Monarchy as head of social hierarchy?

[CampsieGlamper]

If we consider the class system in the UK, as upper, middle and working, even if we divide middle into three, working into two and create a "benefit recipient class" , it follows that the monarchy is at the top. This class system and the monarchy's position is a strong arguement by republicans and other opponents to the retention of a monarchy.

Does the monarchy or the aristocracy impact on your life though? If they do, is it a generally positive or negative impact?
We owned a cottage where our lawyer advised us of a clause (not enforceable) that DH was compelled to provide military service to the Earl of Mar if summoned!
My sister's landscape gardener has worked and lived on estates - two owned by dukes, one by a foreign magnate and one by a hedge fund. The dukes were by far the better employers.

The royal palaces and the art collections etc, won't ever be flogged off to the highest bidder, so the value can't be considered in the running costs of the RF.

Do presidents of countries support and promote multiple charities and help fundraise and raid their profile? Or just meet other dignitaries and represent their country, which the RF also do.

Do many people know the names of the president and prime minister of other countries? I think the RF are known through much of the world, therefore they raise the profile of the country.

One thing I think Charles could have done to repay the country for the coronation would have been to use some of the profit from the wind farms to donate thousands of food parcels to food banks.

He should also make the financial accounting public. The RF shouldn't be stashing away millions.

Yes I think they are known throughout the world but slowly becoming a figure of fun and ridicule.

Charles isn't even pretending to slim down or change the archaic institution. I had hopes but it isn't happening. I think it will get worse and I think the great British public will feel even more dissatisfied as years go by.
The Queen could get away with the ridiculous opulence. Charles and Camilla can't

Someone upthread talked of a dozen other huge piles/estates/palaces. It's 27 actually. 😮

It’s often hard to quantify the pay-off in terms of soft power. If you compare us to other countries, republics or monarchies, we are actually kind of penny pinchers! I don’t think this attitude is isolated to the royal family. We want governance done on the cheap and then complain when it’s a bit rubbish. Preserving our national heritage isn’t cheap regardless of whether we have an active or historical royal family.

@Outgrabe I've lived here all my life and I don't understand where you see this forelock tugging nonsense! Yes people are respectful of the royal family, but people are respectful of a lot of people, doctors, nurses, teachers.

When the RF visit anywhere people are always laughing and joking with them, not grovelling on the floor.

I can understand that someone not born here may not buy into the culture and history of the country, why would they? However the number of people who will turn up and watch the coronation and other British cultural events, demonstrates that the British love their culture and are happy to showcase it to the world. The queens funeral was a demonstration of that.

Looking at those figures, per head of population it's not far different to the UK, is it?

@tigger2022 Yes. I think there should be more transparency with finances. History and it's upkeep is pretty expensive. Look at the Houses of Parliament 😳. Eye wateringly expensive. Common sense says pull it down and make a cost effective modern building lol! I think the analogy also fits the royal family.

Uk is a bloody awful grey drizzly country 90% of the time, so we need a bit of royal colour imo. 😂

But what would we do with those palaces if they were no longer crown properties? Right now they are a combination of joint public and private royal responsibility for upkeep. People often say the palaces are falling apart but if you compare to other stately houses which are really poorly preserved, they are not so bad! Apart from a few Russian oligarchs and a handful of billionaires, hardly anybody has the kind of money required to maintain them anymore. So if we abolished the royal family we’d still have all those palaces to maintain. Britain is a very penny pinching country so I can’t imagine them reconfiguring Buckingham Palace into the new Downing Street like they have with the Elysee palace in Paris.

When the RF visit anywhere people are always laughing and joking with them, not grovelling on the floor.

I respectfully disagree.
People nearly fainting with excitement at a glimpse of a royal. And my god should this royal actually talk to them, it's like they've met a God!
Not everyone but so many like this. Camping out on a pavement in the rain for a day to catch a glimpse of someone in the distance on a balcony waving at the adoring public

Who knows Tigger I can't provide instant solutions, but there has to be a better way. A lot of these 27 estates we've barely heard of. They should be open and available to the public given the fact we pay to maintain them

And you obviously despise every single one of them.

I'm not a Royalist, that much is true

I don't despise or hate them as individuals, not in the slightest. They're human beings stuck in this outdated Institution. We're stuck with them and I dislike the whole archaic set up. It's not personal against them, even if you try to post saying that about me.

