What if we carried on having a monarchy, but just got rid of the monarch, and the Royal Family, too? The more I think about it, the more I like the idea.
I strongly support constitutional monarchy. I think it keeps politicians out of a key part of power – the bit where they bathe in public adulation, and are treated as living gods, the bit where they ride in coaches and stand, in gorgeous uniforms, taking the salute of the Armed Forces.
Just imagine Margaret Thatcher or Anthony Blair doing that and you know, instantly, that it would be a disaster. Blair in particular came to love posing with soldiers, and it frightened me to see it. His head was quite swollen enough already.
What if we carried on having a monarchy, but just got rid of the monarch, and the Royal Family, too? The more I think about it, the more I like the idea, writes PETER HITCHENS
People who mock and despise our rather modest monarchy seem never to spot just how grandiose presidents can be.
The President of the USA has a personal anthem, played when he comes into the room, is Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and can pardon convicted criminals on a whim.
He flies about in a gigantic, flashy aeroplane which takes off and lands exactly when and where he says it should. No wonder they aren’t allowed to stay in office for more than eight years any more.
The President of France lives in a palace with plumed ceremonial guards standing at its gates, and lives, if he wishes, more or less above the law, with his private life a secret from the people. So we might be grateful for an austere Queen who eats frugal breakfasts and turns out the lights as she roams her crumbling, dowdy palaces.
Except, of course, that not all monarchs are like her. In fact, I think we can be fairly sure that we will not get another Elizabeth II in a century or more. Hence the worry about the other members of the family, which I share. I wondered for a while last week if it was possible for a prince or duke to resign or be sacked from the Royal Family.
The President of the USA has a personal anthem, played when he comes into the room, is Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and can pardon convicted criminals on a whim
Now, thanks to silly, childish Prince Andrew – whose Royal status went to his head – we all know that he can be fired and has been.
Edward VIII famously abdicated, but that was a gigantic personal and constitutional struggle which – if it happened again – would probably destroy the monarchy and perhaps the country. The removal of the Duke of York was by comparison a minor scuffle. And it made me think seriously again of an idea I have been pondering for a long time. Why not keep the monarchy, but stop having any actual monarchs or annoying heirs? They are so accident-prone, aren’t they?
Edward VIII famously abdicated, but that was a gigantic personal and constitutional struggle which – if it happened again – would probably destroy the monarchy and perhaps the country. Pictured: Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson
In return for some nice houses and a decent pension, the whole lot of them can be persuaded to modestly renounce their claims to the throne when the time comes. My suspicion is that most of them would be glad to be rid of the burden.
And the actual daily tasks of the monarchy can be given to some harmless white-haired senior civil servant towards the end of his or her career, who can sign Acts of Parliament in the King’s name, preside with dignity and good humour at the award of Honours or at Privy Council meetings, and can open Parliament, perhaps arriving by bicycle.
The monarch is a bit like the king on a chessboard, who can hardly move and cannot easily take any other piece, but who prevents others occupying his square and those immediately round it.
As long as that space is adequately filled, prime ministers will not be able to invade it and the main job will be done. The arrangement will be slightly incomprehensible, in a quirky British way, but then so is the current position.
I personally would not miss the lost tourism, which has engulfed London in a mile-deep wave of tat for decades. And if I never had to watch another Royal Broadcast or endure another Commonwealth Conference, I would be a happy man.
What is more, there would not need to be another Coronation, which, when it comes in all its Welbyised modern horror, will just ram home to us all how far we have declined since the last one in 1953.
I note that the Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson, defending her party’s moronic policy of marijuana legalisation (which has failed to do what its supporters claim, everywhere it has been tried), says she smoked the drug with enthusiasm at university. Yet more evidence, as if it were needed, for the link between marijuana use and reduced intelligence.
Laughing as our democracy dies
Most of the time I forget that there is an Election taking place. I am happier that way. But I managed to watch some of the non-gladiatorial clash between Al ‘Boris’ Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn on ITV.
Two things struck me. Mr Johnson really, really does not like to be asked about his long record of dishonesty – and the presenter, Julie Etchingham, shockingly failed to compel him to answer a question on that subject, which he clumsily evaded. Instead, she soppily forced the two men to shake hands and promise to be nice. Oh, honestly.
The second thing was that, for the first time I have ever seen, the audience openly laughed at the various evasions of the two men. Applause can be faked and is. But scornful belly-laughter, which this was, cannot be. This is not a good omen for our future. If democracy has become a joke, can dictatorship be far behind?
Most of the time I forget that there is an Election taking place. I am happier that way. But I managed to watch some of the non-gladiatorial clash between Al ‘Boris’ Johnson (left) and Jeremy Corbyn (right) on ITV
One of the best stories ever written – then the BBC got to work on it
I think The War Of The Worlds is one of the best books ever written. I first read it 60 years ago and even now, when I pick it up again, I find it hard to stop reading. Was there ever a man with a head so full of ideas and pictures as Herbert George Wells? He fills your mind with vivid images and pulls you into the book with superlative, simple story-telling, so simple most authors cannot manage it.
A saga about a miserable single mother – played by Eleanor Tomlinson, left – moping about the place and repeatedly squealing with fear
The scene in which the ironclad ‘Thunder Child’ rams the Martian fighting machine off the Essex coast is one of the most intensely exciting things ever written. The slow opening of the first space capsule is among the most sinister and suspenseful.
Now we have the technology to make this wonderful story come to life on the screen, and what do we get from the BBC? A saga about a miserable single mother – played by Eleanor Tomlinson – moping about the place and repeatedly squealing with fear (the best way to attract hungry Martians, as it happens), and about her almost unbelievably stupid boyfriend, who keeps looking for her and then, when he finds her, losing her again. Someone very like Dr Who seems to have crept into the story, too, an irritatingly wise astronomer with fiddly Left-wing glasses.
This is mixed up with a dim teenage caricature of the imperial age with some digs at Christianity thrown in. If the British ruling class of the Edwardian era had been as thick as they are made to look, I do not think they could have governed Woking, let alone the largest empire in the world.
For heaven’s sake, Wells’s original book is already a clever story about the rise and fall of civilisation, full of bright cynical thought about religion and morals in the midst of chaos and defeat.
But Wells, a ferocious Left-wing radical (and an appalling womaniser), had more sense than to clutter up his story with clunky, obvious propaganda. That is why it will survive the BBC’s theft of its great title and idea, replaced with something not remotely as good. You can only enjoy this if you don’t know the actual story.
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