I don't want to be 'reigned over' anymore

[Yubgftr]

While I totally respect the Queen and how she served the country, I think it's now a good time to end the monarchy as I think modern society has outgrown it.

Just the idea that someone inherits the job of head of state through birthright and reigns over us peasants is crazy in this modern age. Then all the ceremonies, titles, line of succession are remnants of a completely different era and tbh remind me of episodes of The Tudors or Game of Thrones, it's just so archaic and out of place.

I think having to bow and curtsey to people just because they were born or married into a special family also seems ridiculous. Why should I have to curtsey to any of them? Not saying I'd be rude or disrespectful but having to bend my knee to a set of people as if they were deities, it's just insane! I think I'd actually feel humiliated.

I also don't get the fawning and crying outside the palace - by all means be respectful and recognise her contribution but crying about someone you've never met? To me it's OTT

Back in medieval times when there was little education and religion was used to manipulate the masses, I can understand why all the peasants went mad for their sovereign and saw them as annointed by God etc etc but we're much more enlightened now (most of us!) so we need to make way for a new way of doing things.

Even a new national anthem - why is it all about the king or queen and god saving them? Why not about the people, the nation as a whole?

That said, I also hate the idea of someone like Boris Johnson being head of state and I bet that's a role he'd go for if we were a Republic. Swings and Roundabouts!

YABU - God save the king, monarchy forever
YANBU - time to end the monarchy

@Agadoodoododont Would you rather live under a dictatorship? Democracy, dictatorship or republican?

IMO the RF has little day to day power but they are there as an insurance to stop a lunatic PM doing something mad. They have power but they don't use it.

Consider what Putin is up to. I wonder if that's better than when Russia had a monarchy?

Totally agree @Yubgftr I think the idea of grown adults bowing and curtsying to other grown adults completely cringey and embarrassing. Let’s face this iteration of the Royal family is only here because of the abdication, otherwise they’d all be complete nobodies, particularly people like Beatrice and Eugenie. Shows that it’s a complete fluke. I read last night about the law passed in 1993 to avoid the Royal Family from paying inheritance tax (knew that already. The article specifically said it was ‘to avoid the erosion of their wealth’. Yeah, because us plebs love giving our hard earned cash to those robbing bastards. I mean there’s no chance of their wealth being eroded when they’re nicking all of ours!

You can simply choose to ignore them. They have no impact on your daily life.

Turned on a tv lately?

If your only complaint (in an era of numerous ways of entertaining yourself) is that the state broadcaster is devoting a lot of time to the demise of the head of state and the arrangements for her funeral and a few programmes have been cancelled, then yes, there's pretty much no impact on your life.

I'd call myself broadly a monarchist. I liked the Queen, I feel sad she has died but recognise she had a life well lived, but it's having no impact on me day to day. I can shop, go to the hospital for my appointment, ignore the BBC and the papers if I want. We don't have state mandated mourning and if you want to throw a party to celebrate her passing you can. The papers and the wall to wall coverage are recognising that we have lost a person of great historical significance with enormous soft power and political experience the likes of whom we are unlikely ever to see again - that's why politicians and presidents are lining up with their tributes and people are laying flowers.

I saw him do that and related! I can't stand things in my way. The most annoying example is having a male passenger when I'm trying to change gear.

Charles moved the items himself because they got in his way. It was also a highly emotional time for him. He'd probably have had zero sleep. I'd cut him slack on that.

I didn't see him snap at anyone though.

The Royal Family do not bring in "billions of pounds" in tourism. That's utter rubbish, but a good story that means people like you think the monarchy is actually good fit our country.

www.thenational.scot/politics/20186723.fact-check-monarchy-really-pay-way/

I don't know why you think anything but continuing the tradition was going to happen? Surely there would have had to have been some sort of conversation about it Parliament at the very least?! Sure there's loads of chat in informal places like this but that's not the same.

If you feel that strongly then it's up to you to I don't know, lobby for it? I'm not even sure tbh.

Forget the grinding poverty of the 70s and 80s

@Agadoodoododont You must have lived outside the UK. How old are you? I was working in the 70s, having come out of uni then. There was no poverty that you speak of. Yes, interest rates went up to 15% but that didn't last long.

Cheap housing, plenty of work, a lot better prospects than for young people today trying to buy a home.

You need to get your history right.

We'd still have this royal family without the abdication as David and Wallis didn't have children.

I want some changes too. I would prefer to be a citizen rather than a subject.
BUT BUT BUT
This is too soon. We should wait and see if there are plans. There may be a pent-up list of changes that are ready for debate as and when the time comes.
But let's give the new King a chance to get his feet under the table and get fitted for his crown.

But imagine a situation where the person doing that was actually accountable and wasn't overpriviledged, pampered and allowed to carry on doing the job well into their 90s because they feel they were assigned by God.

