It's Queen Elizabeth II's
90th birthday this
year. Twice ... as
usual... which had made me
think that ... While Jeremy
Corbyn may not be my
favourite politician it is
at least refreshing to
finally have a party leader
of any hue who is an
unashamed Republican.
It has been a complete
mystery to me all my life
why people put up with the
Monarchy. If it was up
to me the entire royal
family would be executed in
public outside Buckingham
Palace which would
henceforth be open to the
public all year round –
ideally turned into an Art
Gallery like “the Louvre” or
perhaps preserved for state
ceremonial occasions.
Some people
might find the idea of
public executions
unnecessarily barbaric but
really it’d just be like a
cross between “I’m A
Celebrity Get Me Out of
Here” and one of the
millions of Death Row
documentaries that fill
Freeview only you’d see the
injection live.
Charles Dickens campaign
against public execution and
torture is so yesterday
anyway.
Lethal injection
may sound a bit boring but I
plan to merge the Death Row
format with that of Ink
Master so that the Queen and
Prince Charles would die of
epidermal suffocation after
having a full body tattoo a
bit like Shirley
Eaton in Goldfinger
couldn't have done. I
mean come on ...if Paul
Daniels could get away with
faking his own death on
television...
This may seem
cruel but it still sounds
kinder than making them both
redundant so that they’re
forced onto the reality
television circuit and end
up on “I’m a Celebrity Get
Me Out of Here”. I
don’t want to see them on
endless reality shows being
asked “Hello, and what do
you do now?” Making
them redundant might sound
expensive but the maximum
amount of statutory
redundancy pay in the UK is
only £14,250 so if you ask
me it would be a bargain.
Following the
abolition of the Monarchy
anyone would be able to walk
around and through the Royal
gardens. The horrible
brick wall that runs from
Grosvenor Place to Duke of
Wellington Place and down
Constitution Hill would be
demolished and people would
be able to enjoy a huge
walled area of London once
again. They’d be able
to walk almost directly from
Victoria Station to Green
Park and Green Park its self
would expand in size by 50
per cent. Or that’s
probably what I’m supposed
to think as a
Republican.
Some of you may
think I’m mean wanting to
return Buckingham Palace to
the people but even if the
Queen no longer lived there
she’d still have Windsor
Castle, ...
the
Palace of Holyroodhouse
...
...and
Hillsborough Castle ....
...not
to mention her private
residences Sandringham
House,...
...
Balmoral Castle, ...
...Craigowan
Lodge ...
...and
Delnadamph Lodge ...
while the President of the
United States usually just
has to make do with the
White House, Camp David and
the President’s House.
If for any
reason the Queen couldn’t
find a spare room in her
other seven properties she
could always move in with
her son at his official
residence at Clarence House
and if there was no room
there in the three official
residences that go with the
Duchy of Cornwall –
Highgrove House,
Llwynywermod and Tamarisk –
or use the Birkhall
residence inside the grounds
of Balmoral. If
Charles doesn’t have room
for her then William and
Kate might be able to
squeeze her into Kensington
Palace or their private
residence of Anmer Hall on
the Sandringham
Estate. Or
perhaps Princesses Beatrice
and Eugenie could find her a
nook somewhere in St James’s
Palace with Princess
Anne. There’s also
Bagshot Park in Surrey
currently housing the Earl
and Countess of
Wessex. Failing that
the Duke and Duchess of Kent
might be able to squeeze her
into Wren House.
Not President Tony Blair
acting like a President
The trouble with
Republicanism is as soon as
you say it people
automatically reply that
“it’s just about envy” or “We
don’t want President Blair”
or “We don’t want some
politician”. The first
of these is a reasonable
criticism but the second two
statements are
not. The problem
with having the Queen as
"official" head of state is
that the office of the Prime
Minister becomes more and
more Presidential....
To the point where the First
Among Equals now has
Whitehouse sytle press
conferences. Then
again what’s wrong with
envy? As Bertrand
Russell once said ....
So first let’s
shatter a few myths.
The Royal family is very
good at myths.
Firstly the
Queen is not the hereditary
heir to throne and cannot
directly trace her ancestry
clearly back to 1066.
This is just what we tell
tourists. Well, she
can trace it back that far
but only in the same sense
that I can... back in
1600 there were only about 4
million people in England so
those of us who are
indigenous have a lot of the
same common ancestors.
And yes I can trace my
lineage back that far so
technically if enough people
die I could become King if
wasn’t a prerequisite for
the job that one should also
be of German descent and
married to a Greek.
