RobsyUK

iTrader: (2)

Personally i think the royal family are a waste of time. Remind me what they do again ???

tony de wonderful

Inheritance rights are a key part of our society though trout. It's no more absurd than inheriting money or property.

JTaylor

Divine Right can't be reduced to a balance sheet, as much as the profane would wish it to be.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

I smell apples and bananas

Trout

iTrader: (1)

You believe the monarchy have divine right?

Trout

iTrader: (1)

An idiot/dictator/fascist/Buddhist inheriting a house in my village is something quite different to having them be my King/Queen!!

JTaylor

Sure.

hodgy0_2

not much of an effort to be fair -- you do most of the work

jods

JTaylor

I assume you're shelving your dream of Cambridge for the offspring; given your staunch republican principles I imagine a man with your conviction will be me more inclined toward one of the Foot era polytechnics. Or are you a popinjay on this, too?

tony de wonderful

You might be a tenant is that house though.

I love the high regard bourgeois morality has for itself.

tony de wonderful

A mate of mine and his wife are worried their kid will get a local accent, they already started a fund for his schooling etc. He's one of those odd bourgeois-Monarchist hybrids only the UK produces. If he thought about their politics seriously they would be Republican because they are a bourgeois through and through, but they have a snobbish admiration for the British class system of which the Monarchy sits atop. Just to represent the superficiality of his politics he thinks I am a communist for moaning about the bank bailout, so I don't talk politics with him now.

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Well they are mostly tenants. When I said my village...

JTaylor

My partner's auntie is the worst kind. She wears opinions like dress jewellery; it only takes a few test questions and a fair memory for it to become apparent they're nothing more than a show. No cogency, just a loose cobbling together of assertions to give the impression of thoughtfulness. I'd rather she talked about the weather or biscuits or something.

jonc

grinch6301

iTrader: (2)

God save the queen and down with the snp from a proud sweaty sock Brit!

Trout

iTrader: (1)

Let's face it - you are a communist for many other reasons...

Dr Hu

PMSL

jef

iTrader: (13)

ther not my cup of tea tbh, but i imagine they generate more revenue for the country than they spend? s that wrong?
agree with an earlier post if they reduced the benefits to imediate family it would make them appear in a better light.
the queen herself seems well behaved and i beleive she actually has a mild interest in the country, and has done some good, plus her man keeps us amused with his intersting comments lol

GlesgaKiss

That's nonsense.

cster

British

cster

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...-flotilla.html

JTaylor

That's a shame, apart from their vague resentment of the Commonwealth, I've liked nearly every Antipodean I've ever met.

tony de wonderful

It's not that different.

Leslie

You are entitled to hold republican views of course, and those of us who support our Royal Family are also entitled to ours as well.

The inference is that they do nothing for this country and that they cost large sums of money with no return for it.

You should understand that our royalty has welded this country together and made it what is is. It is managing somehow to keep governments within comparatively sensible lines.

The Queen having shouldered such an onerous duty for all those years has done so in an exemplary fashion and she has set such a great example in that she has never done anything which could be seen as wrong, morally or otherwise. She is acknowledged by all who have contact with her as being a very wise and sensible person with a strong influence for the good of this country.

We would suffer an enormous loss if we lost the royal family, this country would lose so much importance on the World stage. More than anything else, it is how other countries perceive us which is of inestimable value.

It is worth remembering that during WW2, her family refused to leave London since they felt that they should show solidarity with Londoners against the dangers of the German bombing. They could so easily have run away to a safe place in the country somwhere! They continued to live in Buckingham Palace even though it was bombed during the war. That is the stock that our Queen comes from and we should be proud of that.

All this sniping at the Royal Family is quite unnecessary as well as being unfounded and it does not sit well on the shoulders of those who are doing it.

Les

Reffro

I always have one argument when people talk about moving from a Monarchy to Republic.

President Blair, Thatcher or Kinnock.......

They'll demand a staff, travel and accommodation and then there will be inevitable election costs. How much does it cost to run a general election? Bear in mind the presidency will be fixed term and will not coincide with the length of a parliament. No-one outside the world of Politic will be remotely interested in the role, you effectively end up with political cronies as the head of state, Yay!!!

markjmd

iTrader: (11)

OK, point taken about one being an executive office and the other not. Looking at Germany's purely ceremonial president then, he costs them a mere 18m Euros a year in comparison.
"How much does the Bunbdesprasident cost us?"

Taking into account this country's special talent for doing things spectacularly inefficiently, which would inevitably mean we couldn't possibly do it on the same budget as the Germans, the magic number we're looking for in terms of extra cost of the current Royal Family as compared to likely cost of a president, which needs to be recouped from presumed additional tourism revenue the former generates to make both options equally good value is roughly £20m, or 40p per year per taxpayer. Call me careless if you must, but I dare say most of us here lose more than that down the back of the sofa in a year.

Jaybird-UK

I'd happily get rid of the Royal Family, I just dont think the concept of a state funded monarchy is acceptable in today's society.

This is the only Queen we've had worth celebrating :-

Geezer

I fail to see why republicans wish to see the monarchy remove so much. They don't wield any power, and despite the repeated cries of "would you rather be a subject or a citizen", can any republican actually cite any practical difference that this would make to their everyday lives?

The cost of a president would equal or exceed that of a monarch, and the way the country is governed would not change one jot.

We would lose considerable tourism revenues.

I seems like petty envy that people should have such wealth and privilege by birth alone, but you don't really get to choose our leaders anyway. You get to choose essentially 1 of 2 candidates every 5 years, whose election to the head of the party was the reserve of a few privileged people anyway! We effectively live in an oligarchy, where the political elite ensure the transition of power not dissimilar to the cr@p posted about the monarchy. The thought of a democracy is nothing more than a mirage.

Geezer

hodgy0_2

i think "staunch republican principles" is a bit OTT from what I have posted on this topic

and I am not sure how that relates to university choice for my children

my view is that I believe passionately in opportunity linked to a meritocracy – and I just find it hard to reconcile with an hereditary monarchy that’s all (we have social mobility in this country little removed from the middle ages)

nothing against the queen, amiable women who does a good job

and as for President Blair – as much as i loathe the man you would at least be able to vote him out, but I would however raise you King Andrew ( a sort of royal Mark Thatcher) which you would not.

But in any case, in life, i play the hand i am dealt, which is a pretty good one, not the hand I think ought to be dealt – if you get my drift