To ask you if there were to be a vote tomorrow on whether or not we should become a Republic country, how would you vote?

[LLDilema]

Very long thread title... but just interested to know, if tomorrow it was announced that we all have to vote on whether to keep or abolish the royal family, how would you vote? Yes to keep. No to lose.

Are there any rabid and hard-of-understanding right-wingers who've come on here yet and accused us all of wanting to guillotine the royals? I'm not saying I think there will be, I'm just asking a question. whistles

Has this thing kicked off yet?

Do you really think the queen is doing it for the money?

yes, I do. it's part of it at least. She isn't just protecting her money. She is protecting her family's money, privilege and position.

Someone is trying to make it do so... but largely not.

I have no strong feelings about any of the individuals involved, and wouldn't wish them to be ousted in an unpleasant or punitive manner - but I do think the whole thing is deeply archaic and anachronistic, and really just a bit unhealthy and unnecessary in 2015. Time we all moved on and grew up, IMO.

Oh I see we are discussing how we would butcher them instead :o
I vote for driving them out into the middle of nowhere and leaving them for dead

I don't cae if E2 is lovely or not. Or if she's done a great job or not. It's not the individuals I object to (far from it - I'm sure she's lovely) it's the institution. And what it stands for.

In fairness to OhBehave, she wasn't advocating the guillotine. But she is insistent that she personally knows "lefties" who are baying for a public execution. Which is clearly bullshit

In fairness to OhBehave, she wasn't advocating the guillotine.

she/he wasn't advocating the guillotine. She was accusing leftists of doing so, but there is no evidence here of anyone advocating for it, left, right or centre.

It must refer to Jeremy Corbyn then. I hear everything is all his fault

Yes to keep them.

On the "President Blair" discussion, when he was off on his hols or wherever, John Prescott was in charge

John Prescott was in charge

when the PM is in hols, someone has to take over as it is a real job. The RF is so wasteful and useless, there is no replacement to shudder at. it's just not needed.

I assume that abolishing the monarchy wouldn't necessarily have automatically to entail re-installing a PM from 7 years ago with the same deputy, would it?

Anyway, when JP was in charge during Blair's holiday, did he try to do anything terrible and the Queen was forced to intervene and maintain the peace? Would she ever? How does it help? I get that she could if she would - but I can't imagine she ever would, so I don't think her presence is especially reassuring in that context.

OhBehave is rather desperately trying to portray us all as baying for blood. It isn't working. And I speak as someone who loathed Thatch along with the royals.

So when John Prescott was deputy, did the queen have to step in and write his section in the daily mirror?

Going by this rather idiotic logic, we'd currently have President Cameron. And repulsive though that idea may be, people did vote for him.

I know redstawberry - that's why I said it was bullshit

Depends...whats the alternative? I like the whole history side of it. I dont like the cost, and I dont like the American system.
Denmark have a more 'ordinary everyday' royalty. I like that idea.

I worry about living under a covert right wing military dictatorship. Intelligence agencies in the UK are very right wing, and have more influence than we realise. Can I vote that out?

I realise being a cleaner isn't the benchmark. My point is that to remark that the queen 'works hard' to people that really do work hard, is a disparaging remark.

Also I should expect someone who receives several millions of pounds as well as palaces, country estates, castles etc,etc,etc all from the tax payer, should have more of a 'sense of duty' than those that have to really graft for what they've got or wish for..

She ought to be grateful and feel lucky in fact.

Red strawberry. I never said anyone WAS asking for it to happen. Just if anyone had asked. I Cant believe so many are being so uptight. Just look at the history of France. Or what happens around the world when leaders are overthrown even now.

Denmark have a more 'ordinary everyday' royalty. I like that idea.

The death toll sounded on the possibility of a modest, low-key Scandi-style RF when William married the arse-flasher.

The alternative is having an elected president to act as head of state - other heads of state have varying degrees of power, if any, so presumably if the country became a republic there would be a significant debate on what an elected president's powers would be, length of term of office etc.

Also, salary. The Irish president currently earns just over 249 thousand euro. It was reduced recently under a public pay cap piece of legislation - all public sector salaries are capped at 250 thousand euro.

The role has very limited constitutional functions, and is largely ceremonial, though the unimpeachably admirable Mary Robinson, the president before last, raised its profile hugely, bringing to it all her previous work in the commission for gay law reform, campaigning for the liberalisation of contraception laws, the lifting of the marriage bar for female civil servants, met with Gerry Adams, Hume, Trimble and the Queen in an effort to put Anglo-Irish relations on an easier footing etc. Became UN Commissioner for Human Rights after she left office.

To stand for president, you have to be an Irish citizen of over 35, and to be nominated by 20 members of the Oireachtas or 4 county councils.

Sorry, responding to Knobbly's 'What's the alternative?' with an account of how it works in Ireland. But there are a variety of different kinds of non-monarch heads of state - I assume it would be up for debate. What I would say is that assuming a Blair or Cameron or bloody Bojo as head of state is highly unlikely unless the role was constructed as one with far more political heft than seems at all likely.

I'd always vote for a republic over a big head sacred hereditary chief anointed by Goddie (when convenient, hypocritically skip a few 52 when you want a certain denomination for political reasons).

Keeps the public entertained though. Bread and circuses.

Yes to keep.

No to get rid of the antiquated institution.

This is the 21st century: any citizen should be able to become HoS whether that be a purely ceremonial role or one with executive power.

It's an outdated institution whose existence justifies everything that is unequal and unfair in our society. I'm not a communist I just can't see why we are fawning over people who are there through an accident of birth. I think William marrying a 'commoner' has actually made many people more aware of just how silly the whole idea is. Only the queen appears to do any work. Diana had a briiliant work ethic and I don't think we will see the likes of her again.