[Politics] Royal Family: In or Out?

[PILTDOWN MAN]

This, from the Republican organisation. I don't agree with everything but they maybe able to get the gist of the argument across better than I can.


Republic's royal finances reform charter proposes the following simple reforms, to improve accountability, transparency and fairness in royal finances and to appropriately assign public funds to the Treasury.

Parliament to set an annual fixed budget for the monarchy - including an annual salary for the Queen - to be managed and reported on by a government department, not Buckingham Palace.
All security costs to be made transparent and accountable.
All costs of royal visits around the country to be incorporated into the monarchy's budget, not met by local authorities.
The institution of the monarchy, and all members of the royal household, to be required to abide by the same tax laws and rules as all other public bodies and private individuals.
The Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall to be fully investigated by parliament with a view to transferring them into public ownership, with all revenue going to the Treasury.
The Crown Estate to be renamed 'the National Estate' and its status clarified through amendment of the Crown Estate Act.

awful

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

This is interesting, why do you like it?

To be honest this would be the first thing I got rid of so I assume I am missing some of the benefits of it.

Good question ('why do I like the unelected chamber').

The answer is balance. We have an elected chamber that makes all the decisions. But this is mitigated by the unelected chamber (and the laws, let's not forget the laws) in our constitution (which, I gather, and I am not expert on this, is acually unwritten, unlike the American Constitute - a situation I like because ours stops conservatives demanding continuance of 17th century laws, such as gun ownership).

Our second chamber understands it should not interfere with lawmaking, albeit it can ask for amendments and nudge excess back to the centre. It has done so very well for decades (if not longer, albeit with the occasional ruction).

Balance comes from this. The second chamber has usually been rather unchanging (Blair tried to rig the game by creating an excess of labour lords, but in some respects he was actually rebalancing the second chamber - typical Mandleson wheeze). And nobody is there to further a career (Archer is an example of the few who were/are). It is much easier to be measured when you don't have a dog in the fight. As long as the second chamber doesn't get uppity and think it is the real fulcrum of power, it acts well.

This balances the mayhem of parliament, where every government has sold itself to the electorate, and pursues short-term goals that it thinks will perpetuate it's position as HMG. The lords takes a longer term view. This is always a more conservative view (small c) but that's.....wise.

Meanwhile the laws exist to stop wild action.

I like all that. Perhaps the laws will stop Boris if, as I suspect, he attempts a devil's bargain or a reckless no deal Brexit. The lords may not enter such a fight.

No, I really like our way of doing things. FPTP keeps spiv chancers of the likes of Farrage out of the chamber, and keeps extremist parties where they belong (nowhere). Parliament is sovereign. The lords nudge the tiller, and the laws block illegality. The Americans are not blessed with such an arrangement. More a derangement, especially now, in part, owing to their elected second chamber (stuffed full of robot Republicans, who would never impeach Trump even if he was caught brown-handed with his tiny penis in Putin's muscular sphyncter).

 

[dangull]

The only way republic could work would be by having no head of state at all apart from the Prime Minister.

Can you image the difficulties in agreeing on a UK head of state at the moment? The Scots would object to everyone English, a vote would probably end up with someone in a football mascot costume winning and the whole thing would be a disaster.

Much better to stick with what we have - slimmed down a bit - and getting rid of the Sussex title from those who don't want to be involved.

I fail to see the reason we need a head of state. We should be all equal in the law of the land.

 

[Norman Potting]

Good question ('why do I like the unelected chamber').

The answer is balance. We have an elected chamber that makes all the decisions. But this is mitigated by the unelected chamber (and the laws, let's not forget the laws) in our constitution (which, I gather, and I am not expert on this, is acually unwritten, unlike the American Constitute - a situation I like because ours stops conservatives demanding continuance of 17th century laws, such as gun ownership).

Our second chamber understands it should not interfere with lawmaking, albeit it can ask for amendments and nudge excess back to the centre. It has done so very well for decades (if not longer, albeit with the occasional ruction).

Balance comes from this. The second chamber has usually been rather unchanging (Blair tried to rig the game by creating an excess of labour lords, but in some respects he was actually rebalancing the second chamber - typical Mandleson wheeze). And nobody is there to further a career (Archer is an example of the few who were/are). It is much easier to be measured when you don't have a dog in the fight. As long as the second chamber doesn't get uppity and think it is the real fulcrum of power, it acts well.

