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A symbol of British democracy, "The Queen shows us who isn't boss"
- gpvos 12y agoProbably due to my setup with NoScript and RequestPolicy, the page kept reloading. Disabling Javascript for bbc.co.uk enabled it to load without problem.
- bruceboughton 12y agoThis comment is the epitome of a Hacker News comment. I expected no less when coming to read the comments.
- andyjohnson0 12y ago"The Queen reigns, but she does not rule." - Walter Bagehot
- ibisum 12y agoAnd this is where we get the nickname 'pom' from, which is short for 'pompous' and usually associated with other appengages, i.e. 'bastard' and so on. Pomp and ceremony, with little substance, seems to be an essence of many a puppet state.
- scrumper 12y agoThe point here is that there is a tremendous amount of substance.
- throwaway128973 12y agoThat's a nice spin in the headline, but a homeless person could equally well fulfil the requirements. In reality the Queen is a symbol of the glorious colonial times.
- gadders 12y agoNot really. I think the monarchy pre-dates any colonies Britain/England had.
- mikeash 12y agoIt's still a nostalgic symbol of the days when "the sun never sets on the British Empire". Nobody is nostalgic for the days when England was a tiny backwater whose only claim to fame was bothering the French.
- gadders 12y agoIt's a nostalgic symbol of 2,000+ years of history.
- tragic 12y agoIt's a nostalgic symbol of the myth of 2,000 years of history. (Although I think in practical terms the earliest anyone even remotely sensible would date the history is the Anglo-Saxon colonisation, ~1500 years ago.) The idea that there is a continuous history even of the English over this time is utterly risible - let alone the British, 'Britain' as a thing being - as the GGGGP says - the product of the imperial era more than anything else (act of union 1707, last Jacobite rising 1745; treaty of Utrecht, which cemented British supremacy, 1714; rapid colonial expansion thereafter). The more pressing problem with the monarchy is the 'royal prerogative', which has the effect of turning 'Call Me Dave' Cameron into a de facto president. As a believer in the exclusive democratic legitimacy of the legislature, I do not believe in monarchs - born or elected.
- sbmassey 12y agoThe history of Britain dates back to the Caesar's half-arsed invasion, surely. The history of the various British peoples seems pretty continuous from Anglo Saxon times onwards. I don't understand why citing particular 18th century treaties is meant to contradict that. Are you suggesting that you would prefer Cameron as a de jure President?
- happyscrappy 12y agoThe Queen is a symbol that classism is alive and well in Britain.
- scarmig 12y agoBest remove the symbol, then, so we can pretend that classism no longer exists?
- notahacker 12y agoI actually like the idea of a hypothetical post-revolutionary Britain which seeks to emphasize the humble status of politicians by requiring that all their political arguments are voiced by a randomly-selected homeless person. Kind of a mixture of the ceremonial humbling of the Queen mentioned in the original article and the Troubles-era rule that all Sinn Fein statements must be read by an actor.
- alexvonauspuff 12y agoIs there any sovereign who can still rule like king Geoffrey?
- voidlogic 12y agoIf you are asking if there are monarchs with real power, then yes there are several. In the middle east you have countries like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE. There are even several in Europe; Vatican City, Monaco, Liechtenstein. You could even argue that the reserve powers of the British monarch are indeed great, although, if they ever tried to exercise them in there own right there would probably be a constitutional crisis, and without broad public support they would not prevail.
- ozda 12y ago> You could even argue that the reserve powers of the British monarch are indeed great, although, if they ever tried to exercise them in there own right there would probably be a constitutional crisis, and without broad public support they would not prevail. And by extension... with broad public support they would prevail and execute the will of the people in a time of crisis and with the full support of the military. Which, perversely, effectively places the reserve powers of the Monarch and the might of the military in the hands of the people at exactly the time the people would need them.
