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Post by Moose on Jun 17, 2016 17:53:39 GMT
Just out of interest. I personally absolutely do not see the point - I've nothing against the Queen (she did not ask to be where she is, I suppose) but the idea that some people are supposed to be 'better' than other people and must be bowed and scraped to simply by an accident of birth is beyond me.
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Post by tangent on Jun 17, 2016 19:01:58 GMT
I used to be ambivalent about our monarchy - it provides extravagant pageantry with a woeful royal family - but now I am in favour of one. In principal anyway. It serves one immensely important function - it stops us having a president, which in my view is a BAD THING.
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Post by Moose on Jun 17, 2016 19:20:29 GMT
What is wrong about an elected President? And don't say 'would you want President Blair' because that's a red herring
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Post by Kye on Jun 17, 2016 19:29:56 GMT
The Queen is the titular head of our government, but honestly I don't care enough to have an opinion one way or another.
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Post by juju on Jun 17, 2016 19:44:38 GMT
I'm also ambivalent. I don't really follow the royals but I do like having the Queen. Don't really care about the younger lot and certainly not the extended family and assorted hangers on. Having said that, I do think that our hierarchical class system means that Cameron and his ilk are seen by some as "to the manner born' and the only ones capable of governing us forelock tugging serfs.
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Post by tangent on Jun 17, 2016 20:00:07 GMT
What is wrong about an elected President? It means there are two, often conflicting heads of government, the president and the prime minister (or equivalent head of the elected house).
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Post by Moose on Jun 17, 2016 20:07:54 GMT
I think that the political system is slowly starting to change but not fast enough. There ARE people getting involved in politics these days who are not your typical Eton/Oxbridge bunch but they seem to rise more slowly to the top. That been said, there have been senior politicians who were not 'to the manor born' (John Major and, let's be honest, Margaret Thatcher too both spring to mind. Bit ironic really, given that both were Tories... and yet a good deal less 'posh' than some of their opposite numbers).
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Post by Miisa on Jun 17, 2016 20:08:53 GMT
Monarchies these days have less to do with power and everything to do with being the visible figureheads, entertainment and gossip. Their function is to be seen at shopping centre openings and celebrity weddings and generally talked about and thus let the politicians do the actual governing. You can a) have royal celebrities who live in a fish bowl from birth and have a support system to help them out with that, or you can b) replace them with even more useless celebrities who got famous on Big Brother or whatever and ultimately cannot handle the fame, or c) make the politicians who should be doing other things the gossip magazine clowns that the public seem to need.
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Post by Moose on Jun 17, 2016 20:20:43 GMT
Further to what I just said when I studied Sociology A level I remember something about a 'class delineation' theory, ie that working class people often voted Tory and middle class people Labour or Liberal. I can't remember all that much about the theory and I am not sure if it has any actual validity.
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Post by raspberrybullets on Jun 18, 2016 10:27:00 GMT
I would like to see the monarchy gone. I don't need to wait for the Queen to die for that to happen either. At least if you have an elected president who does all the "head of state" stuff, it's just one person and they chose to be there. Now I have to slightly feel sorry for the royals because they're stuck with this silly thing whether they like it or not, simply because of whose uterus they came out of, and whose sperm was in it before that. I don't want to feel sorry for these people living such a privelaged life.
I also don't see it being an issue for politicians because the president should be a seperate function from the prime ministers who run the country. When we voted for a republic here in Aus back in 1999 that was the intention - our government would still remain the same with a PM, and a president would be more of a honourary title and symbolic. Basically being something like the Governor General position is now.
The monarchy particularly annoys me because we now have a head of state who is not Australian, and who has visited this country a total of about 8 times in her decades as monarch. If we have to have a monarchy I'd prefer to have an Australian one. Ultimately however, I'd prefer no monarchy at all.
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Post by Mari on Jun 18, 2016 15:14:02 GMT
I like the monarchy, though I do feel it's a very tough job. One I wouldn't want to have. In the Netherlands they calculated how much our king and queen bring in in terms of money from tourism etc. The conclusion was that it was well worth the expense.
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Post by kingedmund on Jun 19, 2016 14:49:55 GMT
The royal family doesn't do anything and seems to be a waste of money. At least that is what I've heard so not sure. Don't they cost a lot of tax money?
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Post by tangent on Jun 19, 2016 21:52:16 GMT
They bring in much more money in tourism than they cost the tax payer - one estimate is £4 billion per year. If you're talk about value for money, they are worth many times as much as they cost.
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Post by ProdigalAlan on Jun 21, 2016 9:14:02 GMT
All the money in the world cannot turn something that is morally wrong into something that is acceptable.
