What exactly is an "obedient"? Are you really deploying a disparaging tag on people who are mourning? That seems a bit crass to me.
"we need room for the dissenting voices too" - I saw on C4 (UK TV channel) this evening, some people in Scotland describing their disaffection with the Monarchy. That's fine and quite right.
I also find the sheer amount of coverage a bit overwhelming but in the end no one knows what is appropriate - it's not happened before like this - and let's face it, if you were running a TV channel or radio or whatever, you would probably err on the side of caution too unless you were decidedly commercially stupid!
No one really knows what is appropriate. A lot of the ceremonies are only now being televised.
I have to say that, whilst the sheer bulk of 'er Maj programmes is starting to feel a little excessive, I understand why. Some of them are pretty good too.
We will pop out of the other side of this event and the world will continue to turn but we must remember that a King and his bros and moes (sorry!) and their kids and grandkids and great-grandkids have lost a pretty decent human. As have we all.
They are an odd lot and they are our odd lot. If it helps, I understand that they are a net gain financially via tourism alone. Not sure how that is costed but I suspect it is probably true.
It's fine to imply you prefer a republic instead or perhaps something else but why not be positive about your preferred solution instead of sniping at the current situation.
What exactly do you want?
Scotland in particular has a long running loathing of the monarchy, so any superheated response is not remotely surprising.
Yeah, its a crass term I will agree with you there. The public has come out in droves to support the royal family and respect the ongoing proceedings and a small number have vocally voiced their opposition to the situation and are being condemned for doing so. So, I used this charged term rather cheaply to paint with broad strokes the kind of person I imagine to lap up this unique moment.
> I saw on C4 (UK TV channel) this evening, some people in Scotland describing their disaffection with the Monarchy. That's fine and quite right.
Here I also agree with you that its nice to hear that C4 was airing voices of people with dissenting perspectives, but I don't necessarily think it should be confined to the TV or the internet as the "appropriate place" to air such views. I think going out and publicly protesting it is much more impactful
> What exactly do you want?
For people to realise that this isn't just a private occasion for immediate family to pay their respects to the recently departed. That the Royal family, for better or worse, has and continues to play a significant role in the ongoing story of this country and in having such a prominent and public position should be tolerant (even understanding?) of those who oppose, rather than to have it simply be quashed and scrubbed away
I'm not too sure yet what on earth is going on here. It is unprecedented and I think the media are quite scarred by what happened when Diana died and the subsequent events. I remember those days quite well.
I think that we are still learning how to grieve as a nation. I lost my mum 25 odd years back (about a year after Diana passed away) and have buried quite a lot of family since and come to terms with some of the seamier sides of life. It is the way of things but I don't think that Britain, let alone any other country has worked out how to deal with death properly.
It sometimes looks quite bizarre but I think that the UK has the basics laid for a pretty good mechanism for dealing with grief. It will work itself out somehow.
That said, I understand that not everyone is a fan of the royals and would prefer a republic. For now, why not recognise a loss of a person who has been here for 90+ years and tomorrow we'll debate the future.
Anyone obsequious enough to happily sing "God Save the Queen\King" and tolerate being ruled by elitists assholes called Royalty in 2022
If that "pretty decent human" saw you were on fire, she wouldn't have deigned to put you out with her piss, and neither would any of her "odd lot." She wasn't your doddering, sweet old grandma, she was literally draped in blood-jewels stolen from two subjugated and enslaved continents.
Well... that's what the monarchy practice is all about. God-like status for some god-forsaken reason. Blind sycophancy.
Better to direct that impulse towards a dignified institution that does nothing but attract tourists and occasionally signal society’s values than towards something that tries to have efficient and lethal decision-making power.
Surely we should resist our less productive qualities, like sycophancy. Not try to channel it to some "worthy cause".
I don’t see how your view isn’t personally exhausting. And I don’t see what’s so bad about trying to channel our less productive qualities to better ends than letting them run wild and wishing they didn’t exist.
And if we must channel some unavoidable desires then must it be to adore people who won life's lottery? (Or must we heap praise upon someone who appears to have done little to move the needle forward?)
Solving this problem requires solving coordination problems. Solving coordination problems requires creating a sense of community where people are motivated to act beyond their self interest. Collective motivation at that level requires symbolism and ceremony tapping into the deepest familial affections of the human heart.
The royal family will beat you at that game. You might choose to play a different one.
Citation needed.
> The royal family will beat you at that game. You might choose to play a different one.
Monarchs are born into unearned power, wealth, and privilege. They are the last people I'd consider successful at coordinating humanity for the better. Great Britain's own history is drenched in enough innocent blood. Whatever gains originated there appear largely attributable to luck and or non-royal endeavors.