- dragonwriter 12y ago> Is there any sovereign who can still rule like king Geoffrey? You mean King Joffrey from Game of Thrones? Who reigned briefly, and during that time could essentially only effectively rule what occurred in his immediate presence and then only mostly by surprise, since otherwise effective rule in his name was mostly by his mother, uncle, or (simultaneously paternal and maternal) grandfather according to their own desires? Yeah, there are real monarchs with at least that much power a number of places.
- higherpurpose 12y agoI don't know about British democracy with David Cameron in power. There's democracy and then there's "democracy".
- acallaghan 12y agoHe has very little power in comparison to say Obama. Cameron has the ability to appoint and remove Cabinet members and steer the party very broadly. Senior Civil Servants and Minister's aides have far more power comparative to the press coverage they receive.
- sbuk 12y agoIt's no different to when Bliar or Brown were in power. Brown never actually won an election, he took over from Bliar after he stepped down. How's that for democracy?
- robin_reala 12y agoThat’s how democracy in Britain works. You vote for a party, not a person. The party is free to make changes to the internal structure as they see fit.
- MartinMcGirk 12y agoWell, not to undermine the gist of your point (which I agree with) but instead of voting for a party per se, you actually vote for a local Member of Parliament, who can be a member of a party or not, and is free to switch party whenever they like as they sees fit.
- robin_reala 12y agoSorry, yes of course! It’s the switching of parties that I always forget is possible.
- bruceboughton 12y agoActually you vote for a local MP who chooses to associate with other like-minded (ha!) MPs.
- davedx 12y agoStupid waste of time and money. We should abolish the damn monarchy once and for all, let them get a job like the government tells everybody else they must do. Unfortunately I choose to migrate from one constitutional monarchy to another, which seems to have just as much fun with all the ceremonies, days off and drunken patriotism as back home. Peer Netherlands
- seanalltogether 12y agoI agree, but I imagine they'd have a hell of a time unweaving the multitude of agreements and concessions between the monarch and the government over the centuries. Give them back a bunch of assets and property to manage under private ownership and be equally taxed on and we'd have a fair start.
- arethuza 12y agoThe whole financing of the Royals was updated fairly recently: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Grant_Act_2011 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Grant_Act_2011
- waitwhat 12y agoThe "bunch of assets" that the crown effectively surrendered in return for financial dependence on parliament is the Crown Estate, currently worth GBP 8.1 billion (USD 13.6 billion). They also pay tax: "In 1992, The Queen volunteered to pay income tax and capital gains tax, and since 1993 her personal income has been taxable as for any other taxpayer. The Queen has always been subject to Value Added Tax and pays local rates on a voluntary basis." I also assume that she does minimal tax avoidance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Estate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Estate http://www.royal.gov.uk/TheRoyalHousehold/Royalfinances/Taxation.aspx http://www.royal.gov.uk/TheRoyalHousehold/Royalfinances/Taxa...
- robin_reala 12y agoShe avoids the 40%-over-£325k inheritance tax normal people have to pay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inheritance_Tax_%28United_Kingdom%29#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inheritance_Tax_%28United_King...
- acheron 12y agoYou can ask the King of France how well absolute monarchy works out in the long run.
- pm90 12y agoOr the Tzar of Russia ...
- artumi-richard 12y agoI actually feel sad for the lot of them. It's not like they went looking for fame, it was thrust upon them. I, for one, would hate the continuous travel, smile, nod, shake hand, smile, move on. Prince George's future is all laid out, he has zero incentive and zero opportunity to make something worthwhile by himself. He will never be "just another one of the team", at least, not for long. I wouldn't wish Prince George's life for my sons.
- simonh 12y agoJust like his useless father who's only contribution to society has been to, er, pilot a search and rescue helicopter...