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Post by tangent on Jun 21, 2016 12:23:27 GMT
Having a nominal head of state is not morally wrong, quite a few countries have a nominal head of state. The issue is whether being appointed head of state for life is morally wrong. There are many other people who are appointed to a position for life - Supreme Court judges, Bishops (until recently), the Pope - and it is rare to hear anyone say their appointment for life is morally wrong. They are not usually appointed because they have earned their position but because they are qualified and eminently suitable for the job. Most monarchs have been trained and are eminently suitable for their jobs - although I wouldn't include Prince Charles in that - so what reason can you give that the monarchy is morally wrong? If you say that the monarchy is morally wrong then we must conclude that the Pope's position is likewise.
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Post by ProdigalAlan on Jun 22, 2016 8:01:51 GMT
The Pope is not born The Pope.
The Pope has to actively pursue a certain path in life.
The monarch of this country is denied, from birth, certain freedoms that every other citizen has granted to them. Freedom to say what they honestly think and freedom of movement being two very obvious ones. We, as a country, use these people as tools to create wealth and alliances. We hold them in an obscene spotlight of public exposure. We expose the minutiae of their lives and we decide to either expose or suppress those details according the benefit of the public purse and political necessity.
A bird in a gilded cage, no matter how luxurious, is still a bird trapped in a cage.
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Post by tangent on Jun 22, 2016 10:19:29 GMT
I see, so your saying the monarchy is wrong because it denies individual members freedom. But they can always abdicate. It's their choice.
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Post by ProdigalAlan on Jun 22, 2016 17:38:23 GMT
That is exactly what I am saying.
As for abdication, we should not be putting anyone in the position where they have to abdicate because we should never place anyone in that position in the first place.
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Post by tangent on Jun 22, 2016 19:24:13 GMT
Interesting, yes I can understand that. But not many monarchs find the job so awful they feel they want to abdicate.
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Post by spaceflower on Jun 23, 2016 12:01:21 GMT
Just out of interest. I personally absolutely do not see the point - I've nothing against the Queen (she did not ask to be where she is, I suppose) but the idea that some people are supposed to be 'better' than other people and must be bowed and scraped to simply by an accident of birth is beyond me. The poll seems to be exclusively for UK-citizens so I could not vote. Does not know enough about the British royalty anyway. In principle I am agianst the monarchy (inherited tenure), in practise I'm for. The monarchy is continuity in an ever changing society. Also, the Swedish king has no power at all, he is just a representative figure, travelling abroad to further Swedish export industry. And the crown princess is very more popular. The downsides for the monarch is that s/he must belong to the Lutheran church (can't be Catholic for instance) and s/he is not allowed to say anything political. A downside for society is that s/he can get away with murder, s/he cannot be prosecuted. Just like foreign diplomats. Though I don't think the king has broken any other laws than driving too fast. A downside for the crown prince/princess is that s/he is forever waiting for the job s/he's been prepared for. Like prince Charles. Royalties are long-lived.
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Post by JoeP on Jun 23, 2016 12:33:35 GMT
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Post by spaceflower on Jun 23, 2016 13:08:10 GMT
No, I've never seen it before. I don't get the tattoo craze in Sweden. (Maybe start a poll "Are tattood or plan to be?")
“Then we came to the conclusion that we should do the most Swedish tattoo ever. So on the same day we were about to do it, the tattoo artist said ‘What the hell, we’ll add a tube of Kalles, a Dala horse and an elk hat’,” he added. --- “The tattoo is very Swedish. I reckon only Swedes and people who live in Sweden, Norway, Denmark or Finland will understand it, but if someone asks I’ll absolutely take the time to explain it.”
Haha, truly a conversation piece but only in the summer will it be seen by everybody, if he wears shorts.
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Post by whollygoats on Jun 23, 2016 13:37:43 GMT
Heh...You guys.
You can have governance without the presence of pretentious twits like royalty. And...You don't have to have dual heads of state to do it.
For crepes sake, there are plenty of examples globally of nations operating reasonably well with parliamentary governments and no stinkin' royalty. For that matter, most of the Dominion nations could easily expunge all reference to the British royal family in their political structures and continue to function just fine.
I'm with Alan here. You people need to remember that the silly twits in the royal family claim ownership of much of the land in your nation. They got it by virtue of intimidation and aggressive threat by their ancestors. That is no small portion of the national wealth. I think you people need to dispose of that imposition.
But hey...there are equivalent aspects in our structure of governance which could be brushed up (ground down, scraped off, planed smooth...whatever), as well. Here, we also have kleptonomic plutocrats. They just don't get access to wealth and power based only upon their selection of parents....they have to do some level of kicking, gouging, and outright theft to obtain enough cash in hand to buy their influence.
