Why don't the British make Britain a Republic?

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Exactly.


No, he doesn't. It is a tradition for the heir to the throne to be made Prince of Wales, but not a requirement. You'll notice that Prince William is not the Prince of Wales because Prince Charles is. If Her Majesty and Prince Charles died tomorrow, Prince William would ascend to the throne immediately without having been Prince of Wales first.

You could call it experience, rather than tradition. We have an old saying.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Which 2011 events do you feel prove that the monarchy needs to go, may I ask?

All 800 or so of them

Well, since the last Charles died in his bed in 1685, I can only assume that you are a Jacobite who recognizes Bonnie Prince Charlie as Charles III.

In all seriousness, there is nothing inherently wrong in a constitutional monarchy. The United Kingdom, Japan and Canada have all been well served by their monarchies, and have membership in the G8 to show for it. Of 34 members of the OECD, 12 of them are constitutional monarchies (Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Japan, Luxemburg, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom).

In the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index, there are 25 full democracies--these same 12 are among the 25. 9 of them (all except Japan, Belgium and Spain) rank ahead of the United States (#19) on the index. Indeed, it is, I suggest, precisely these countries' commitment to democracy that has preserved their monarchies. We have seen no need to overthrow our monarchs because the stability of our constitutional institutions has served us so well.

As for cost--let us bear in mind that Presidents are no cheaper than monarchs. They need just as much security. Many of them are housed in the self-same palaces that their regal predecessors occupied. Directly elected Presidents required costly election campaigns, and employ large political staffs to keep the information flowing (well, the information that the same political staff hasn't suppressed). I would venture to state that France, Russia and the United States spend vastly more per capita on their heads of state than do Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom. Even if we combine the costs of the head of government and the head of state (substituting the US Vice-President for the Head of Government), I suspect the monarchies will still come out ahead.

For those who are interested in the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index rankings of monarchies:

Of 38 monarchies in the world (I exclude Andorra and Vatican City, since their monarchies are not hereditary), 13 are too small to meaningfully measure their democracies. But 10 of them (Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, St.Kitt's & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu) are Commonwealth realms with governments responsible to their Parliaments. The other three mini-monarchies are Liechtenstein, Monaco and Tonga--none of them hotbeds of repression.

Of the other 25, 12 are full democracies (listed above), 5 are flawed democracies (Jamaica, Lesotho, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and Thailand), 2 are hybrid states (Cambobia and Bhutan), and 6 are authoritarian regimes (Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Swaziland and the UAE).

If we include North Korea among the monarchies--and why shouldn't we?--then we have the curious notion that the most democratic nation on Earth (Norway) and the least (North Korea) are both hereditary monarchies. All of which should lead us to the conclusion that its not about the form that your constitution takes, but rather the degree to which your constitution translates into real political freedom.

I could call it experience, but the I would be absurdly and utterly wrong.



You know what? Back when we fought each other with our own excrement we were all happy and fine, we didn't have much reason to invent wheels.


For starters, state wastes millions on a dumb wedding, meanwhile the poor get pushed in such extremes that their only way to express anger is by burning houses.

You have to be joking! Those 'riots' were widely condemned here in the UK by all sides (apart from parts of the left and the scumbags themselves). They were seen as being the work of arsonists, opportunistic thieves and other criminals. They didn't have a sensible point they wanted to make, they just wanted to cause mayhem. The Army should have been sent in and if that didn't work, I think a few pour encourager les autres measures could have been taken. I bet the likes of the old RUC, or the French, Italian (Genoa?) or Polish riot police would have snuffed out any disorder within a very, very short period of time.

I wasn't interested in the wedding either - not a bit of it, but plenty of people were. That said, how would you like it if I started to tell you how Canada (or the United States, I don't know what country you live in) should be run? You're not a UK resident so I'll thank you if you stay out of business that doesn't concern you and instead spend your time discussing your own country's affairs.

Why would it be wrong, other than your not liking it?


Which has absolutely no relation to anything, since the logical progression of weaponry would have been to thrown stones, followed by slingshotted smaller stones (allowing the warrior to carry more ammunition), and then arrows etc. As it is, this is just nonsensical.