Others will do otherwise.
You might kick one demon out of the house and get seven in return.
I agree with you on the monarchy, and I'm an atheist as well, and I still can't help but read your comment as divisive and distracting from your earlier argument for a sarcastic barb at the bible.
You haven't even argued against the metaphor at all, you've only stated you think the bible is illogical. For what it's worth there are secular equivalents of this sort of risk analysis metaphor; the bird in the hand, a stitch in time, one today is worth two tomorrows, etc.
How?
> Might as well channel all those destructive qualities into adoring and obeying those born into wealth and prestige.
We've more or less gotten rid of royalty, and now we have celebrities shamelessly shilling just about anything - what an improvement! I would prefer neither, but I don't think that's ever going to happen without people being forced to take responsibility for themselves.
To be fair, when you consider that the Queen lived for 96 years and there hasn't been an event like this since 1953, the cost spread out over that much time really isn't that much.
Long live the King!! (to keep costs down)
Did you miss the whole Platinum Jubilee celebration two months ago for the Queen? [1] The scope of that was also over the top and costs 10's of millions of pounds. There was also the Saphire Jubilee 5 years ago, the Diamond Jubilee in 2012, the Golden Jubilee in 2002, there's at least a few others as well.
What are the Crown Estate assets worth? How many billions? And the public are not only expected to foot the bill for this over the top pageantry but they are supposed to do so with unwavering fealty? And at a time when the average person is worried about skyrocketing inflation and energy costs?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum_Jubilee_of_Elizabeth_...
See: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/sovereign-grant-a...
"In exchange for this public support, The Queen surrenders the revenue from The Crown Estate to the government. Over the last ten years, the revenue paid to the Exchequer is £3 billion for public spending."
Basically by allowing the monarchy a fund to be used to carry out their public (and private) duties, the surplus of royal holdings revenue goes into public spending. I don't know the exact numbers but the situation is a LOT more complex than "the taxpayer pays for the monarchs, reeee".
See: https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-57559653
and
Here are some of the key figures from the royal accounts for 2020-2021:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-29/how-much-...
The RF owns the Crown Estate. Of this estate the UK government sits on/uses part of that estate. Therefore they're essentially paying "rent" for what they're using.
However it used to be that the RF received all of the income from the Crown Estate. The SG was an agreement that they would forgo taking all of the income and only a portion of it; the rest goes to public spending.
Hell, they even had to invoke a provision to make up the amount should it fall: "A decrease in the Crown Estate's rental income during the COVID-19 pandemic led to the first use of the provision that prevents the value of the Sovereign Grant from falling, with the Treasury committing to make up the shortfall.".
It's a weird system for sure. The treasury pays out rent for all Royal Holdings that are being used by the goverment/public. Then 15%~ of that rent (plus income from other parts of the holdings) is available to the RF as a part of the SG. The rest goes back to the public.
There is a valid point made that security isn't included in these costs/returns, though. But at the end of the day, it's because the RF owns huge swathes of land and businesses, etc that they are paid. Sure they could be stripped of them but that sets a precedent.
This isn't a private funeral. Hell it's not even a funeral, it's a procession and a tax payer funded public event as well. I can _maybe_ get asking the person with the "fuck imperialism" sign to not use a sign with "fuck" on it (Don't mind myself but I know plenty of old folk will) but there's absolutely nothing wrong with someone declaring "Not my King".
On the plus side we now have viral examples of how Tory policies have in fact stepped on freedom of speech, contrary to their claims.
Thanks to the Internet, there is ample room for all kinds of voices.
To the procession or the monarchy? If you say the procession, sure. If you're talking about dissenting voices against the monarchy, I think that can be done without disrupting a memorial service.
This point is being made all over the thread and seems disingenuous. The extremely public memorial service for the reigning monarch is a deeply political event. If this was some private service being protested, even if it was the royal family, the point would stand. But this is not that. Not only is the transfer of power to the heir at the moment of death a huge part of the monarchy by design, the memorial service itself is used to affirm that same system in an extremely public and official way. If people can't protest that because it's a "memorial service" then when can they protest the monarchy? I'm sure protesting it when the queen was ill would also be in poor taste. And apparently protesting the new king right now as he is being declared king is also not possible. What's left?
If they want to avoid making a change, they use this to put us off. The objections seem so plausible. But I’ve learned to use it to gauge when they have no intention of ever listening to us.
Very similar to your monarchy in many respects.
