Why Britons more eager to see Prince William as heir?

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Why Britons more eager to see Prince William as heir to the throne than his father Charles the Prince of Wales?

Hate to say it:

But people find Prince Charles to be somewhat of a schlemiel. He seems like someone who vacillates quite a bit (is indecisive).

They see William as being tall, handsome, and confident.

It is mostly non-British that say this in my experience. Some are still hung up on the affair whereas we are well past it.

Personally I think he is a bit an oaf, but then I'm not a royalist.

The problem with Charles, is he doesn't understand neutrality, in the way his mother does. This has the potential to cause constitutional issues as King, when he inevitably puts his foot in it.

He is not really indecisive, and is quite opinionated. However making decisions isn't really part of the job description, other than how to share time, with charities and organizations.

As 0_equals_true rightly says, Charles has the potential to cause a constitutional crisis. He is inclined to meddle in the political decision-making process, which is not the role of the monarch, and to use his influence to further his eccentric causes. He has an over-inflated opinion of his intellectual abilities, which are fairly limited (actually I'm being polite, he's an imbecile), but is surrounded by toadies who assure him that he is a genius ... on top of which the British public have never forgiven him for the way he treated Princess Diana. He is often compared to Edward VIII, who had to abdicate because he wanted to marry the divorcee Wallis Simpson, and shares Edward's wilful, blinkered character.

William is more like the present Queen: neutral, sensible and very dull. The best choice would be to dispense with the monarchy and have an elected head of state.

In response to the OP: I'm thinking a couple of things might be coming-into-play.....

I'm thinking the British MIGHT feel like Prince Charles is a little old-fashioned, and William would be more "modern". I'm also thinking that the British MIGHT feel like William might be more like Diana and / or, would like to see a part of Diana, be on the throne. It seems that they think Charles is an idiot, but they loved Diana, so very much.

Well the argument that the monarch is largely symbolic, implies that we don't actually need an individual to be head of state. Rather more of a legal framework to limit the powers of the government. I don't see why we couldn't have a Prime Minister without a President.

I'm not a fan of singular executive power. It has to be harder to make those decisions unilaterally. Take other countries, even the Prime Minister may have significant powers, that cannot be challenged. A symbolic head of state isn't acting alone as physical barrier to that.

The House of Lords could be reformed with a lottery system (entered into after passing a test on the history of bills), to replace all other peers.

The problem is that the Royal Family is at peak popularity. It is not really down to constitutional understanding, but becuase of the story of William, Catherine and the Queen. They also know they can't do away with media attention becuase this is key to their continued popularity. I notice they have visited the Commonwealth countries where there have been rumblings of Republicanism in recent years, to revive support.

I think Charles will be more of a bore, albeit an opinionated one, and this will weaken support for the royals over time. It is pot luck, the future generations of royals. It only takes enough of them that aren't that interesting, to weaken support for the Monarchy worldwide.

I don't believe in revolutionary change, so I will bide my time.

I'm open minded about the royal family continuing in a non-constitutional form as a tourist fascination, if self funded.

The Duchy of Cornwall already makes Charles independently wealthy. That could provide the bulk of the funding.

Personally I don't have anything personally against the Queen or William as people. You could argue that their own rights are restricted by their role, despite obvious privilege. There is a catch-22: you can't deny them the rights, however constitutionally they can't exercise all of them, especially the Monarch.

If Cromwell's puritanical rule didn't give the Taliban a run for their money, we wouldn't be here.

I'm not a huge fan of the apparent republican movement's spokespersons in the UK (as far as I have experienced of them). They appear bitter, divisive, their arguments aren't that convincing, and they tend to support large Parliaments. There is no reason to completely bin everything in the Westminster system.

Not that I'm against the concept of republicanism, I just think it is made out to be the opposite of Monarchism rather than anti-Monarchism. Constitutional republicanism beyond the obvious implications doesn't make a party, and I don't feel that much affinity with many of those groups.

There is problem with the electoral system clearly. I support small PR, with roughly the same number of seats. With a devolved English Parliament. However we need to sort out to the hotchpotch of devolution, so there is more consistency. Lords reform is important. I don't buy the rhetoric it isn't a priority for people, with their day to day needs. This is an excuse used by the naysayers. If people are well informed, they would realise the value of reform, long term.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 02 Jun 2015, 6:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The British aren't that naive. They would hope that she has an influence on him. However maybe people do underestimate how much of an influence Charles has on William and Harry too.