This balances the mayhem of parliament, where every government has sold itself to the electorate, and pursues short-term goals that it thinks will perpetuate it's position as HMG. The lords takes a longer term view. This is always a more conservative view (small c) but that's.....wise.

Meanwhile the laws exist to stop wild action.

I like all that. Perhaps the laws will stop Boris if, as I suspect, he attempts a devil's bargain or a reckless no deal Brexit. The lords may not enter such a fight.

No, I really like our way of doing things. FPTP keeps spiv chancers of the likes of Farrage out of the chamber, and keeps extremist parties where they belong (nowhere). Parliament is sovereign. The lords nudge the tiller, and the laws block illegality. The Americans are not blessed with such an arrangement. More a derangement, especially now, in part, owing to their elected second chamber (stuffed full of robot Republicans, who would never impeach Trump even if he was caught brown-handed with his tiny penis in Putin's muscular sphyncter).

Interesting take Mr HWT

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

I fail to see the reason we need a head of state. We should be all equal in the law of the land.

I have no problems with The Queen being our head of state, I respect her.
But I always said that if I ever met her I would not bow or call her your royal highness, your majesty or even mam.
So, when I did meet her, or rather bumped into her standing by a stile, in the woods, on a public footpath crossing the son of the sultan of Brunei's land in Ascot, she said hello to me and I said hello Elizabeth how are you, we spoke for about a minute, she was fine but I was told to keep to the footpath by 2 revolver carrying men in black lookalikes.

 

[sully]

It's a line from that the old Tourism Board, now called Visit Britain. They heavily use the Royal Family to promote the country.

They obviously want their campaigns to appear successful, so suggest the Royals are a major reason for visits.

But they've never been able to present any evidence when asked.

There are however numbers of Royal Palace visits available.

If you are visiting a country because of past or present royalty it's reasonable to assume that you would visit a Palace of some sort.

If you add up the visitor numbers for all the Royal Residences in the UK, they are still less than half the visitors to the single Palace of Versailles outside Paris.

In any case it's a really odd preposition. Has anyone visited a foreign country because they have a Royal Family ?

It's nonsense.

The other problem is that France isn’t the only country with a former royal family. Tourists like palaces, but if you can rock up and stand outside and see pageantry going on for free, why would you pay to go in?

Also, we don’t go to other countries “because they have a Royal Family” because we have one of our own, so it’s not a big pull for us. It might be for those from countries that don’t have their own (like the US, for instance).

I’ve no idea where the truth lies with regard to tourism, but I like the fact that we still have a monarch and all the pomp and ceremony that goes with it. I totally support a slimming down of the Firm, though, and wouldn’t want to be one of them.

 

[BadFish]

Good question ('why do I like the unelected chamber').

The answer is balance. We have an elected chamber that makes all the decisions. But this is mitigated by the unelected chamber (and the laws, let's not forget the laws) in our constitution (which, I gather, and I am not expert on this, is acually unwritten, unlike the American Constitute - a situation I like because ours stops conservatives demanding continuance of 17th century laws, such as gun ownership).

Our second chamber understands it should not interfere with lawmaking, albeit it can ask for amendments and nudge excess back to the centre. It has done so very well for decades (if not longer, albeit with the occasional ruction).

Balance comes from this. The second chamber has usually been rather unchanging (Blair tried to rig the game by creating an excess of labour lords, but in some respects he was actually rebalancing the second chamber - typical Mandleson wheeze). And nobody is there to further a career (Archer is an example of the few who were/are). It is much easier to be measured when you don't have a dog in the fight. As long as the second chamber doesn't get uppity and think it is the real fulcrum of power, it acts well.

This balances the mayhem of parliament, where every government has sold itself to the electorate, and pursues short-term goals that it thinks will perpetuate it's position as HMG. The lords takes a longer term view. This is always a more conservative view (small c) but that's.....wise.

Meanwhile the laws exist to stop wild action.

I like all that. Perhaps the laws will stop Boris if, as I suspect, he attempts a devil's bargain or a reckless no deal Brexit. The lords may not enter such a fight.