Elizabeth II is
only Queen because her
father’s brother Edward VIII
abdicated from the
throne. He had the
wrong opinions for the era –
like he thought divorce was
okay - so in effect
Parliament sacked him on the
grounds this would make the
head of the Church of
England look silly.
This of course
makes no sense because the
Church of England was only
invented so that Henry VIII
could get divorced but
apparently while the King
was allowed to divorce in
1533 and 1557 he wasn’t
allowed to marry a divorcee
in 1936.
That said technically Henry
VIII annulled his two
marriages on implausible
criteria like they’d never
done it or she’s shagged his
dead brother as being the
head of the Church of
England he had this
power.
King Edward VIII did not
have this power anymore as
it was lost after the
Restoration. Anyway
the point is that when it
becomes politically
expedient to do so
Parliament sacks the
King. So why is such a
big deal to give the people
that power?
Of course
Parliament doesn’t threaten
to sack the King/Queen as
much for having the wrong
opinion anymore so all this
is now history. Or is
it? Actually
Parliament seems to do
nothing else to me than
insinuate it might be a good
idea to sack the Queen…
Whenever there’s
a Constitutional issue from
Scottish Independence to
remaining in the European
Union to who’s going to pick
the Prime Minister after a
hung parliamentary election
we’re exposed to a long
stream of mental diarrhoea
about what the Queen thinks
because we have no
meaningful
constitution. It the
Queen thinks anything it is
wrong because no one elected
her so the poor woman is
allowed no opinion of her
own at all.
The
constitutional result is
that instead of a Supreme
Court we have a supreme
underqualified pensioner
who’d meant to decide
everything but is never
actually allowed to decide
anything. Okay, we do
have a Supreme Court now but
it's hardly independent and
cannot strike down Primary
Legislation ...so is pretty
toothless. The Queen
sounds an amusing
anachronism but the
political reality is it
creates a constitutional
vacuum allowing Prime
Ministers like Tony Blair to
take on virtual Presidential
powers like taking the
country to war on a whim
with no real checks and
balances on their
power. So instead of
having an official body
dedicated to investigating
abuses of executive power we
have...
...a committee
of privy counsellors ...some
of whom have been cogitating
for so long that they've
actually died on the job
now. But of course we
can’t put any checks on that
because we might end up with
a “President Blair”. I
may have already said this
...
In reality the
UK Prime Minister acts all
the time as if he/she is a
directly elected President
but just like the Queen he
isn’t directly
elected. He is simply
an elected MP who’s been
appointed to appoint a
government from the top
down. Don’t be fooled
by rhetoric about the Queen
being above politics.
The Queen is nothing but an
unelected politician and
this is why her political
opinions and those of her
relatives are subject to
totally relentless
speculation.
The Queen is a
Constitutional red herring
liberally thrown all over
the place in an attempt to
disguise the fact that we
have no written constitution
and hence no separation of
powers. Of course you
could say the US system
doesn't work in practice and
that Hilary Clinton is just
Bill's way of being
President for the 3rd time
(or Hilary's way of being
President for the 3rd time)
but at least they try...
I am he
as you are he as you are
me. And we are all
together. See how
they run like pigs from
a gun. See how they fly.
I'm
crying.
I
did once try to explain
the logic of the tripartite
system where the
legislature, executive, and
judiciary are split up and
how it was invented (or
popularised) by French
Enlightenment political
philosopher Baron de
Montesquieu but this
resulted in an article so
dull no one read it.
In the UK we have a
parliamentary democracy so
by definition the executive
(the government) and the
legislature (parliament) are
intertwined since parliament
elects the executive.
The Prime Minister as such
is just another MP and Privy
Councillor - the so called
First Among Equals.
However, as close observers
of David Cameron's Cabinet
might have notices there
isn't even any pretence of
equality ...he's the boss.
Tony Blair, of
course, didn't bother with
the Cabinet at all ... wars
were started from the
sofa... Don’t even get me
started on the House of
Lords. A ludicrous
system whereby instead of
electing people to an upper
chamber each Prime Minister
tries to outdo the previous
one in appointing more
cronies to it to even up the
numbers with the result that
there are now over 800 of
them and rising versus only
650 MPs.
The Queen, we
are told by some, is not a
fan of the EU. By
others we are told she
is. Is she? Who
cares? I doubt she
would be a fan of the
EU. Following the
pre-emptive arrests before
the last Royal Wedding of
people who might dare to
protest it before they had
protested the complainants
in the following legal
battle said that the
Strasbourg court's judgement
on similar matters meant the
Metropolitan Police had
acted unlawfully.