A large portion of the life of the royal family is public, even funded by the taxpayer, so to me it makes sense to allow for opposing viewpoints to be heard. Perhaps you can argue that a memorial service isn't the most appropriate time (though, I don't really subscribe to this viewpoint given just how much this memorial is rammed down our throats) to protest, I do think its where its likely to generate the most coverage. There is never going to be a more appropriate time to get people to listen
Edit: Just to clarify the point further - Not all of the arrests being discussed were made in Edinburgh (where the procession took place). Its debatable how much impact a person holding a blank sign in Oxford has on the events in Edinburgh (though I would wager its infinitesimally small). Equally, holding a sign with a swearword on it doesn't really "disrupt" in any meaningful sense either. A lot of people defend the police action on the grounds that it "may" have lead to violence via provocation and the person was arrested for "their own safety", but in that case why follow through with the charge? Rather than "de-arresting" (whatever that means) afterwards
To respond only to your financial arguments: there are different ways of looking at the costs and benefits of the UK royals.
Firstly, taxation:
“the monarchy cost the taxpayer £102.4m”. Last tax year HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) “collected £716.0 billion in taxes”[0].
Let’s assume the “cost of living crisis” affects 10 million people. £100 million given to them would mean an extra 10 quid per person per annum. A worthwhile difference, but hardly solving the problem. There’s way more pounds of flesh or fat to cut elsewhere in the budget.
Secondly: costs and waste are easy to see, but gains are often not seen. Does the UK earn more from the royals than the royals cost?
“[The royals] contributed an estimated $2.7 billion annually to the U.K. economy prepandemic. The impact the royal family has on the U.K. economy is mostly through tourism, but Haigh notes there are other financial benefits, such as free media coverage of Britain (which was an estimated $400 million in 2017). There are also many valuable royal warrants granted by the monarch—essentially a stamp of approval on high-end consumer products like Barbour jackets and Johnnie Walker whisky. [snip] The economic advantages for companies and institutions in the royal family’s orbit far exceed the $550 million cost associated with the family’s massive operating expenses, according to Haigh.”[-1].
Of course, there are non-monetary costs and gains of the monarchy that are much harder to value.
Pure ownership in dollars “How The Royal Family’s $28 Billion Money Machine Really Works”[-1³] can be compared against the wealth of other dynastic wealth families. It doesn’t make the top 10 in the world[π]. And probably not #1 in the UK[§] with the first royal family showing at #12 (although there are non-$ benefits such as status of being royalty, and non-$ costs/risks).
Even in New Zealand we are all paying a few dollars a year for costs related to the monarchy[1].
[-1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielshapiro/2021/03/10/inside-...
[0] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmrc-tax-and-nics-r...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_New_Zealand
[π] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/052416/top-10...
[§] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/sunday-times-rich-list
Edits: added details.
But the reason I did so was to underline the point that the public have a right to attend, whatever their point of view, since its likely that a % of the cost for the proceedings will fall on the taxpayer
I merely did some googling because I was sceptical! Disclaimer: I am not a royal apologist: born and live in the “colonies”, and I am not a fan of the remaining encumbrances that New Zealand has with any royalty.
Edit: evidently people are confused. Here it is from the horse’s mouth: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/m...
Take a look at "the official web site of the British Royal Family. Written and managed by the Royal Household at Buckingham Palace, the site aims to provide an authoritative resource of information about the Monarchy and Royal Family, past and present." [1]
That website has a webpage devoted to the "Royal Finances" [2] that says, "There are three sources of funding for The Queen, or officials of the Royal Household acting on Her Majesty’s behalf, in both a public and private capacity. These are: the Sovereign Grant, the Privy Purse and The Queen’s personal wealth and income."
"The Sovereign Grant: This is the amount of money provided by Government to the Royal Household in support of The Queen’s official duties, including the maintenance of the Occupied Royal Palaces: Buckingham Palace, St James’s Palace, Clarence House, Marlborough House Mews, the residential and office areas of Kensington Palace, Windsor Castle and the buildings in the Home and Great Parks at Windsor, and Hampton Court Mews and Paddocks."
Ultimately the origins of most property is tied up in violence, not just that of the royal family.
In the sense that that arrangement could be reversed without massive upcry, a constitutional crisis, and the dissolution of the monarchy? Not realistically. The government has de facto control of the Estate, and the monarchy receives a de facto taxpayer-funded income (plus their private ownership through other property.)
1. Not all of the arrests have been made at a "funeral" 2. It wasn't a funeral 3. If you're going to have a very public precession, parading a body through the streets with all the obedients lapping it up, surely you have to have a level of tolerance for dissenting voices? I imagine the disruption this event caused on Edinburgh was pretty large...
There's wall to wall coverage of this event happening worldwide right now, we need room for the dissenting voices too. Otherwise it's just outright sycophancy