- artumi-richard 12y agoOh, I'm not saying he won't contribute, just that his choices are extremely limited, to a degree I would not want for my son. Being a part of military actually should be seen as a limitation rather than William going his own way. Since the soldiers pledge their loyalty to the crown it is deemed appropriate that a potential future monarch should serve in the military. They get to choose which bit, and perhaps when, but they probably never had a choice about joining up. Then the Royals only tend to spend a couple of years. Harry is the keenest as he joined infantry. But his fame brought him back from action early because he was a prized target. Also Wikipedia now says Harry's now in project management: "On 17 January 2014, the Ministry of Defence announced that Harry had completed his attachment to 3 Regiment Army Air Corps and will take up a staff officer role at the position of SO3 (Defence Engagement) in HQ London District. His responsibilities will include helping to co-ordinate significant projects and commemorative events involving the Army in London." I would expect this is not what he would have chosen had he been born Harry Smith.
- bengillies 12y agoNot to say anything about anything else that he's done, but is search and rescue not a worthwhile thing to do then?
- lmm 12y ago
- midhir 12y agoIt's a great article and the insight into the symbolism of the event is fascinating. I always wondered what the guy banging on the door of the houses of Parliament with the huge ceremonial stick was all about when I was a kid. Nevertheless, so long as power is concentrated in an utterly unaccountable and inaccessible elite we'll never know if it is indicative of the true state of affairs, an elaborate coverup or somewhere in-between the two. Where I come from to question the British Monarchy is not only unpopular, it's potentially offensive to the section of the community that considers themselves British. Compounding that, republicanism is a dirty word with violent connotations. Change is unlikely to come from this particular part of the world. Yet with the Irish Republic right down the road we have context on what a Republic really means. One looks at the picture of President Higgins standing in line for an ATM [1] and makes a decision right away. It either fills you with pride or with scorn. It looks like there's a nascent movement towards Republicanism over in the UK but it'll be a long time coming. 1: https://twitter.com/AwningsIreland/status/448436785220452352/photo/1 https://twitter.com/AwningsIreland/status/448436785220452352...
- fidotron 12y agoThe thing is Republicanism won't actually solve the problem you mention, of the core group of powerful MPs being overwhelmingly representative of the elite. If anything it will swing things further under their control. The monarchy aren't that rich or powerful at all by modern standards. The true wealth is in random parts of the aristocracy that owns massive parts of west London, but again merely turning into a republic is not going to result in that being redistributed any more palatably than it is today. It is a dated institution, and it is a bit odd to have people born into such a thing, but it really isn't that actively harmful, and certainly less harmful than a headlong rush into a worse alternative when it appears to be slowly diminishing into irrelevance without the need of any external stimulus.
- midhir 12y ago"The monarchy aren't that rich or powerful at all by modern standards." "it really isn't that actively harmful" How can you be sure?
- dageshi 12y ago"which to this day contains no sailors because they are still in disgrace for their mutiny at Spithead in 1797. " Quite Right.
- petewailes 12y agoIronic, as Spithead produced sweeping changes which paved the way for a decent standard of living and treatment for people at all levels in the Navy. It was, by any reasonable measure, a good thing.
- hcho 12y agoI see the monarchy as a technical debt from experimenting with government models. We ended up something similar to a presidency but also left withe a symbolic head of state. Because cost of removing the technical debt is bigger than the cost of living with it, we just ignore it.
- marquis 12y agoFor what it's worth, the UK government currently makes a healthy profit from the Royal Family. http://relentlesslife.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/the-true-cost-of-the-royal-family-explained/ http://relentlesslife.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/the-true-cost... In video form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhyYgnhhKFw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhyYgnhhKFw
- Killah911 12y agoThe article reads to me like a crock of shait & a whole lot of naval gazing. Why is this even on HN? Or perhaps that's my somewhat biased non-british view of more useless crap left over from ages gone by, that nobody but the Brits really give a shit about.
- Naga 12y agoWell, besides the fact that Elizabeth II is queen of a number of independent and sovereign countries around the world, I don't think anyone would expect a non-Brit (or non-Canadian, non-Australian, etc) person to care about the way we choose to govern ourselves. Also it doesn't really matter to us what you think about it either.