Fortunately the Queen’s
Court of Appeal exercised a
rarely-used power to rule
that it did not need to
adopt a decision in a
similar case at the European
Court of Human Rights.
The Monarchy has real power
and uses it. The
EU is a challenge to those
powers.
Really the world hasn’t
changed that much – one
thing you’re not supposed to
protest is
the monarchy... unless
you want to be dragged from
your bed in a dawn raid...
The system
by which Parliament can
sack the King or Queen
is called a
Constitutional Monarchy
and was brought in with
restoration of Charles
II because Charles I
being both King of
England and Scotland had
managed to make the two
go to war with each
other causing some
resentment.
After the failed
experiment of Oliver
Cromwell where Oliver
made himself King (or
Lord Protector) in all
but name and kept
telling parliament to
get stuffed parliament
agreed to have a King
(or Queen) again but
only if there was a
check on his (or her)
power.
As a
result from Charles II
there is not a direct
lineage of Kings.
James II
(Charles II’s son) was
deposed because of his
Catholic sympathies and
went into exile to be
replaced by William III
and Mary II as
co-monarchs.
William was invited to
invade England by the “Immortal
Seven”…
....who sound like a
Quentin Tarantino film
waiting to be
made. William’s
mother was Mary the
eldest daughter of
Charles I and his wife
was Mary (James II’s
sister) who was next in
line to the throne if
you ignored James II’s
son James Francis Edward
Stuart (the old
pretender who fled
abroad with his
father). Normally
women were not allowed
to accede to the throne
unless all other options
had been exhausted as
they are girls and girls
are silly. So
parliament had intended
to make Mary Queen with
William as her
consort. However,
William objected on the
grounds that he had the
troops, Mary did not
have the power to put a
cap in anyone’s arse and
after having gone to all
the bother of invading
he felt it was somewhat
ungracious of Parliament
to not make him at least
co-monarch.
Mary said
she wouldn’t take on the
job unless her husband
was made monarch too so
that was settled.
Power couples …
As it happened Mary was
also Williams’s cousin
and perhaps because the
gene pool was so small
died childless as did
William and so they were
eventually replaced by
Mary’s sister Anne
(another of James II’s
children) who had one
child who’d died by the
age of 11 so Anne also
died childless in the
end.
Parliament
having run out of
Stuarts who weren’t
Catholic by now then
turned to George I
(Georg Ludwig ruler of
the Duchy and Electorate
of Brunswick-Lüneburg
(Hanover) in the Holy
Roman Empire).
German George was a mere
50th in line to the
throne but the Act of
Settlement 1701
prohibited all Catholics
from the position so 49
genetically better
claimants were skipped
over in favour of the
one with the right
opinions.
After this
things went back to
normal sort of (at least
until Edward VIII was
sacked for having too
interesting a sex life …
something that doesn’t
seem to be so much of a
problem anymore) but the
fact remains … it is a
Constitutional
Monarchy. The King
or Queen is only there
so long as parliament
allows it and if they
have the wrong opinions
they are removed.
This means that the
Queen is actually
nothing more than an
unelected politician.
Indeed
originally a politician
is exactly what the King
was. Up until 1066
the Witenagemot elected
the King … although it
could often be like
electing Gordon Brown to
lead the Labour Party –
there was more often
than not only one name
on the ballot
paper. Ælfric of
Eynsham wrote in the
turn of the 11th century
that:
“No man
can make himself king,
but the people has the
choice to choose as
king whom they please;
but after he is
consecrated as king,
he then has dominion
over the people, and
they cannot shake his
yoke off their necks.”
Following
the recent unification
of England the
Witenagemot paid some
lip service to democracy
or at least devolution
in an attempt to
convince people that
having one King of
England wouldn’t be more
top down than having
Kings of Essex, Kent,
Mercia, Northumbria,
Sussex and Wessex.
Unfortunately this
system did not result in
an adequate defence
policy and England was
later invaded.
William I replaced the
Witan with the Curia
Regis or King’s
Council.
This was eventually
deemed too small to make
policy and eventually
parliaments were
called. The point
of this story I suppose
is that directly elected
Kings are not without
precedent and what’s the
difference between a
directly elected King or
Queen and a directly
elected President.
Not a lot … just the
name?
With even Popes being
fired resigning
retiring these days on
the grounds no one likes
them they are past it
one has to wonder how
the monarchy still gets
away with the notion
that the Queen has to
keep going under almost
all circumstances until
she falls off her perch.
It wouldn’t
be so bad if the
monarchy was fiscally
transparent. But
it really isn’t.
