William & Kate 10 year wedding anniversary video

[Crimsonripple]

Has anyone else seen this on Instagram? It's so lovely and natural. Their PR camp are hitting the right buttons! The Oprah interview now just seems so trashy in comparison!

Do younger people watch it, I just cannot imagine my adult DCs or their friends being interested.

Surprisingly they seem to even my staunch republican son has , although this may partly be the lockdown effect. My very anti anything soap husband also watched all four series over lockdown and admitted that he really enjoyed it the production and period detail are especially good in the first two series ( I don’t think the later ones are as good) is sumptuous and it’s a spectacle and rather fun. I do think though that a lot of people confuse fact and fiction.

After all the misery and disruption due to Brexit and Covid more disruption would be unacceptable to the majority

We're constantly fed the line the monarch is merely a ceremonial figurehead without any real power so why should abolishing the monarchy cause disruption?

Maybe you should just, as you say, ‘give it a go’!

If you can bring yourself to slum it with the plebs for as long as it takes to watch an episode, of course. Or your adult DC

Gosh! Someone got out the wrong side of bed this morning, didn't they

How you can take from my post that I need to slum it with the plebs and watch it, i.e. I'm being a snob, I do not know.
Bottom line is... it doesn't interest me. I don't want to see the Diana years or whatever because I lived through the real thing. Sorry that's upset you so much but hope you carry on enjoying it.

Upset me? I’m laughing.

Good! I like to bring humour into life!

That’s true Rousette, I enjoyed the ones about the first decade of the Queens reign so much more because it was before my time. I loved the costumes and the sets and the period details . I really found the last series a bit cringe making. Would recommend series 1and 2 though, Clare Foy is fantastic and actually it did really make me think about her youth when this frankly appalling life was visited on her .

@fluffysocks89

Jeez some people are arrogant.

But you look up to a family that are the epitome of arrogance. But they’re our betters, so it don’t count eh. The irony.

I didn’t say I looked up to anyone, I was expressing my opinion based on your calling into question the intelligence of anyone who doesn’t share yours. You don’t articulate very strong arguments, just throw insults, which isn’t indicative of superior intelligence.

Yes Glencora anything before I was alive would probably be more interesting for me

We're constantly fed the line the monarch is merely a ceremonial figurehead without any real power so why should abolishing the monarchy cause disruption?

That's where their chosen narrative falls to bits isn't it?

Minus a constitution and with parliament, the CofE and the monarchy so thoroughly enmeshed it's obvious there would be issues, but that flies in the face of the "no real power" thing ... hence the endless spin, the exemption from the FoI Act and all the rest

"....so why should abolishing the monarchy cause disruption?"

Gosh, where to start?

The British monarch is also head of state in 15 other countries. Would those countries need to become republics too? What if they didn't want to? If we expect them to hold referendums to decide, who will pay? (They're expensive). What if they refused and insisted on maintaining the current model?

The British monarch is head of the Church of England. Who becomes the new head, if there is no monarch?

What do we replace the monarchy with, an elected president, or some other model? Who decides what the model should be, including the rules for who is allowed to stand? This is what happened in the most recent Australian vote on whether to become a republic in 1999. The republican vote was split between two different versions of what to replace the monarchy with, so the winning vote was to keep the monarchy.

What happens to all the agencies that are run 'in the name' of the monarch, i.e. HMRC, HM Treasury, the courts service to name but three. Would all the paperwork for existing court cases need to be changed (it could no longer be 'Regina vs')? What would it be changed to?

Money - would we need to re-issue new notes/coins every time the new head of state/president is elected?

Would Royal Mail be allowed to keep the name? What happens to stamps which currently feature the monarch?

Will businesses that have been awarded royal warrants be allowed to keep them?

This list doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the implications and 'disruption' involved.

Excellent points @goldierocks.

@fluffysocks89

Presently there are 21 members of the RF getting round the clock protection by highly trained Scotland Yard officers. They work in shifts round the clock so that there is an officer for each royal at all times. Think of that if you ever struggle to get the police to come out to you.

How did you add it up to 21? Many royals don't have round the clock protection including Princess Anne, Prince Andrew (he pays for that himself), Prince Edward, and all of their spouses and children too. That just leaves the Queen, Prince Charles and Camilla, and Prince William, plus Catherine, George, Charlotte, and Louis. So 8, not 21.

Ermmmm.... Prince Andrew does. 3 officers 24hrs a day totalling £300,000 a year
No. He doesn't pay for it himself. Think the Queen does. Which probably means we do.

This list doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the implications and 'disruption' involved

So they're not the powerless figureheads they'd have the plebs believe them to be?

Royalists can't have it both ways.

That's where their chosen narrative falls to bits isn't it?

Quite.

Wow, no wonder they've clung on!

Money would stay in circulation until it was worn out - as a child I had a penny that had Queen Victoria's head on it, and even I'm not that old!

Postboxes are updated as they need renewing, but the one down the road from us still has GR on it.

I assume businesses with royal warrants would be allowed to use them until they expire - I think they last for five years. At least that was what I read when Philip died.

I think it shows how much the Royal Family are interwoven with everyday life in the UK, but any change at the top wouldn't actually stop anything working.

If William cheated on Kate I would be utterly disgusted.
He saw what his maternal grandparents split did to his mother. He is the product of an acrimonious marriage split caused by infidelity.
He couldn't be that selfish stupid !
Could he ???

No. I don’t believe it at all.

@Roussette

Ermmmm.... Prince Andrew does. 3 officers 24hrs a day totalling £300,000 a year No. He doesn't pay for it himself. Think the Queen does. Which probably means we do.

Bloody disgusting

No. I think it was a malicious rumour and nothing more.

@fluffysocks89

This book would change a few royalists minds I reckon. I’d be shocked if it didn’t. What an eye opener.

Been listening to this today, wow what a real eye opener. Your right everyone should read or listen to it!

What was the book? Sorry, I would go back but it's quite a long thread...

I think the Queen pays for a lot of things out of the revenues on the Crown Estates rather than straight out of tax payers pockets but of course if we abolished the monarchy the government would get all that revenue instead, whether they would spend it widely is another matter...
My opinion on the monarchy is that there are benefits to the continuit6 and tradition provided by the monarchy, it smooths over the bumps in the road of changes in the world and society to have the same figurehead for a long time, it creates links between the past and the present that can feel reassuring. How to retain the benifit without propping up the inequities of the class system is a major challenge though but I'm not convinced a political appointee would work better, particularly as England dominates the Union politically.

@Frownette

What was the book? Sorry, I would go back but it's quite a long thread...

norman baker....and what do you do