No, I really like our way of doing things. FPTP keeps spiv chancers of the likes of Farrage out of the chamber, and keeps extremist parties where they belong (nowhere). Parliament is sovereign. The lords nudge the tiller, and the laws block illegality. The Americans are not blessed with such an arrangement. More a derangement, especially now, in part, owing to their elected second chamber (stuffed full of robot Republicans, who would never impeach Trump even if he was caught brown-handed with his tiny penis in Putin's muscular sphyncter).

I like your take on this. Especially the longevity idea. It makes a lot of sense. Certainly for for thought for me.

Sent from my Redmi Note 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Bold Seagull]

Good question ('why do I like the unelected chamber').

The answer is balance. We have an elected chamber that makes all the decisions. But this is mitigated by the unelected chamber (and the laws, let's not forget the laws) in our constitution (which, I gather, and I am not expert on this, is acually unwritten, unlike the American Constitute - a situation I like because ours stops conservatives demanding continuance of 17th century laws, such as gun ownership).

Our second chamber understands it should not interfere with lawmaking, albeit it can ask for amendments and nudge excess back to the centre. It has done so very well for decades (if not longer, albeit with the occasional ruction).

Balance comes from this. The second chamber has usually been rather unchanging (Blair tried to rig the game by creating an excess of labour lords, but in some respects he was actually rebalancing the second chamber - typical Mandleson wheeze). And nobody is there to further a career (Archer is an example of the few who were/are). It is much easier to be measured when you don't have a dog in the fight. As long as the second chamber doesn't get uppity and think it is the real fulcrum of power, it acts well.

This balances the mayhem of parliament, where every government has sold itself to the electorate, and pursues short-term goals that it thinks will perpetuate it's position as HMG. The lords takes a longer term view. This is always a more conservative view (small c) but that's.....wise.

Meanwhile the laws exist to stop wild action.

I like all that. Perhaps the laws will stop Boris if, as I suspect, he attempts a devil's bargain or a reckless no deal Brexit. The lords may not enter such a fight.

No, I really like our way of doing things. FPTP keeps spiv chancers of the likes of Farrage out of the chamber, and keeps extremist parties where they belong (nowhere). Parliament is sovereign. The lords nudge the tiller, and the laws block illegality. The Americans are not blessed with such an arrangement. More a derangement, especially now, in part, owing to their elected second chamber (stuffed full of robot Republicans, who would never impeach Trump even if he was caught brown-handed with his tiny penis in Putin's muscular sphyncter).

Even school governors are elected to their roles. I don't get why we have a body holding any sort of power that isn't elected or couldn't be removed by the people? It's madness.

Given the Lords don't represent constituents, you could run it like a governing body where elections to the Lords occurs as an when an individual's time is up or wishes to step down from the role rather than specific elections. A term could be be 10 years. Elections could be made by Parliament rather than the people given they are our representatives.

Could still retain your long term view, but also merge that with some resemblance of democracy.

 

[Deleted member 2719]

I have no problems with The Queen being our head of state, I respect her.
But I always said that if I ever met her I would not bow or call her your royal highness, your majesty or even mam.
So, when I did meet her, or rather bumped into her standing by a stile, in the woods, on a public footpath crossing the son of the sultan of Brunei's land in Ascot, she said hello to me and I said hello Elizabeth how are you, we spoke for about a minute, she was fine but I was told to keep to the footpath by 2 revolver carrying men in black lookalikes.

I am surprised they let you get anywhere near the Queen with your anger issues.

 

[schmunk]

I have no problems with The Queen being our head of state, I respect her.
But I always said that if I ever met her I would not bow or call her your royal highness, your majesty or even mam.
So, when I did meet her, or rather bumped into her standing by a stile, in the woods, on a public footpath crossing the son of the sultan of Brunei's land in Ascot, she said hello to me and I said hello Elizabeth how are you, we spoke for about a minute, she was fine but I was told to keep to the footpath by 2 revolver carrying men in black lookalikes.

Whilst I understand your sentiment, "Hello Elizabeth" would be rather impolite to anyone you'd not already met - "Hello Mrs Windsor" would have been better.

 

[Clive Walker]

Off with their heads........

 

[lawros left foot]

I’m really not bothered by the brouhaha about all this, but, just 2 thoughts on it.
Prince Henry is probably the highest profile ex- squaddie in the World, he served as an Apache pilot in Afghanistan. This, alone would make him, his wife and child,the premier target for Islamist terrorists in this country. To reduce his security cover at a time of high risk would be negligent of care. He served his country,when he was still a fully paid up member of the Royals, therefore, what ever has gone on since, we owe him.