Many people seem to
think that the monarchy
gets a series of
personal cheques off the
Chancellor of the
Exchequer but the
financial arrangements
of the Monarchy are a
lot more complicated
than that.
After the
Glorious Revolution when
being King or Queen or
King and Queen stopped
being a divine right and
started being a job and
following his invasion
of the country William
of Orange (and Mary)
immediately started
negotiating a
remuneration package
with Parliament.
Very generously (and in
a spirit of public
service) William and
Mary eventually agreed
to take on the onerous
position of
constitutional
co-monarchs for the
inadequate remuneration
of £1,200,000 per year
(including all running
costs). The Bank
of England’s inflation
calculator unfortunately
only goes back as far as
1750 but according to
that the equivalent sum
of money in 1750 must
have been roughly in
excess of
£240,000,000. This
did not include income
from any land or other
such assets owned by
Royal
Couple. A
proportion of this went
into funding the “Civil
List” and the rest into
running costs and staff
costs. While it
may seem to Republicans
that the Monarchy is
inviolate and immune to
any criticism it should
be noted that over time
this sum has not kept
pace with
inflation. The
running costs of the
Monarchy are
significantly lower. To be
fair a large chunk of
the £240,000,000
received by William and
Mary was partly used to
help run civil
administration and civil
government. Over
time however Parliament
and the Government at
the Royal Palace of
Westminster decided that
probably they could do
things better than
German George I and his
increasingly eccentric
sons.
The
accession to the throne
of George III was
Christmas come early for
those in Parliament
whose long term aim had
been to seize the actual
money and power of the
monarchy for themselves
and keep a political
puppet in one of the
many other Royal Palaces
somewhere. George
III’s outbreaks of
insanity and his son the
Prince Regent (later
George IV) ‘s strange
and unpopular
eccentricities put the
monarchy in an extremely
weak negotiating
position.
It didn’t help either
that George II had been
very bad at financial
planning. Despite
the £240,000,000 a year
to run the monarchy and
large chunks of civil
administration George II
had found himself
perpetually in debt to
parliament ...a bit like
George III and George IV
now I come to think of
it....
After a lot of argument
a new deal was worked
out whereby George III
would surrender the
hereditary revenues from
the Crown Estate to
Parliament for the
duration of his reign,
and in return Parliament
would assume
responsibility for most
of the costs of the
civil
government.
Now the King really was
just a political puppet
in all but name. A
man who lived off
inherited wealth and
what had by now been
named the Civil List.
According to
Wikipedia the Crown
Estate remains one of
the largest property
owners in the United
Kingdom with a portfolio
worth £8.1 billion, with
urban properties valued
at around £4 billion,
and rural holdings
valued at £1.049
billion, representing an
annual profit of £240.2
million as at 31 March
2012. In 2011
George “cut disability
benefit by £30”
Osborne (son of a
Baronet) introduce the
Sovereign Grant Act 2011
which changed the
previous arrangements by
which the civil list was
funded. Before it
was abolished George
Osborne raised the cost
of the civil list from
£7.9 million to £13.7
million.
Superficially designed
to unify all the Royal
Family funding streams
under one system the
Sovereign Grant Act 2011
is actually just a big
fat pay rise for the
Royals whereby instead
of negoitating with
Parliament
for £ the Royal Family
now deals directly with
the Treasury.
Yes ... while George has
pursued a policy of
austerity in every other
area of government the
Sovereign Grant Act 2011
has meant in practice
that the new “sovereign
grant” has been rising
each year at a rate
higher than the rate of
inflation.
Unspent Sovereign Grant
is put into a Reserve
Fund. And as one might
expect from the party of
free enterprise the
level of the Sovereign
Grant is protected by
law from decreasing as a
result of falling Crown
Estate revenues.
We know all this because
Annual financial
accounts are published
by the Keeper of the
Privy Purse and audited
by the National Audit
Office. I suppose
this is some
compensation for the
fact that the Queen’s
accounts are not debated
in Parliament as much
these days and for the
fact that Prince Charles
keeps moaning he should
be exempted from Freedom
of Information when he
expresses his "private
views" to
Ministers...
"First,
the Household spent
more than it took
in. Net expenditure
(£33.3m) was greater
than the Grant (£31
million) in 2012-13.
