the US. In the end, the prime minister is "elected" by the candidates the people voted into the parliament, it works best if you have more than the four parties you seen in the UK.
    - gnepon 3y ago
      Nobody votes for the PM directly unless they're running in your local constituency. Beyond that though, we have gone through various PMs since our last election, so nobody did vote for him. For those that will vote for him in the upcoming election (directly or indirectly), they still do not want him to be president either.
  - a_dabbler 3y ago
    Strange that he's the PM then, seems undemocratic...
    - deleted 3y ago
- cameronh90 3y ago
  The monarchy still has a plurality of support in the UK, possibly because the only suggested alternative is an elected head of state. The monarchy is an silly institution, but there’s something nice about having a (mostly) apolitical symbolic head of state. People look at it and think instead of Liz and Charles, we could have had someone like Trump, Macron, or President Boris, and that scares them off republicanism. Germany is perhaps a bit better with their elected but mostly irrelevant president, but nobody even knows who they are, and in the end the prime minister acts like the head of state. The most absurd thing about the monarchy is that it does its job quite well.
- fomine3 3y ago
  I'm not a fan of monarchy system, but it's fair to say that Trump or equivalent as a "top" for both power and authority is nightmare.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  > I think the vast majority of people in any country would prefer a Head of State that is chosen by popular vote rather than by Royal Sperm. I think you are very wrong about that. The Danish royal family remains the head of state because no one want any of our politicians to become president. If feels like a nice safety net to have the king above the prime minister, not an effective one, but still. Politicians are short term, think short term and fickle minded, at least the royal family thinks generations ahead. As long as the royal family is well behaved, polite and appear interested in the people, I think most countries will prefer to keep them as the official, but neutered figure heads.

lupire 3y ago

In US they redo branding like this every election.

mrweasel 3y ago
Exactly, it's not even unique to the monarch in countries like Denmark. Government offices are rebrand, restructured and renamed far more often than the king or queen. The major difference is that the government offices rarely do a slow transition, they change everything at once, rather than just replacing the logo on things like uniforms, tools and buildings when the object needs replacing or refurbishing anyway. Personally I feel like the rebranding of government office just because some one is "up for a ministerial post" so we need to create one, is far more wasteful.

karaterobot 3y ago

In order to do that, I'd need some idea of what it cost. If it's just somebody on salary doing this job instead of some other job, I don't see it making a huge difference. If it's a few days of a designer's time and a few hours of a developer's time, which is what I would think a simple logo swap would be, I doubt that's the difference between functioning public services and a lawless, Mad Max wasteland where people sell their children for canned corn.

kypro 3y ago
I suppose I have some insight into this as I've worked for the public sector in the UK for several years. The Gov.uk estate is absolutely enormous. There's obviously all the public facing stuff, but many many more internal tools and services too which need updating too. But the change is even bigger than just this, because there's also documents and resources which teams will need to update in the coming weeks also. Additionally guidance needs to be issued across all government departments and although I've not been following this personally I have seen lengthy comms issued about the crown change. There's a huge amount of bureaucracy in the public sector so changes like this are extensively documented and planned by various individuals on 6 figure salaries before teams will even pick up the work. If I were to guess we're probably talking about a thousand people spending several hours on this at least. That said, for it to be wasteful it would need to be less productive than what people would otherwise be working on. Compared to building stuff that's never used or scraped shortly after building it, this is probably more productive than most things people work on in the public sector.
- kelnos 3y ago
  > Compared to building stuff that's never used or scraped shortly after building it, this is probably more productive than most things people work on in the public sector. That only holds water if this project means that they're never going to work on the never-used or soon-to-be-scrapped project that they'd otherwise be working on if the cypher never needed to be updated. Ultimately, of course, this project is a tiny rounding error in the government's budget, so it doesn't really matter either way.
3y ago

macleginn 3y ago

"It is the intention that the new cypher and new rendering of the Crown will be introduced gradually, and generally only when equipment or uniforms which bear them needs to be replaced. This will be similar to what happened in the 1950s and 1960s as Queen Elizabeth II's cypher came to replace that of King George VI." (https://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/news-grants/news/item/205-royal-cypher https://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/news-grants/news/item/205...)