Moving back to the actual discussion, I dispute that an elected president is a better system than a monarch and so does an overwhelming majority of our population as seen by the minute amount of support the "republic" group has. They only get as much advertising as they do since the BBC has to show a balanced story, and if you show a view that's pro something then anti has to also be covered.

The Queen has near universal popular support to continue as the monarch. If you can field a candidate who is better supported by the people, then i'll agree with you a change is in order.

Good luck.


These being those poor rioters?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424

I would be deeply interested to hear your line of reasoning to explain how your interpreting that to being a protest against the monarchy.

And just who is doing the condemning? One of the significant complaints that came out of the occupy movement was the degree to which media demonstrated themselves to be perfectly content to parrot positions supporting the establishment. Now I don't suggest that opportunists and mischief makers didn't spot the main chance--but no matter how aggressive you are, you cannot incite a riot if there is no mob ready to be incited. You cannot whip the mob into a frenzy if the mob are content.

Blaming troublemakers strikes me as the ultimate cop out for the establishment. "There's nothing wrong here--just troublemakers stirring things up. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." When government starts playing the man and not the ball, you know that you're onto an issue that government does not want to see addressed--and that should encourage all critical thinkers to focus in on that issue.

On a side note, the military must never be used in place of the police. The Army are used to project national interests outside the borders. Police are used to preserve order within the borders. The two must never, ever be confused, for that leads down a very short road to tyrrany.



Just a tad self-righteous aren't you?

The days in which countries could insulate themselves from criticism from abroad are long since over. We are all affected when other governments get it wrong. The United Kingdom's spectacular failure of prudential supervision over her financial sector caused countless losses to investors the world over. I, for one, am not going to sit back and allow callow fools in Washington, Westminster and Rejkavik play the rest of us for fools.

david starkey has exposed himself on numerous occasions as being a stupid racist buffoon. so i wouldn't worry too much about what he says.

That was perfectly put. I couldn't agree more.

Why is he a racist? Has he just said things that the politically correct coterie don't like? Couldn't be that could it?

Big difference between that and hurling abuse at people in the street but, then again, a lot of people have stopped listening altogether when people start hurling accusations of 'racism' about the place. Yup, Starkers is definitely self-important and pompous but racist? I doubt it; I really do. Tell me how many bricks he's thrown through the window of the local Chinky?



I'll remember that whenever I feel really angry about Britain's membership of the EU. I shouldn't get involved peacefully with people that have the same aims, perhaps leaflet or demonstrate! No, I shall just form a mob and burn down the town centre! That will provide tons of support for my cause amongst the busiesspeople whose premises I've just torched and the householders I've made homeless! Thanks for that, visagrunt.

The "rioters" didn't have a proper grievance or a manifesto; they were just interested in looting and mayhem. A prominent leftist social scientist (I believe) at the time was asked whether he thought there was any excuse for the riots at the time and he simply answered "No". I can't remember who he was but I definitely remember reading something about it - odd, considering how much these types of people generally try to play down the thuggishness of those taking part, as it were.



And why aren't they content? Do they not have enough benefit money after all the vodka and fags?



Not really. Citizens of countries are generally fairly hostile to people from other countries coming along and insisting that they know what's best for them. I would expect Canadians to be the same if I started lecturing them on Québec. They are more than entitled to their opinion and to express it; I am more than entitled to tell them that it's my country, they don't live here and they should mind their own beeswax.



Are the Icelandic people fools for telling their government (and foreign governments) where to go on the Icesave fiasco? They actually seem, more or less, to have a democracy too. And they seem perfectly happy being outside the EU as well (apart from elements of their political class). Good on them.

Hooray for Iceland!

perhaps the fact that his opinion as stated on newsnight was that the recent riots occurred because "the whites have become black"?

the fact that he believes that to be an archetypically successful black man involves adopting mannerisms of speech that, were we to hear and not see the person, we would "think he was white"? i.e. for a black person to become respectable and "civilised" he or she should be adopt the cultural trappings of a white person?

he equates white culture with good, and black culture with bad. this is blatantly clear if you watch the recent newsnight appearance.

so overall, he is indeed a stupid racist buffoon.




racism, i'm afraid, doesn't simply consist of violence and threatening language towards those of a different race. starkey is quite clearly racist. he believes that for a black person to be successful, indeed, in his own words, an "archetypically successful black man" need adopt the mannerisms and characteristics of speech of a white man. this is quite clearly racist, i'd say.

also, "chinky" is quite a racist term. were afro-caribbean food popular in this country, would you be comfortable making reference in casual conversation to nipping out to pick up a "n****r"? i think perhaps not.