- andyjohnson0 12y agoThe monarchy and the wider UK constitution is like the ultimate legacy system. Extremely hard to change because it has all grown organically and has tentacles and interdependencies everywhere. And there's no authoritative documentation (ie written constitution), just a whole lot of observations about how it has always worked in the past [1]. Its worth reading about the duties of the "Queen's Remembrancer" [2], who is a real person right now. All the bizarre stuff about knives and nails and horseshoes and tablecloths has been going on, year after year, for over 800 years. Like some kind of autonomous system that nobody knows how to shut down any more. So I find the British constitution quite fascinating, in the same way that some really old software from the early sixties but still in use somehow, would be fascinating. Unless you power the whole thing down (revolution) all you can really do is change it slowly. I sometimes wonder if thats the point of it. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_King... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_Remembrancer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_Remembrancer
- pjc50 12y agoThat is the point of it; we're pretty much the only European country not to have had a violent change of government (revolution or invasion) since 1700. The establishment has been very good at mixing pragmatism with the usual imposition and violence, allowing enough reform to quell dissent and retreating from untenable positions. It's also very much been run for the benefit of a liberal trade-based upper middle class rather than a very narrow power base that would be prone to collapse.
- andyjohnson0 12y agoI agree. I was thinking that it could have evolved to reduce the risk of destructive change and revolution, or to entrench the privileges of the powerful. I didn't fully appreciate the point that, to the rich and powerful, there is no distinction between those aims.
- PeterWhittaker 12y agoBut go back just 50 years and there were shenanigans aplenty - and the years before weren't the peaceful settled picture we often have in mind. France was far more stable than England for several centuries before 1789. (You're right of course. But 1700 is a convenient cut off date, and belies the fact that pragmatism in the mix was a direct result of just how horrible was the interregnum.)
- pjc50 12y agoThe mention of the civil war is the cue to where all this comes from. As usual after a civil war, what emerged was not a democracy but a military dictatorship. The UK was a Protestant theocracy for a while. This was sufficiently awful that there was no substantial opposition to the return of the monarchy after the death of Cromwell; however 20 years later a combination of desire for parliamentary power and anti-Catholicism resulted in deposing the monarch and replacing him with a different monarch imported from Holland, who would be under the control of parliamentarians. Unpicking the constitutional settlement opens several extremely controversial cans of worms. For example, the role of religion in the UK; authority over the armed forces; land ownership reform; the House of Lords; the electoral system in general; devolution; and the strangeness of the Crown dependencies (channel islands, Isle of Man, etc). There are people who are violently loyal to the monarchy, as well as a wide spread of society who are affectionate towards the Royal Family.
- petercooper 12y agoThere are people who are violently loyal to the monarchy The stress on "are" makes it sound like this would be considered a difficult to believe position. For my own part as a happy Royalist, if some bizarre and unfortunate circumstance came down to us being forced into another Royals vs parliament civil war, I'd be on the Royal side in a heartbeat.
- lquist 12y agoAs an American with little knowledge of British politics this is a bit surprising. Do you mind going into the reasons that lead you to be on the Royal side?
- xanderstrike 12y agoYou know how there are Americans who hate the current government and would like to see it all thrown out, but will stand and defend their nation without hesitation? The Royal Family is a concrete and personal representation of the nation, it's like if Uncle Sam or Lady Liberty were real people who existed outside of national and local politics representing the cultural heritage of the nation as a whole. We would treat them like royalty (ha) and protect them at all costs.
- denzil_correa 12y ago> The Queen reads a speech that is written by someone else, namely the government. They make her repeat excruciating political slogans. Her representative in the Palace of Westminster - we aficionados call him Black Rod - has the doors of the House of Commons slammed in his face to remind the monarch who is boss. This part is very eloquently captured in the political thriller trilogy by BBC - "House of Cards" (UK version 1990) [0]. The part I am referring to is the second part of the trilogy and is titled "To Play the King" aired in 1993 [1]. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(UK_TV_series) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(UK_TV_series) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Play_the_King http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Play_the_King