• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

The Monarchy

I support the Royal Family, I think the status quo is fine, although not sure if Charles would be as appealing to the toursts.

I do find the statement of "loving" the Queen, or any other celebrity for that matter weird. Even saying you love Harry Styles seems odd, you can love his music, find him attractive, like his style, but unrequited love for a celebrity isn't healthy. Similarly with the Queen, you can support the monarchy, like her as a person, respect her beliefs, but love for her is an odd choice of word.

I would be in favour of some of the palaces being got rid of, maybe Windsor becomes solely a tourist attraction rather than a residence as well for example.
 
She works hard, hahaha. Flies off touring the world occasionally and cuts a few ribbons whilst getting treated literally like Royalty. 1st class everything. That's when she's not on holiday at Sandringham for 2 months every year and trotting off to her other holiday estates like Balmoral for the odd few weeks at a time etc. The tourism argument is flawed also as people would still visit just to see the buildings and gardens and for the history.
 
Places like Windsor, Buckingham Palace etc are owned by the Crown Estate, Not by the queen or govt directly. So if we abolished the Monarchy they dont become public ownership, so would more than likely no be opened for tours etc.
 
So only seven of the royal residences are privately owned.
There are many good reasons to ban second homes, for the damage they do to rural communities.
Seven is more than enough, turn all the rest into museums, schools, and public health clubs.
A single law to nationalise is all that is required.
 
Tibble said:
Places like Windsor, Buckingham Palace etc are owned by the Crown Estate, Not by the queen or govt directly. So if we abolished the Monarchy they dont become public ownership, so would more than likely no be opened for tours etc.
Click to expand...
Why would you assume that they wouldn't be opened for tours? The Crown Estate owns property which it rents out and makes money from in whichever way it sees fit, so why wouldn't these places open for tourism? Also, what difference does it make, monarchy or not, if the end result is that it is always 'really' owned by this mysterious Crown Estate and not the queen or the government? Think you've got this one wrong unfortunately buddy.
 
BarryZola said:
The tourism argument is flawed also as people would still visit just to see the buildings and gardens and for the history.
Click to expand...

I think that is true for Brits, but internationally it might be different. Going to see one of the Queens palace's may have a difference to seeing one of the King's. Even if the palace and the experience of touring them is the same (as it is generally only the state rooms open at Windsor/Buckingham), I think the perception of Charles vs the Queen internationally is different.

Also even though it is only the state rooms that are open to tourists, the perception that they are working residences probably makes a difference in the appeal too, once no-one is living there then it is solely a tourist attraction and loses some of the appeal of actually visiting a working palace.
 
I would agree that if there was no queen in place that it would take a bit of the shine off the experience. The point is that the revenue received by these places wouldn't suddenly fall off a cliff, from 100% to 0%. The revenue would/could still be there, even if arguably it wasn't quite as much as it once was.
 
Towers is a tourist destination that is very important to the UK tourist industry. It is constantly being deprived permission to build new things that would attract more tourism, partly due to the need of protecting a beautiful estate and gothic ruins. In ruins mainly due to its own country's army abusing it. It also doesn't require a billionaire to live there at tax payers expense to be a tourist attraction.

The day the government end up spending millions building world class Giga coasters all over the Alton Towers estate and taxpayers foot the bill for John Wardley to live inside the mansion with a crown on his head, whilst the Royal mint starting pumping out £20 notes with his picture on it - I'll concede that a monarchy is a good idea because of its tourist credentials. But that won't happen because it would be insane, and so are the excuses for having a monarchy.

Like I said, if its sole purpose is keeping flag wavers who fall for "look over there" government tactics happy, then fine. I wouldn't begrudge people of happiness. But please spare me the excuses. Not a single one of us here knows any of the royal family personally, what they do or who they really are. Who else in your life do you bow down to and pay tax money to keep in riches just because the government and media tells you to? I suspect the answer is no one.
 
