On borrowed time - the royals

Who is Charles mistress ?

So....the royal family is basically a tourist attraction now? A jolly expensive one! Let us hope that the tourist money that it attracts exceeds the costs of keeping them in the manner to which they are accustomed.

All this curtseying lark is just nonsense.

The royal family has changed tremendously during our lifetimes and continues to do so. I hope that modernisation will be maintained.

They bring in billions to the economy. I can't see a president doing that.

Elegran

The most difficult things to reform are the personal qualities of those in or near to positions of power, whether that power is political, financial, religious or royal. The perks of the job can be too tempting for some (cash for influential preference, contracts for friends, presidential pardons for dodgy supporters, trusted access to altar boys,increased opportunities to indulge a questionable or unsavoury lifestyle.)

If we could crack that, we could be sure of integrity and humanity in ALL public life. Then we could stucture the institutions as we wished, knowing that no-one would misuse their position in them.

Hallelujah to all that. You’ve got right to the heart of it all. Money and power. Well said ??

Anniebach

Who is Charles mistress ?

Indeed Annie? I hadn’t heard he had one.

Russia is a banana republic with no meaningful democracy.

Charles has a wife. He remarried when his status changed from divorced to widowed. That is permitted both legally and in very religious circles. It has been said that marrying your mistress just creates a vacancy, but I have not seen any mention of Charles recruiting anyone to fill that vacancy.

Elegran theoretically you’re right but isn’t there a bit of chicken and egg here? Whilst we allow the HofL to remain in its current form and allow peerages based on how much you donate to political parties or who your brother is , it means you have a certain sort of institution closed in reality to the vast majority of the population. If we moved to a different way of selecting members and a different composition then we would in theory attract a different type of representative The first things we could easily do is limit the term of office and reduce the numbers.

Quite an interesting, balanced opinion piece in the Guardian by Jonathan Freedland

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/12/meghan-harry-monarchy-end-republicans-royals

Lisagran

Quite an interesting, balanced opinion piece in the Guardian by Jonathan Freedland

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/12/meghan-harry-monarchy-end-republicans-royals

Do you have a death wish ? ????

Elegran, that’s right. Money and power. Without mentioning any president’s names, if you look them up, they all have money and power. Who will have the most say in who stands for election? Those with money or the rest of us?

Leaving aside the rest of the Royal Family, I am an unashamed admirer of Her Majesty and the stability she brings to the constitution. The armed forces swear allegiance to her and if you ask any veteran they will tell you they do not just consider this to be for the term of their service. I’m not sure that the strength of this allegiance would apply if we had a President. To paraphrase Forest Gump, Life under presidential rule is like a box chocolates - you never know what you’re going to get. Her majesty keeps her finger firmly on the pulse and is a safety valve, if you like. I would like to see the monarchy skip a generation and go to William as next in line but it ain’t going to happen.

Seriously I think he’s spot on. Which is why I think the focus should be the HofL
It’s a pity that some posters probably won’t read your link because of what’s they think of the Guardian. (The writer btw is a regular commentator and a first class political analyst.)

Republic is calling on people to vote for ministers to talk discuss debate getting rid of the monarchy The people signing are steadily going up. I believe this is something that should be debated and soon.

Also Charles won't let the people who own their own houses on the Duchy buy the land that their house sits on dispite other landlords have to do so by law. Republic want housing minister to make Charles comply too.

Time we got rid of this outdated institution monarchy.

And to have a properly written down constitution that people can read and know what this country stands for.

The monarchy is corrupt using public office for private gain, secretive, more secretive than MI5, unaccountable exempted themselves from freedom of information laws, above the law Andrew FBI?

Mollygo

Elegran, that’s right. Money and power. Without mentioning any president’s names, if you look them up, they all have money and power. Who will have the most say in who stands for election? Those with money or the rest of us?

Like now probably - unless we’re members of a political party, we have no say in who stands as an MP and if we live in a safe seat and are of a different party, our votes are worthless. Which brings us back to PR as an instrument of democracy

suziewoozie

Lisagran

Quite an interesting, balanced opinion piece in the Guardian by Jonathan Freedland

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/12/meghan-harry-monarchy-end-republicans-royals

Do you have a death wish ? ????

I continue to live in the naive hope that people might look at both sides of a discussion......... Also, I’m well past caring what people might think of me or say to me on GN. I do have a life!

PR?

Sorry - proportional representation

I find the argument that we might end up with someone like Trump/Putin/Blair quite scary, actually. It’s as though we can’t trust the electorate to vote for someone capable of doing the job of HoS so we should just rely on a posh family to do it for us, and be grateful for it.

The Freedland piece is spot on – thanks for posting Lisagran. The existence of a hereditary HoS is so engrained in our society that I can’t see it going in my lifetime. There have been discontented minor royals since time began and we can all see how the latest round has just resulted in more entrenched views. I think the best I can hope for is a hereditary HoS that has a proper job for 50 years or so before they take to the throne, and then wave nicely and greet foreign dignitaries for a few years before handing on to the next one. Instead of what we’ve got now, where the name of the child of the HoS’s second son’s daughter is deemed worthy of news headlines and analysis.

The tourism defence is entirely wrong, BTW, they bring in about half a billion a year but inbound tourism is worth about £28bn a year so they are a drop in the ocean. For comparison, inbound tourism to France, famously republican, is worth about 44 billion Euros a year.

I also have a wry smile when people say they support the monarchy, which is by nature hereditary, but wish we could skip over Charles and go straight to William. Oh, the irony.....

This is where it loses credibility Grany, and all the logical things that came before it get lost too.

The monarchy is corrupt using public office for private gain, secretive, more secretive than MI5, unaccountable exempted themselves from freedom of information laws, above the law Andrew FBI?

If it's so secret, you can't possibly know. Sigh.

suziewoozie

Russia is a banana republic with no meaningful democracy.

I believe the challenge was to name a disastrous President who had become an elected head of state in the wake of a dissolved monarchy. No one mentioned meaningful democracy.

Can anyone name one of those?

Thinking about it France and the US do apply - so Trump and Macron count. French Revolution and American war of Independence? Moot, but both were elected as the result of getting rid of a monarchy, regardless of time passed.

nanna8

Is it a good reason to keep an anachronism just because we can’t think of an alternative ,though? We are in the 21 st century now and all that king and queen privileges stuff doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s rubbish.

Agreed Nanna8.

Lisagran

Quite an interesting, balanced opinion piece in the Guardian by Jonathan Freedland

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/12/meghan-harry-monarchy-end-republicans-royals

Spot on.

Maybe stop the curtsying, bowing and scraping for a start. Never heard of such nonsense. Straight from the 16 th century.

Lisagran
“I continue to live in the naive hope that people might look at both sides of a discussion........smile. Also, I’m well past caring what people might think of me or say to me on GN. I do have a life!”
Well said Lisagran!