And still you resort to the same, intellectually bankrupt reply.

I have never suggested that the behaviour of rioters was not criminal. Nor have I suggested that it is the best or proper way to go about effecting change.

What I have stated, quite explicitly, is that demonizing the protester serves to insulate the establishment from criticism. You cannot pretend, in the face of these riots, that all is well in Britain. It's a damn sight better than it is many other places, to be sure--but the riots, like the occupy movement, betray a growing malaise within mixed, industrialized economies that citizens no longer feel that they are getting their fair share. That is a proper grievance, whether it is articulated in the media or not.



Lecture away. I am perfectly happy to hear what you have to say about that. Or our relationship with First Nations. Or any other subject of our public administration.



A country that permits five people living on the same fjord to each play, "keep up with the Jones'" using other countries' money to buy banks has to face up to that reckoning. They certainly have a democracy, and they may well be happy outside the EU--but their Finance Ministry and Central Bank still have a great deal to answer for. As do yours.

The unregulated, criminal greed displayed by banks in Iceland, Eire, the UK and the USA is what created the financial crisis. But it was money from countries like Germany, Canada and China that financed that fiasco. So you reaped the benefit of huge tax revenues from the City, while we were left holding the bag when Northern Rock and RBS failed.

So climb down off your high horse, acknowledge your failures and accept criticism from those who can look at you with some objectivity. In return, I shall do the same.

Well, if we use a classical Greek definition of monarchy, the United Kingdom really isn't. In a proper monarchy, power is vested in one person and perhaps delegated to ministers and trusted advisers from there. Many dictatorships are closer to this than a constitutional "monarchy" like the United Kingdom. Civil war has settled in the United Kingdom that Parliament is sovereign, reducing the king or queen to ceremonial figurehead. In a democracy, the people at large hold sovereignty.

True enough, at least to some extent. However, the question is not why the British people don't change their constitutional structure. So even if the United Kingdom isn't a monarchy (or a collection of monarchies in personal union), the British Constitutions are still the basis for discussion.

I disagree, however, that the English Civil War settled questions as you suggest. While it certainly allowed Parliament to impose its will on Charles I, Charles II was restored to largely the same powers that his father held.

The Crown continued to hold a real and effective veto over the other two components of Parliament at least until the reign of Queen Anne.(Remember, the Queen is one of the three components of Parliament, to this day.) That veto power has clearly fallen away, but it has done so through desuetude, not through any statutory action on the part of Parliament. As recently as 1957, the Queen has exercised a direct, personal choice about her Prime Minister (when she selected Harold MacMillan over Rab Butler after the resignation of Eden). While the Conservative Party clearly could have taken control of the decision (as they did when Butler was again passed over in favour of Douglas-Home in 1963), they did not and the matter was definitively in the hands of the monarch. While such a scenario is unthinkable today, it is within the lifetime of some people on this board that real constitutional change was still taking place concerning the Sovereign's relationship with the Houses of Parliament.

I would suggest that the real change in the relationship between the Crown and the Houses of Parliament occurred not in 1642-1651, but in 1721-1730, with the development of the primacy of the First Lord of Treasury. This marks the separation of the Head of Government from the Head of State and the creation of Cabinet led, rather than Crown led government.

Finally, if the defintion of democracy relies upon a theory of sovereignty held by the people at large, then no such beast exists anywhere in the world. Certainly the United States' theory of government places sovereignty in the hands of the people--but that is no less theoretical than the sovereignty of the British monarch.

If you were at the receiving end of his verbal diarrhoea, I'm sure you'd agree that he was racist. I've found some of his outbursts to be highly offensive, although I have the intelligence to know he's not as smart as he and others think he is. You don't have to be involved in acts of violence to be racist.