The Household had to
draw down £2.3
million from its
£3.3 million Reserve
Fund, leaving a
balance of only £1.0
million at 31 March
2013, a historically
low level of
contingency. The
Household needs to
get better at
planning and
managing its budgets
for the longer term
– and the Treasury
should be more
actively involved in
reviewing what the
Household is
doing. Second, the
Household is not
looking after
nationally important
heritage properties
adequately. Back in
March 2012, 39 per
cent of the Royal
estate was assessed
as below what the
Household deemed to
be an acceptable
condition. Now it is
likely to be worse,
with some properties
in a dangerous or
deteriorating
condition. The
Household must get a
much firmer grip on
how it plans to
address its
maintenance backlog.
It has not even
costed the repair
works needed to
bring the estate
back to an
acceptable
condition, and the
Treasury did not
require an estimate.
Again, the Treasury
has an oversight
role here. Finally, there
is scope for the
Household to
generate more income
and reduce its costs
further. It’s
certainly good news
that the Royal
Household has
increased its income
in 2012-2013 to
£11.6 million.
However, we think it
could do more. Since
2007-08, the
Household has cut
its net costs by 16
per
cent
in real terms, but
11 per cent of that
was achieved by
increasing income,
and just 5 per cent
by reducing
expenditure. With
better commercial
expertise in place,
we think there is
room to do more with
less, reducing costs
further and
supporting The
Queen’s programme
more effectively."
- Margaret
Hodge MP
So anyway
here are the figures
for the Queen’s pay
rises.
Year
Grant (£m)
Annual per
cent Increase 2012-13
31.0
- 2013-14
36.1 16.5
per cent 2014-15
37.9
5.0 per
cent 2015-16
40.0
5.5 per
cent 2016-17
42.8
7.0 per
cent
Royal
funding has
increased by
38 per cent in five
years.
Of
course it’s highly unlikely
in any case that the
revenues of the Duchy of
Cornwall (Prince Charles’s
pad) and the Duchy of
Lancaster (the Queen’s pad)
should drop off due to
market forces. For one
thing they have a number of
special tax advantages and
legal statuses. For
example should you die
intestate in Cornwall and
have no living relative to
leave your property to it
doesn’t go to the Treasury
as in the rest of the
country … Prince Charles
inherits it. Assets
belonging to dissolved
companies whose registered
office was in Cornwall also
pass to the duchy.
These rights to all bona
vacantia property have been
owned by the Dutchys since
1399. In 2007,
£130,000 was realised from
the right of bona vacantia
by the Duchy of
Lancaster.
Fortunately no
one cares what happens in
Cornwall as there’s only a
couple of Mirth Control gigs
there so this never
changes. In Bruton v.
ICO the first tier tribunal
found that the duchy was a
public authority for the
purposes of the
Environmental Information
Regulations 2004 allowing
Prince Charles a personal
veto on any architectural
schemes he might find too
modern. In the words
of Andrew George, Liberal
Democrat MP for St Ives:
The Duchys are also exempt
from paying corporation tax
and seem to get away with
this in perpetuity without
anyone being too
upset. How jealous
must the CEO of Starbucks
be. Prince Charles has
however denied to pay income
tax on his revenues at a
rate of 25 per cent since
1981 and 50 per cent since
1993 although he decides
what parts of his income
should be taxed and isn’t
required to be audited by
the National Audit Office.
This article was
going somewhere once but, of
course, saying the Royals
are silly is like saying the
Emperor has no
clothes. Who will
notice or care?
Still, it’s only
money. It’s not like
anyone died. Except
Princess Diana. And
that was the fault of the
Press. Even when we
discovered that it was
unlawful killing.
When ordinary
people get caught or die
speeding it is, of course,
their own stupid fault but
when a girl is given the
name of the ancient goddess
of hunting the reason she
was speeding turns out to be
that she was the most hunted
person of the modern
age. For it seems that
while Jimmy Savile had time
to act as a kind of marriage
guidance councillor to Charles
and Diana (yet another
role for which he had no
formal qualifications) he
neglected to remind them
both to Clunk Click Every
Trip. Yet somehow it
was all the fault of the
media. Let's not get
into conspiracy theories but
it's funny how history seems
to repeat its self. It
reminds me of George IV's
estraged wife politically
Caroline of Brunswick's politically
convenient death...
...that was an
accident too. She
wasn't poisoned. But
the worst thing about the
Royals is that whenever one
criticises the monarchy one
is supposed to caveat it
with “it’s not a criticism
of them personally I’m sure
as people they’re perfectly
nice”. Why? No
other politician gets
this. People don’t say
well, David Cameron’s
policies are cruel but
underneath … oh actually
they do. Why
cares? I still think
they are all monsters who
deserve if not to be slain
...then voted for.
Still what can we
do...? Join...