Matt.GC said:
Towers is a tourist destination that is very important to the UK tourist industry. It is constantly being deprived permission to build new things that would attract more tourism, partly due to the need of protecting a beautiful estate and gothic ruins. In ruins mainly due to its own country's army abusing it. It also doesn't require a billionaire to live there at tax payers expense to be a tourist attraction.

The day the government end up spending millions building world class Giga coasters all over the Alton Towers estate and taxpayers foot the bill for John Wardley to live inside the mansion with a crown on his head, whilst the Royal mint starting pumping out £20 notes with his picture on it - I'll concede that a monarchy is a good idea because of its tourist credentials. But that won't happen because it would be insane, and so are the excuses for having a monarchy.

Like I said, if its sole purpose is keeping flag wavers who fall for "look over there" government tactics happy, then fine. I wouldn't begrudge people of happiness. But please spare me the excuses. Not a single one of us here knows any of the royal family personally, what they do or who they really are. Who else in your life do you bow down to and pay tax money to keep in riches just because the government and media tells you to? I suspect the answer is no one.
Click to expand...

Ain’t getting into the monarchy debate but the deterioration of the Towers had very little to do with the army. Other than a few holes punched into the walls of the Talbot gallery and some minor war time lack of maintenance the army left the place mostly as they found it.

The Bagshaws caused the Towers to fall to ruin by stripping the roof of lead, selling the remaining internals and allowing water ingress to rot everything else.
 
I think there is a difference between the institution of the monarchy, and the individual people themselves. There clearly is still a lot of support for the monarchy in the UK. Much less so elsewhere in other parts of the Commonwealth, and I can understand why. Even if the current generation of royals weren’t involved in the slave trade or expanding the British Empire, previous monarchs certainly have been, and we have had monarchs who personally owned a lot of slaves. I think the monarchy has been good for tourism in the past, but recent protests when the Royal family visit the Commonwealth could start to detract from that. When you take in the full package of Brexit, deporting people to Rwanda and the Windrush Scandal, the flag waving can start to look sinister.

I do think the institution of the monarchy at least deserves some significant reform. There are a lot of things that happen under the banner of the monarchy, even if the Queen doesn’t have any personal involvement. It’s everything from our honours system to the Privy Council. Look at how many bad eggs have been given knighthoods and OBEs. All kind of people from Fred Godwin, Jimmy Saville and Philip Green. Is it time to think about what kinds of people we celebrate?

Look at a list of organisations that have royal charters. Several lobbying groups that were set up to campaign for weaker employment laws have royal charters. As far as I know, no group campaigning for stronger employment laws has a royal charter. Organisations like Zero Hour Justice don’t have a royal charter. Organisations set up to campaign for zero hour contracts and campaign against the minimum wage do. A lot of private schools have royal charters. Under the banner of the monarchy we can have things like the privy council, which wield a lot of soft power, and are completely opaque. Decisions taken in Parliament are a matter of public record. Decisions taken by the Privy Council are taken in secret. Who really benefits from the monarchy?
 
Last edited:
Around one in seven people took part in "some form of" celebration last weekend, counting family parties.
That means 6/7ths didn't.

Just over half the population want to keep the monarchy in some form, but nearly two thirds would prefer an elected head of state.
From what I have seen in the papers and tv, the whole nation was apparently celebrating the event.
In reality, the vast majority weren't.
In my recent travels, I have seen half a dozen houses trimmed up with bunting and flags, 99.99% of local houses didn't.
 
I changed my mind I will comment on it.

I don’t believe in having a monarchy, and wouldn’t miss it if it went, but I don’t put much energy into the issue as there are far bigger democratic issues to deal with first (getting rid of first past the post for elections and moving to PR being the biggest priority). I wouldn’t want an elected head of state until our elections are actually democratic.

Once our parliament and government are sorted then I will have the energy for republicanism.
 
The queen has been good for London due to her popularity abroad, so tourism has been impacted considerably.

Once she croaks it, I really don't care what happens. Ultimately, they're just a bunch of posh benefits scroungers.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top