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Post by ProdigalAlan on Jun 23, 2016 17:36:45 GMT
I think also we should bear in mind that the royals themselves have suffered.
The Queen's father was not destined to be king. Yet he found himself, against his will, pressurised into accepting that office. His wife and his daughters have all stated that they believe the pressures of the office were a considerable factor leading to his premature death.
I'm not comfortable with that. Not for all the tourist trade in the world.
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Post by Moose on Jun 23, 2016 17:40:44 GMT
I don't buy the 'they bring in tourists' line anyway. Says who? France gets loads of tourists - as many or more than us, I would imagine - and they did away with their monarchy. I simply don't believe that people come here because we have a Queen.
Personally I think it must be hell. Imagine not being able to do anything at all, not able to have any real friends, not able to express an opinion on anything, ever. They are prisoners.
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Post by ProdigalAlan on Jun 23, 2016 18:24:20 GMT
When I was in the aviation game there was no doubt that inbound flights were sold out on big Royal occasions. Weddings especially. But we never got a quarter of the French tourist trade. Especially since EuroDisney.
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Post by tangent on Jun 23, 2016 19:13:02 GMT
Personally I think it must be hell. Imagine not being able to do anything at all, not able to have any real friends, not able to express an opinion on anything, ever. They are prisoners. In some ways like lottery winners. Personally, I don't feel sorry for them at all. It can't be that bad a job otherwise more monarchs would abdicate. As it is, you have people choosing to marry into the role. Let's see, single mum scraping a living or monarch? Hm, a hard choice.
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Post by whollygoats on Jun 23, 2016 22:16:00 GMT
Personally I think it must be hell. Imagine not being able to do anything at all, not able to have any real friends, not able to express an opinion on anything, ever. They are prisoners. In some ways like lottery winners. Personally, I don't feel sorry for them at all. It can't be that bad a job otherwise more monarchs would abdicate. As it is, you have people choosing to marry into the role. Let's see, single mum scraping a living or monarch? Hm, a hard choice. Really? How many aspiring princesses faced a fate of single-motherhood and penury as a alternative to marrying the heir apparent? I suspect that number is zero. Heir apparents and their siblings usually select their marriage partners from cohorts of similar social class. Young women of that social class are highly unlikely to fall in to such circumstances. Pretenders who might have, by some misguided imagination, selected from outside those parameters tend to get their wings clipped...like Lizzie's uncle. Yeah, the life is miserable under the microscope, but when you control enough assets to buy the microscope and all the curious investigators, that misery must fade in to the background sufficiently to discourage immediate abdication upon assumption of the crown.
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Post by whollygoats on Jun 23, 2016 22:44:48 GMT
I don't buy the 'they bring in tourists' line anyway. Says who? France gets loads of tourists - as many or more than us, I would imagine - and they did away with their monarchy. I simply don't believe that people come here because we have a Queen. Personally I think it must be hell. Imagine not being able to do anything at all, not able to have any real friends, not able to express an opinion on anything, ever. They are prisoners. I wouldn't want it, for sure. There is a certain segment of the American population which goes ga-ga over all the royal family. They can harangue at length about the minutae of the family happenings and who is related to who how....inordinate interest in the affairs of entirely unrelated distant foreigners. It's puzzling, but I attribute it to an unsavory interest in gossip and eavesdropping; the same which fuels a successful television soap opera business. This holds for all royalty, but because the US is largely English-speaking and inherited most of its political and legal traditions from Britain, the British royal family garners more public interest and overshadows other royalty, European, Asian, or African, in American sensibilities. Then, there is a somewhat broader class which is interested in the trappings of royalty...and the aristocracy, too, for that matter. They are interested in pomp, circumstance, big estates, huge looming ancient castle structures, Edwardian libraries, crumbling crenellated towers and walls, crown jewels, implements of torture, and suits of armor hundreds of years old. It ain't the old lady and her exceedingly fussy family members who draw these American tourists, it's the crud that has accreted around them and their aristocratic parasites. I suspect that, among Americans, royalty and aristocracy are view rather like the people who get selected to be on some reality television program, only they've parlayed it in to a hereditary multi-generational scam to bilk the entire population on a regular basis to maintain their egregiously extravagant life styles. It's a couthless and declassy manner of looking at it, but, hey...they ain't never had no exposure to such spoiled shit.
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Post by tangent on Jun 24, 2016 12:01:33 GMT
Really? How many aspiring princesses faced a fate of single-motherhood and penury as a alternative to marrying the heir apparent? Ha, ha, very funny.
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