#normal british things

Today’s update from Bullshit Island:

People are being arrested for anti-monarchist protests. One was for shouting at Andrew during the funeral procession, but two others were during accession announcements (eg the proclamation that Charles is now king.) One has since been ‘de-arrested’, a word I have literally never heard before in my entire 40+ years of life. This comes in the wake of the updated Policing Bill passed earlier this year which was already heavily criticised for its

A bank holiday has been declared for Monday. As there is only a week’s notice for this, this means:

Hospital appointments are being cancelled (bear in mind that wait lists for anything deemed routine have surged in the wake of Covid and loss of staff.)

There are reports that other people’s funerals are being cancelled in deference to, er, another funeral. This seems to be a decision made by individual providers, presumably based on staff requesting not to work on the bank holiday.

Every major supermarket is closing its stores on Monday.

A number of food banks are closing on Monday for the bank holiday as well, even though food bank usage has increased exponentially in the last few years. (Meanwhile, in 2010 the Queen applied for a poverty grant to pay for fuel bills for her palaces. The Crown Estate is worth something like £14B and the Queen herself had an estimated net worth of around £300M.)

Charles will not pay inheritance tax on what he gets from his mother, nor will any of the figures be released. (Second link is paywalled, but you get the gist.)

Royalists are twisting themselves into knots trying to justify the monarchy with all the usual arguments: they earn money through tourism, they do a lot of charity work, they serve the country, without a monarch we’d have the PM as President and nobody wants that.

Rebuttal: the palaces, the art, the crown jewels, etc will continue to exist without the royal family. People still visit Versailles and the Pyramids even though no king or pharaoh has been around for a long time now. They ‘serve the country’ exactly as much or as little as they wish to; not to mention that many of the places they ‘served’ did not want them there as subjugators in the first place. Whatever charity they contribute from their own wealth still raises the point of where they got all their wealth and privilege in the first place (hint, it was not through years of honest toil), and whether that wealth is in the best place and the best hands.

As for the ‘President’ angle, why do we need a ceremonial head of state in the first place? What does that provide that a government leader does not? Just someone to do all the hand-shaking photo ops the PM doesn’t have time for (in theory)? I don’t fancy the notion of ‘President Truss’ more than anyone else - she’s awful! Having something like the Royal Assent to provide checks and balances sounds good, in theory. But the people suggesting this also seem quick to point out that the Royal Assent thing hasn’t been invoked since something like 1708, because the monarchy is basically a formality. The Queen did meet with the Prime Minister quite regularly, but these meetings are under strict secrecy. The only things I’m aware she affected on government policy were things like getting herself exemption from disclosing her assets and complying with equalities legislation.

When Cameron and subsequent PMs committed to ploughing ahead with a disastrous no-deal Brexit even though their own reports and research (Yellowhammer etc) indicated it would harm the country? When Covid policy flip-flops and corruption left hundreds of thousands dead and friends of the government millions and billions in profit? When the son of a KGB agent was made a peer in the House of Lords? When the government and virtually all of the media are making a concerted effort to demonise trans people in order to splinter the LGBTQ+ movement? When the Prime Minster lied to the Queen’s very face? Crickets. Tumbleweed. At least, as far as we know.

So either we need the monarch to rein in the government, or the monarch is an empty figurehead without real power. Neither makes a good case for continuing it, frankly. If we need a check on the power of the government - and I would not dispute this - then why should such an important job default to someone who got there by an accident of birth? And if the monarch isn’t going to actually provide such a service and look out for the best interests of the country, then what bloody good are they and why should taxpayers fund their position when they are wildly, screamingly, privately wealthy already? Why can’t they pay for their own influence like every other billionaire? (Sarcasm, but not as much as I’d like.)

I’m not even going to get into the colonial BS because that’s been covered extensively by people who are much better informed and closer to the subject, but suffice to say, I stand behind the African, Indian, Indigenous, Irish, and other people expressing their concerns and dissatisfaction with the whole circus.

So no, I’m not mourning a very old, very privileged woman who died peacefully of natural causes. I’m definitely not mourning for ten days, and every new ridiculous bit of nonsense I see, every black profile picture, every obsequious tv or radio programme, every cap-doffing, head-bowing, knee-bending bit of performative pomp makes me angrier and even less well-inclined towards the whole lot of them.

No gods, no kings, no masters. Abolish the monarchy, and give their wealth to the people it came from, and the people of the country.