Bob Hobden wrote:
"®óñ© © ²°¹°" wrote
Sacha wrote:
Eulogy elided.

The hypocrisy is shocking but there's no doubt in my mind that the
aim is to rid us of the monarchy by deriding and poking fun at its
next incumbent and the lazy and easily-led fall for it.

I am not lazy, hypocritical, or easily-led. I do object to Chas'
outspoken political (and, yes, often loony) agendas, I object to him
being himself hypocritical and being an "incumbent" and would be
happy to see the Monarchy end with the demise of our current Queen,
hopefully in the far-distant future..

I am not alone.

True, you are not alone. However the alternative of a Monarch, a
President, fills me with dread not least because he/she would cost us
all much more (we would need a new Presidential Palace etc for a
start) and result in more short term ideas/policies as they are only
in a position of power and influence for say 5 years, not a lifetime
with little power. Would they have the ordinary average Englishman's
future it mind or might it just be their rich friends they worried
about so they had another job to go to afterwards. Indeed it can be
argued that our Monarchy cost us nothing if offset with the tourism
it brings in. A visit to Windsor or Buck House will prove that point.
Our Monarchy system is also envied by many in this world, unlike our
newspapers.
Whilst on that point, if , like me, you refuse to buy/read a British
(who owns them?) Newspaper you get a completely different view of a
lot of topics and Charlie is just one.

Well, in practical terms the monarch is only a figurehead; an institution.
The Prime Minister does the equivalent job to e.g. the US President.

I'm not committed on either side of this debate, but if we did want to get
rid of the monarchy, we could replace their notional role as the vessel of
power with anything; a lottery winner, a sheep or a chamber pot. The
(equally imaginary) Constitution would continue to function regardless.

Personally, I wish the Roundheads had lost the Civil War. We may have ended
up with a considerably less daft constitutional structure. We never sorted
out where the ownership of the country lies- with a monarch or with an
assembly appointed by the people- so we just kept fudging it and fudging it
until we have all these instiutional arrangements pretending to be and do
things they really aren't or do. The Prime Minister isn't officially leader
(it isn't even an official job title, s/he is actually "First Lord Of The
Treasury") and the parliament are supposedly merely "advising" the monarch
to pass laws, but in reality the monarch is obligated to take their
"advice". There are no restraints on power, as in say the USA, because
laughably our Constitution and Bill Of Rights work on "latest takes
precedent" rather than "highest takes precedent", so any "right" can simply
be abolished by passing a law, which is why we have no rights left. People
bang on about Magna Carta without realising that virtually all of it has
been repealed except for something about the right of a Freedman to worry
geese in Watling Street. There's a right to bear arms in our Bill of Rights
(1689) what happened to that? Lolz.

Anyway, the key constitutional issue for the next few decades is going to be
our existence not as a nation but as a province of a new nation called The
EU, and the monarchy is clearly redundant in that system. The Prime Minister
is now a State Governor, whose local power will ultimately derive from
Brussels, not the monarch, or the appointed chamber pot.


Ian