• 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 Queen dies, aged 96. The future of the monarchy

I keep hearing the argument for an unelected head of state that is above politics, often using the extreme example of mad man Trump as to why our system is better. But when challenged with the democratic argument, I usually hear "oh don't worry, the monarchs role is purely ceremonial".

I thought there was a possibility that we'd see some action from the Queen a few months ago when her government was falling apart and not functioning. As we had a Prime Minister who was unable to form a functioning government, I actually wanted her to. But it didn't get to that in the end.

I first asked the question in primary school to one of my teachers - what does a monarch in the role as head of state actually do then? Over three decades later, I'm still waiting for the answer. Every time I ask it, other than ceremonial duties, no one can ever answer.
 
Matt.GC said:
what does a monarch in the role as head of state actually do then? Over three decades later, I'm still waiting for the answer. Every time I ask it, other than ceremonial duties, no one can ever answer.
Click to expand...

I think nowadays the answer pretty much is ceremonial duties, they turn up and cut ribbons.
They are kept informed of what their government is doing and I expect they do pass comment to the prime minister, but what they discuss I don't expect we'll ever find out.
 
It's well-known that the Queen often advised her prime ministers, but at least in the public eye, the reigning monarch has and will remain politically neutral.

I quite like how the current system works. I feel if we went down the republic route British politics would be in even more of a mess than it currently is.

I wonder whether an elected monarchy would work to appease both sides.
 
The thing you have with our present royal family is history though, the line goes all of the way back to Henry VII and the defeat of Richard III.
I’m quite happy with the current set up to be honest, last thing I want is even more elections.
 
Jb85 said:
Am I the only one who thinks they've been treated harshly
Click to expand...
Weren't a lot of press invited to get close to cover the event, people would be complaining if there was a poor wide coverage and that just means that people there for press can't really wait in line for 8 hours if you want good a wide coverage across different channels, just logic to me.

If they were there on their own Accord and were barging through people queueing that's different, if you've been invited as a part of press and it's your job to cover it, that's just classed as doing your job no?

I find the memes funny, I made one myself but personally seeing so many people angry and the hate they're getting people signing petitions to try and make them lose their jobs just seems odd and this is coming from someone who isn't a big fan of Phillip Schofield personally.
 
I don’t see why you needed to invite any journalist into the hall. The rolling camera footage was enough to report from. It would have made a better story if they’d filmed their time queuing in any case.
 
Jb85 said:
Am I the only one who thinks they've been treated harshly
Click to expand...

I think there are a couple of big problems with what happened:
- they are presenters, I think it's a bit of a stretch to call them journalists. Might as well have had the loose women popping in for a look.
- AFAIK there was no report from them broadcast covering the event, so why were they there?

Having said that, the personal hounding is probably a bit much.
 
The third, and probably biggest problem is that instead of being (or coming across as) decent human beings and afterwards just saying 'yes, in hindsight we see that we got it wrong and we now realise that we shouldn't have had the right to not queue, we apologise for that', themselves and their employer decided to double down and carry on insisting that everything that they did was absolutely fine and that if you've got a problem with that we'll get expensive lawyers onto you. It just makes them come across as entitled and not very nice people. Saying that, I don't really care.
 
pluk said:
I think there are a couple of big problems with what happened:
- they are presenters, I think it's a bit of a stretch to call them journalists. Might as well have had the loose women popping in for a look.
- AFAIK there was no report from them broadcast covering the event, so why were they there?

Having said that, the personal hounding is probably a bit much.
Click to expand...
Their "attendance" was to be part of a feature on the funeral, to be broadcast on the Tuesday just gone.
Allegedly.
According to a press release by the broadcaster after the brown stuff hit the fan.
But they could neither speak, or record to camera, in the hall, so what exactly was the point of their attendance at the time?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Tom
rob666 said:
Their "attendance" was to be part of a feature on the funeral, to be broadcast on the Tuesday just gone.
Allegedly.
According to a press release by the broadcaster after the brown stuff hit the fan.
But they could neither speak, or record to camera, in the hall, so what exactly was the point of their attendance at the time?
Click to expand...

True, but I personally feel this is an ITV issue not a them issue, for which they are getting hounded.

It'll go away soon and everyone will love Willybooby again
 
One thing that is a shame though is that they are getting more stick than all the MPs and their families that jumped the queue.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top