Goodbye Monarchy, as is

[Poopoolittlerabbit]

that’s it really. I’m not fussed about the ‘king’ -
happy to downgrade the entire system.
the jewels, the palaces, the changing of the guard belong to the country, and/or people … if Charles buggers off we keep all the tourist attractions, and all that people say makes the royal family worth while ££
now the Queen has gone, the ‘firm’ needs to go
done with them. AIBU?

@Dontwanttoberudeorwastetime

Yes Tony Blair is a war criminal. I agree.

But why would we end up with him as a president if we abolished the RF? I don’t get it. I don’t get why the argument for keeping the RF is that we might end up with Tony Blair as president. It’s such a weird defence of the system of monarchy. It is hugely more likely that we might end up with a maniac as our monarch because we have no choice about it. We would be voting for a president.

Good. A lot of us oldies don’t want them either.
Their “ chosen by a god, we’re far superior to anyone else” crap is way outdated.
Wouldn’t go as far as the 18c French but Sue Townsend wasn’t far off. Sooner they all go, the better.

@Dreamingcats i don’t know how old you are but I lived through much of the history depicted in the Crown and it absolutely is true. Of course there’s some dramatisation but TamponGate and the poll turning on the Queen are matters of historical record, to name just a couple of examples. The royals desperately want you to believe it’s all fiction - don’t be fooled.

John Oliver has this covered.

Even the loathsome TaxPayers Alliance have got the boot in .....

This is patently not acceptable at a time of national economic calamity. The bailout by HM Treasury means that money that would have been spent on public services has now been diverted to the royals. This is expected to give the monarch a grant of £86.3 million for the year 2020-2021. Despite the Act guaranteeing the royals will never make a loss, the Sovereign Grant has ballooned in size, giving them year on year increases for the past decade above levels of inflation. In 2016-17 the grant was worth £42.8 million, which steeply jumped to £76.1 million in 2017-18 and continued to rise handsomely until this year. The royal family have a rising income under this system, but now they must ride the bad times like the rest of us. They should not forget the significant public sympathy which was generated when the Queen’s own wedding dress was rationed with clothing coupons in the midst of postwar austerity.

By budgeting the costs of royal engagements, taxpayers can better assess value for money, funding a small but effectively resourced royal family which is less wasteful and more in tune with the public. This way, the monarchy will no longer be immune to economic hardship and share in the struggles of its subjects. This does not mean they will become a budget monarchy. But value for money applies to everyone - prince or pauper.

www.taxpayersalliance.com/the_sovereign_grant_needs_a_reality_check

The discussion about a president vs. monarchy is one of principle. If all you have to defend the Monarchy is you don't want person X, that is extremely weak.

On the contrary it's a strong argument - FOR abolition.

If you don't want Person X, tough. You're getting them anyway if they happen to emerge into the line of succession first in a particular order.

King Charles could just as easily have been King Andrew. UK citizens could not have done a thing about it, because we don't receive the courtesy of a vote for our own head of state. Then imagine Andrew had become King and was later found to be abusing his position by taking money from all manner of dubious sources, and his dealings with Epstein came out at a later stage. UK citizens would not have an opportunity of voting him out, because we are stuck with these unremarkable, not very bright (and that's the most benign thing you can say about some of them) for life.

One example: yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/05/21/young-britons-are-turning-their-backs-monarchy

There was a marked change 2019-21. I disagree with the phrase young people never want the monarchy - it varies, but the polling is generally populations becoming less supportive of an unelected hereditary head of state.

You're entitled to your opinion I suppose

Completely agree. Seems like state sanctioned child abuse.

Good on Harry for getting his wife and children away from it all.

Funny, when we talk about elected heads of states or 2nd chambers people always rush straight to poor examples or start screaming about Tony Blair being a war criminal-

what we could do is look around a democracies that have successful, power-less Monarchies like the Dutch, or countries that have elected heads of state like the Republic of Ireland that work really well.

The discussion about a president vs. monarchy is one of principle. If all you have to defend the Monarchy is you don't want person X, that is extremely weak.

