Well, I hated the coronation…

[TheColourofspring]

I can see I am in the minority on here but I found yesterday to be distasteful on a gigantic scale. To watch the most privileged people travel in gold coaches & be decorated with diamonds and gold that is priceless in the face of millions of people struggling to eat/heat their homes just feels so wrong.

Our primary school has just opened a food bank. There are kids & families in crisis- children coming into school hungry & smelly as families can’t afford to wash clothes (I am not joking) - living in Dickensian conditions. Some of the teaching staff use the foodbank.

Yesterday was a display of obscene wealth. The royals didn’t even pay for it- we did. How can we find money for that absolute nonsense yet we can’t find money for large swathes of the population to feed themselves.

While Charles was sitting there in his gold costume holding these priceless items, plenty of families weren’t eating. It made me really angry.

I am tired of all the arguments for a royal family- how somehow these displays are quaint. Yesterday was an obscene display of wealth, inherited privilege and everything that’s wrong with this country. Seems a conversation about the royals is long overdue.

Most of the country is happy to look the other way and ignore the tax evasion, shady financial affairs and plundering of state assets, into personal collections, of the RF while the majority of people suffers hardship. But so what if you wait 2 days for an ambulance, god save the king...

Yes that's very kind

@Seriouslynotseriously no, I answered your question further down

I liked Mrs Sunak's deceptively simple blue dress with black (or dark blue) hat, shoes, etc.

Didn't she look lovely?

I hadn't realised what a pretty woman she is - only photos I've seen of her before have been very unflattering. And I agree that her outfit was incredibly understated but had huge impact.

Personally I would have liked to have seen the lords' robes and the ladies in tiaras. After all, there would be no greater cost for those robes as they all have them anyway, and niceness sparkly tiaras would have meant that some of those monstrosities of hats weren't there! (There were some horrors - and very unfair to the people behind.)

Very much liked Princess Anne's feather though . . . .

The RF have zero power. All sovereign powers have been with Parliament and the PM for centuries. They have the same influence as an Ambassador in the Foreign Office, except unlike Ambassadors they have no vote.

The state of the NHS is all down to the Tory party, not the RF.

The problem is let's say we sold off allowed those assets and broke it all down... It would disappear into the never ending vortex of on going spending, money problems etc and in a decade be gone.
No problems solved, no poverty solved etc and we have lost something you can't put a price on.

Yesterday was pure theatre with costumes and props. It was a show that millions around the world watched and that's what makes us unique and quirky.

No other country who got rid of its royals has also extinguished child poverty, food banks and so on.

I enjoyed watching the coronation. I love all the pomp and ceremony.

Getting rid of the Royal Family is not going to make food banks go away. Of course there should be no need for food banks but not everyone that uses them cannot afford to buy food or wash clothes.

There is a food bank in my village. Anyone can use it, no checks or referrals needed.

I know of 4 neighbours who use it who absolutely do not need to. I bet there are more. One doesn't work because "they don't want to" but think it ok to claim benefits they are not really entitled to. One couple have also chosen to have 4 children and also claim benefits they are not entitled. Oh and he works cash in hand (and has done for at least 6 years) but won't get a proper job. With all the benefits and cash they are far from poor.

As for not being able to afford to wash clothes! It's possible that some don't have a washing machine but all of the ones who supposedly can't wash clothes? Can't wash them by hand if necessary?

How many children do all these families have? Just about every time I see a story about a family being unable to afford to feed their children they always have 3 or more. Pretty obvious the more children you have the more expensive it is.

I agree, think of all the football players/ Hollywood movie stars and all the money they have. Why are people not getting angry with them when they're out flaunting their wealth? There are still people trying to feed their families and unable to put their heating on. If you want to be angry with anyone OP get angry with the government. Challenge your children to think about the tories. They are the people responsible for my shit wages (nurse). They're the ones not doing enough to help people living in poverty. Not bloody Charles who was wearing hundreds of years old wealth.

This thread is amply demonstrating the lack of actual knowledge about how the country’s institutions are set up and their respective roles and responsibilities.

Hear, hear.

This may be the case but the idea of a Royal hereditary family goes against the grain - we view ourselves as a society where you work hard and can get anywhere in life. Well this is simply not true and having a Royal family demonstrates that - no matter hard my children work they will never be Royal..

Having a head of state in my opinion would be better and may help us move towards a fairer society. Let's face it you can end up with someone unsuitable by birth as well as elected but the key is what kind of society do you want?

“And to all those kicking off for the ‘royal bashing’ - so what? It’s good to question things, its good to debate, its good to think critically.”

I’m still waiting for your critical thinking…

@spottybug @Aslanplustwo the problem is - if I talk about my circumstances I will either get accused of being jealous of others wealth or of being a hypocrite. I come from a working class background, was first in my family to go to Uni and I don’t have loads of inherited wealth. But I have a good life myself.

That certainly doesn’t mean I am ‘jealous’ of the royals wealth etc.

So you’d happily risk having someone like Trump as your President?

Fuck me, no thanks!

The meritocracy myth isn’t true anywhere in the world. Nowhere can you succeed by working hard alone. And the countries with the highest inequality, are the ones with elected Heads of State. So if you are going to be evidence based in thinking an elected Head of State would move us to lower inequality, the evidence doesn’t support your opinion at all. It even sort of shows the opposite would happen as all our former colonies have higher inequality than the U.K.

Boris did it for me. Twat.

@TheColourofspring no, I’m not going anywhere. How about you respond to the arguments I have raised with critical thinking?

£250 million would feed 125,000 people+ for a year or 100,000 operations.

Empty glitz is more important to some than ensuring taxpaying citizens have the basics.

Nothing wrong with Charles being Head of State if people have voted for him democratically. If it wasn't for him Andrew would be your king right now and there's nothing you could do about it.

@Dibblydoodahdah i have responded to your posts multiple times but the problem is you don’t agree with me, so you just want a different answer than I am going to give over and over again.

I think if you are going to have a Royal family how we do it is amazing.

However, for me it about the kind of society you want to live in - do you want to live in one which is a true meritocracy - where anyone can get to be anything if they work hard enough - then a Royal hereditary family is not the way to go.

What about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, tho?

It was interesting from a historical point of view. There was a mix of additions to the ceremony that will have come from different centuries. The most interesting thing for me was realising how powerful the church must have been back a few centuries. The King/Queen may have been the figurehead but the church gave them that authority. In days when more people were religious this ceremony must have had greater power than to our modern, less religious eyes. Also, as someone who would have been a peasant living away from London I’d have never have witnessed this ceremony even 100 years ago. The display of wealth would have been done to make sure the King had no weakness in front of other very powerful leaders and potential challengers.

The military aspect would have been another show of power to challengers. Proof that the King was well protected if others wanted to fight him for the crown.

The monarchy has definitely reached a new era now we have TV and social media and these displays are seen very differently in the eyes of those far less wealthy than they were to those families that would have been the privileged few to witness it long ago.