The Duchess of Sussex lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday, was a shot across the bows of the gutter press, this is quite simply , their revenge.

 

[rippleman]

Even school governors are elected to their roles. I don't get why we have a body holding any sort of power that isn't elected or couldn't be removed by the people? It's madness.

Given the Lords don't represent constituents, you could run it like a governing body where elections to the Lords occurs as an when an individual's time is up or wishes to step down from the role rather than specific elections. A term could be be 10 years. Elections could be made by Parliament rather than the people given they are our representatives.

Could still retain your long term view, but also merge that with some resemblance of democracy.

Totally agree. Many democracies manage to run quite smoothly with two ELECTED chambers of government. No excuse at all for having hereditary and /or appointed representatives.

We are probably only having this discussion now because Harry has, IMO, allowed himself to be bullied by his wife into this halfway house arrangement where they can have their bread buttered on both sides AND jam on it.

I do hope HM for whom I have the greatest respect puts him back in his box today. If he insists on doing it his way then they should be stripped of all their titles and all funding paid from the public purse should be cut off by teatime.

 

[rippleman]

I’m really not bothered by the brouhaha about all this, but, just 2 thoughts on it.
Prince Henry is probably the highest profile ex- squaddie in the World, he served as an Apache pilot in Afghanistan. This, alone would make him, his wife and child,the premier target for Islamist terrorists in this country. To reduce his security cover at a time of high risk would be negligent of care. He served his country,when he was still a fully paid up member of the Royals, therefore, what ever has gone on since, we owe him.

The Duchess of Sussex lawsuit against the Mail on Sunday, was a shot across the bows of the gutter press, this is quite simply , their revenge.

More than happy for him to have his security cover provided he pays for it from his "independent wealth".

Once the royal toys have been thrown out of the pram and he quits, he should not be entitled to more support or protection than any other current or former service person.

We have former service personnel suffering from serious mental illness because of what they have been through. Many are now living on the streets. And you think we should be paying over 600K a year to protect ONE former serviceman? OK, that's your view but I would rather that money was being spent on decent medical treatment and proper housing for the many hundreds, if not thousands, of forces personnel who are in serious and urgent need of help.

 

[Pavilionaire]

The money side of the story is being overplayed IMHO. The Royal Family generate hundreds of millions in tourism for the Exchequer and they have a truly global reach, so the bigger question is about brand impairment and fragmentation.

I think it was a huge error of judgement from Harry and Meghan trademarking their Foundation, having a separate non '.gov' website run from North America, commissioning their own logo and their own mission statement without getting agreement from the Queen and Charles. There is no perfect solution to this crisis, it is a PR disaster.

 

[Clive Walker]

The money side of the story is being overplayed IMHO. The Royal Family generate hundreds of millions in tourism for the Exchequer and they have a truly global reach, so the bigger question is about brand impairment and fragmentation.

I think it was a huge error of judgement from Harry and Meghan trademarking their Foundation, having a separate non '.gov' website run from North America, commissioning their own logo and their own mission statement without getting agreement from the Queen and Charles. There is no perfect solution to this crisis, it is a PR disaster.

They don't make anything like millions for this country through tourism.

The crown estate generates a fortune of which a percentage of the profit is given the the Queen. This was set up to legitimise the funding of the family, basically given Oxford Street. This portfolio would generate profits for the country with or without the royal family. Difference is that 15-20% of the profits wouldn't be given to those that won the biological lottery.

 

[KZNSeagull]

New annoying heckler alert. Some bloke with a megaphone standing on a Land Rover outside Sandringham. And no, it isn't Prince Phillip

 

[Icy Gull]

Looking forward to Harry and Meghan’s exclusive tv interview if they don’t get what they want.....

 

[clapham_gull]

The Royal Family generate hundreds of millions in tourism for the Exchequer.

There isn't a bean of evidence to suggest they do. It's a very odd proposition that we don't apply to ourselves.

Can you think of any other country in the world that people visit because of a Royal Family ?

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

I am surprised they let you get anywhere near the Queen with your anger issues.

I don't have anger issues, how would you know if I have or have not.
Just because I consider you and a few others on here as utter w@nkers due to your views on a few subjects does not mean that I am angry.
I just struggle to tolerate ignorant people that's all.