That would be better.

Have you name changed?

You (if it was you) mentioned monarchs. I’ve yet to see one who owned slaves. I merely contrasted the attitude in the UK and the US when it comes to slavery.

One place, slavery was never legal, the other, it built the place (including the White House)

Well said. £2 billion for the Bank Holiday FFS after the battering the economy has had for Covid, Brexit the war in Ukraine.Can't 'The Firm' pay for it rather than every firm that actually does stuff? That's what pushed me over the edge and the wall-to-wall coverage. I'm out now, I'm done.

Do the 'emigrate if you don't like it' people think the monarchy should stay forever even if there was one day a majority against it? I'm curious. Do people take that line because they think the royals have a divine right, or just that they like them? Do they reign by consent (people have to want them there) or would they stay even if it needed the military etc to keep them there?

It's depressing how quickly this type of thread deteriorates into a tabloidy/soap opera tone saying the royal family is either terrible or saintly. Can we have a discussion about whether a constitutional monarchy is a good thing to have, and what the alternative would be?

Personally I'd rather not have a monarchy but I'm not very enthusiastic about a presidential system either. I think most of the royal family are hardworking and pleasant, you don't have to think they're awful to want to not have a monarchy.

Have you seen the video going round of Charlie getting cranky because a servant didn't move stuff off the table? Made him look like an entitled dickhead.

Don't be ridiculous. I saw it live. He was signing possibly the most important document in his life- our lives- and the pen tray was about to fall off the table as it was so cramped. It wasn't his fault that the table was so small or that nobody had the foresight to move the tray without being asked. He could hardly shout at them- 'Please move this tray' so he gesticulated, to draw it to their attention.

I'dlike to see how YOU would react the day after your mother died, when yould had little sleep, had to face the media, compose a speech and readit to the nation, and travel the length of the country.

Get a grip.

I couldn't vote in the poll on this thread, as I don't fall into either camp. There's a huge area of grey in between those two polars. I'm indifferent about the monarchy vs republic debate. I don't know enough about what replacing the former with the latter would mean in an every day sense.
It's unlikely to happen any time soon anyway, as there's not much appetite for it overall.

Have you forgotten the legality issues around invading Iraq?

“Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the war was unjustified and Deputy Prime Minister to Tony Blair, John Prescott, has also argued that the invasion of Iraq lacked legality as examples.”

It is assumed Tony Blair couldn’t have gone ahead without QEII.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/07/revealed-queen-lobbied-for-change-in-law-to-hide-her-private-wealth

The Queen’s personal wealth (now surely inherited by Charles) ran to many hundreds of millions of pound - best guess £500 million - but she made sure the amount remained hidden from the public. I suspect plenty would happily serve in a job (no interview required) where you get a lump sum of half a billion quid.

So the answer to wanting any change is to mine country? Seems a very immature response.

I'm not overly arsed now the queen has gone, but the thing about curtseying etc is a bit ridiculous. You'd only ever get close enough to them to 'have to' if it was by prior arrangement, you aren't going to bump into them in tesco unexpectedly and be expected to do so or risk being sent to the tower.

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"I saw it live. He was signing possibly the most important document in his life- our lives-"

Lol no.

I wonder if Charles will try and influence government policy, like he did with the "black spider memos" (which, incidentally, the government spent hundreds of thousands trying to keep secret)?

I have huge concerns about that, and about the latest revelations of him accepting millions in cash donations from the former PM of a country with a dodgy human rights record.

And then there's the business of the monarch being able to get legislation amended to suit the RF by using "queen's consent" (presumably now "king's consent). They should surely have to comply with legislation made in their name?

They don't keep their nose out of politics. They lobby to get rules changed to profit themselves. They vet acts of parliament and at times change them and parliament is powerless. Very naive to think that they would not interfere, when they have the power to do so.

I don't really understand the concept of monarchy either but I still like it! I love all the pomp, ceremony and tradition and I really liked the Queen. I am sad she is gone because she's been a constant, stabilising influence in my lifetime. 'On paper', a monarchy doesn't really make sense in that you should bow/serve before one unelected family, but at the same time, it's wrapped up in so much mystery and history, that I am very happy to take part.

If I were to meet a member of the royal family, I wouldn't 'kiss hands' as some seem to have been doing but I'd nod in deference to the position they hold, rather than the person (if that makes sense).

So many traditions we follow don't really make sense but we do them anyway as for many, it's part of our culture. If you don't want to take part, the beauty of democracy is that you don't have to.

😆 at the source

You might as well as the Newsletter (that’s a newspaper in Belfast) on their views on a united Ireland.

What the Royal Family generates is unquantifiable. Their cost garners unanimous approval in Parliament every year...they ain’t stupid.