I think people overestimate how much Charles is in the doghouse. Well he is not in the doghouse at all, and in fact the boys get on quite will with Camilla. It was actually the Queen that "convinced" Charles to divorce. Camilla was Charles's first love not Diana, and circumstances and pressures led to that royal marriage, influenced more acceptance of marrying outside of the narrow upper realms of the aristocracy for William and Harry.

I bring this Camilla/Charles issue up because it is often raised by foreigners with an interest in the Royal family.

I lived in Angola, and Diana did help with awareness of landmines.

However, as lovable and kind as she is made out, she was not the perfect person people believe. In fact, she had even odder views then Charles does (perhaps even influencing him). She wasn't the best decision maker, and at times was quite difficult. She was good at PR for sure. However one thing I will give her is wasn't afraid to display her emotions. Catherine on the other hand, is more being PR managed. She barely speaks, except pre-scripted, a bit like the Queen.

Be careful what you wish for, think what we could end up with:

President Johnson (Boris)?

President Fry?

President Branson?

The monarchy is ingrained into the fabric of the country, is politically inert, and any potential constitutional problems could surely be dealt with even by one of our fairly inept modern governments.

Would be happy for the monarchy to go but I ultimately think it's fairly benign.

No need for an elected President, unless they are solely a figure like the Queen with no real power who just goes around on high-profile visits. I'm not sure the Australian public (for example) would be quite so excited by that prospect though.

And seriously, who would get it? Assuming an AV system was used, I imagine the Labour candidate would win - President Brown? President Kinnock? Or if it was FPTP, we'd be looking at a Tory President- Shapps? Lansley? Pickles? Johnson? Duncan-Smith?

You make some good points. I agree that if the UK did have a president, then he/she should have a purely ceremonial role, with probably even less power than the present Queen - who, theoretically, can refuse to give her assent to laws, although I don't think this has happened since we became a constitutional monarchy. Perhaps something more like the Scandinavian monarchies, which are far less extravagant (although the class-conscious British public seem to be addicted to the pageantry and forelock-tugging). Another possibility is the German system, where the president is chosen by the Bundestag - who, in the case of Christian Wolff, also sacked him. What we certainly don't want is a president with executive power, such as in the USA and France.

Admittedly the thought of a President Shapps, Blair or Gove is unappealing to say the least, but an election could be opened up to other public figures less directly connected with politics. But I don't think we'll see any change in our lifetimes, perhaps not this century.

Who asked for AV anyway? That is a false choice and always was.

(Small) PR would be for general elections, by elections, etc. Presidential elections is a separate thing. It is not necessary to have one IMO, however if that is what people want, it is something that we could decide on.

We might combine it will Lords reform, and my idea of Lords reform is specifically to avoid these party stooges (which are worse than the hereditary peers), by having a lottery system and different terms and rotation (it is possible to stagger terms of members rather than a fixed draw).

Actually strictly speaking it has a had resurgence in popularity and is higher than average, and in fact throughout history there have been several unpopular monarchs. Anti-monarchism was enough of a threat to result in the Treason Felony Act of 1848.

^ I said nothing about the popularity of the monarchy, but was merely referring to the fact that it's been a central feature of our society and political structure for several hundred years. I'm well aware of what went on in 1649, 1688 and 1848 for that matter.

I'm personally not very interested at all in our royal family BTW.

Me too. Oliver Cromwell ruled between Charles the 1st and Charles the 2nd, and was a monster - England couldn't revert back to a monarchy system fast enough, and you can't blame them. Cromwell had people roasted to death - not a celebrity roast, the real thing.

Republicanism doesn't protect people from having monsters in power, and there are plenty of recent examples.

There was no shortage of torture of political dissidents before Cromwell. The straw the broke the camel's back was after a long an bloody civil war, the populous was subjected to illiberal puritanical rule. Something that didn't represent the majority of the English. Cromwell believed in religious war, and his victories were divinely guided.

Not all Roundheads were Puritans, there were lot of different groups that you wouldn't expect cooperate under different circumstances, which is typical of revolutions, and usually you get a power vacuum and instability.