That isn't the whole thing is it though? It is "I don't want X who is randomly born out of Y and therefore gets to be head of state"

I think they should be abolished and have a president. And before anyone starts: it won't be like the US where PM and Head of State are the same person. It would (could, should) be more like France or Germany where the roles are divided.

And it needn't be an ex-politician. My current favourite pick for president would be Doreen Lawrence (slightly political because she sits in the HoL)

‘YANBU. In this day and age, I don't understand how anyone can look at their nine year old child and think, yes that's what we want for him, a life of duty and public scrutiny.’

every time I see that poor child wearing a suit and tie like a tiny accountant I do feel sorry for him.

Lol!

Unless you're Irish, or aboriginal, or Native American, or Indian, or from many African countries...

Colonisation has not exactly been the 'well being' elixir you seem to think it is.

For many First Nations people the royal family represent genocide. They can wear all the stupid hats and wave as much as they like, they enriched themselves through stealing and dispossession. Charlie didn't do it himself but he's not exactly handing it back and apologising is he?

I think it’s a perfectly reasonable argument to not have one person in sole control of the country with no one else having any authority to intervene.

I think it’s a perfectly reasonable argument to not have one person in sole control of the country with no one else having any authority to intervene.

But a presidential model wouldn't have to be like that at all. Google Ireland's model. The HOS role is very similar to the UK's except that it's elected

Oh look the OP a nobody wants to make a change to British life and our traditions, suddenly decided for the entire country that we need to now abolish the royal family.

And the world shug's it's shoulders rolls their eyes and carries on we have a nother crazy in town 🤣

Flanjango - the monarchy in the UK is nothing to do with the Empire, it's been around a lot longer than that.

The idea that suggesting that the Powers of the Monarch should be abolished somehow means an attack in the U.K. is bizarre.
you can be British and still look at Prince Charles and think, you shouldn’t have the influence you do on our politics.

I wonder if he’s every done a DNA test? The idea that he’s somehow linked back to Royals from 1000 years ago is bizarre. He’s just a likely to have some servant or minor Lord as a great great great whatever than a king or queen…

You seem to be mistaking 'presidency' for 'dictatorship'.

There are many presidential models, in the UK it would be the PM with the current powers and an elected head of state instead of an unelected head of state.

UK current system is referred to as an 'elective dictatorship' for good reason - due to our unelected hereditary head of state the PM has gathered more power than in other systems because you can't justify letting the King/Queen intervene in politics.

The public would have more control with an elected head of state.

Flanjango - the monarchy in the UK is nothing to do with the Empire, it's been around a lot longer than that.

piffle. It is entirely connected with the empire. The greed of a monarchy wanting to own ever more and more stuff (places, people, the means of production) is the entire point of having an empire.

Added to which how many of the gongs they hand out all the time have the word "empire" in them?

I don't agree. It's dying on its feet now. The new King visited our city last week. I fell over laughing at the caption on one of the photo's in the local paper. "Hundreds turned out to welcome him". Had it been the queen it would have been many thousands. Regradless of what the monarchy meant to them individually, the Queen was respected as a product of her time and class. The "time and class" are now long gone, and most people I speak to think the same of the monarchy. Spending £millions of taxpayers money on an outmoded and outdated institution when people are facing freezing over winter and no food on the table is tone deaf. And as for the King giving his staff a £600 cost of living bonus "out of his own money" (in other words, money made off the backs of the poor in the first place), if the staff were paid better then they wouldn't need it.

‘Nobody alive today is responsible for the atrocities of the colonial era and just because something is a 'throwback to empire' doesn't mean it has to be eradicated.’

you should Google what the British did to the Kenyans- pretty sure there are people still alive responsible for that. And the Paratroopers who murdered civilians on Bloody Sunday are certainly still with us.

Oh, I don't know the younger generation has their ear to the ground ....

It’s baffling that there are still so many people who seem to think that British Colonialism and the ‘empire’ was good somehow, or something to be proud of.
I blame the English history curriculum, it still does little to educate children to the real harms of invading someone else’s country, stealing their resources and subjugating their people.