I know what I think

I meant you despise all the people 'fainting with excitement' and behaving as if they'd met a god. The derision in your post leaks through.

I will repeat, I do t despise them as individuals, and sadly some people are so enamoured of them, that is how they are.

Don't

How could you possibly have a HoS that people would vote for every 4 years that was not political? I genuinely don’t see how that is possible in this social media age. The poor individuals would be raked over the coals by different groups and subject to ridiculous scrutiny for every word, tweet, event etc they ever did looking for signs of opinions and even if there were none, people would make some up or create fake versions.
no thanks!
I much prefer the system we have with a clear successor that is basically trained for the job since birth ( but can remove themselves from succession line if they so wish to)
Charles became King with minimum fuss, no civil war outbreak between warring factions, no counter claim for power ( excluding Harry’s shenanigans)
We all generally started calling him king .
that’s pretty remarkable when you think about history and what happens in some other countries when the HoS dies. What will happen in Russia when Putin goes?
no one knows!
what would happen in the US if Biden died suddenly. Yes Harris would take over officially but how would that play out exactly?
no one knows!

@Outgrabe

The problem with an elected ceremonial head of state is that relatively very few people know who they are, therefore they have less reach in virtually anything they want to promote. Therefore financially less bang for your buck. You will have to work infinitely harder to create the same 'noise'

Take the Irish chap, I am sure he is very nice and good at what he does but I can't remember his name.

The monarchy brand is phenomenal in how little we pay to sustain the brand power & equity. I also quite like how we can deploy them to other countries state occasions /initiatives and our government can keep working.

I am on the fence about the monarchy, at it's core, completely unfair / unequal but I don't know a viable alternative that we can deploy with the same brand reach.

It is very interesting once you start to look at where wealth comes from. Around where I live, there are quite a few people who have a nice ‘buffer’ in the background - from parents, grandparents - sometimes there is an inherited business, sometimes land. It all adds up and it all trickles down…

Looking at maps is also very revealing. Much of the local countryside around my small town (apart from NT land) is owned by three large estates. One is still in the hands of the original family, one was passed in trust to a new family in default of heirs and the third was bought by a wealthy businessman. All that land (generating an income) in the hands of a tiny group of people.

I don’t have an issue with the concept of a modern, figurehead monarchy per se, but think that the number of royal palaces should be significantly slimmed down. For example, is there any need for both Buckingham Palace and Clarence House? The wealth of the Duchies could be harnessed much more productively for social good eg. social housing in Cornwall. These are causes that Charles actively espouses; why not do more?

For me the monarchy system is not about forelock tugging or thinking they are better than me, it’s appreciation of a stable system of governance with a known person as HoS - as we’ve known them from birth, we know lots about them ( too much you could argue) and we know exactly what we are getting. Plus they are apolitical.
it’s hard for Charles as he’s lived a long life before becoming monarch so more opportunities to do/ say the wrong thing but even republicans ( mostly) don’t think he is an evil person or has secret horrible opinions about stuff because we’d know if he did.
not a perfect system obviously but what is better?

Don't read and don't engage. It's what I do and it works wonders 😂

Yeah and there’s all the soft power that comes with people knowing who they are. It’s not the only reason (very few people would know as much about the Dutch royal family for example), but the monarchy is a big part of it. Look at the MN threads - even people who hate their guts are so engaged.

Not going to happen so I really wouldn’t worry about it. The royal family are here to stay.

@polkadotdalmation people are respectful of teachers???????????? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Yes i see the forelock tugging everywhere - the nonsense that people write on here, “oh isn’t Kate fabulous raising 3 kids and still looking so amazing!” and even the ludicrous phrase “working royals”. The servitude runs sooooo deep in our psyche we don’t even see it ourselves!

As a Pp said “bread and circuses” sums it up brilliantly. The coronation is the pinnacle of this.

Except there's no bread now

Just a circus

@KingSpaniel I've never seen that on here. Please demonstrate who has said this? Easy enough to tag. Or is it just not true? Never seen it, don't expect to see it. 'Working royals's is just an expression to delineate between members who perform royal duties and those who don't. It's not a job title or didn't you know that?

W&K live in a 4(?) bed house, so they probably did do a lot of the grunt work (or kate did) generated by 3 very small children. Now they are all at school, she is clearly far more involved in charity work. Which of course isn't work is it? Better not tell those folk at Refuge or Oxfam though.

I also happen to live in a part of England which does show respect to teachers