Be Excellent To Each Other

See, it's that sort of bollocks arty farty treason piss about shit historic tradition observing arse that makes me want rid of it all.

Vs

don't tell me you don't fucking want it.

I don't want it.

Even if he tried to run?

Having a royal family is ace. My life would be much duller without them.

But without a royal family, we wouldn't all be having an extra day off this year, remember the important things people.

And we'd have some ordinary pensioner on our stamps, money and other things.

I do not see any reason why getting rid of the Monarchy would be a good thing.

The tourist trade would certainly suffer without it.

Less tourists in London. Doesn't affect me. Get 'em oot.

People say that, but I'm pretty sure the industry would make it up pretty easily. It's not like tourists come over here and have tea with the queen. There's nothing stopping them touring the usual places and opening mock-ups of the monarchy if it's that missed. Americans are piss easy to rip off, after all - they'll buy anything.

Probably Liz Smith.

The amount of money they bring almost certainly does.

I'm pretty sure I'm in no way affected by their money, through either direct or indirect means. I've thought about it quite laterally as well.

Chaos theory would suggest that you probably are affect by it somehow.



Then it would transmute into a hippo and melt, or something.

Less money from tourism = more taxes and less spending. And shizzle.

I think you'd be somewhat affected by more taxes.

I don't believe your equation to be as directly simple as that. Therefore I refute your hypothesis.

I agree with you that the monarch's veto is undemocratic and is unlikely to ever be used, I'd just like the option of being able to elect a ceremonial head of state. (Incidentally, realise that Britain becoming a republic is completely inconceivable for the foreseeable.)


Ah, the old strawman that all republics are presidential republics. Most European republics have presidents who are merely ceremonial figureheads. France being the famous exception.


Yup. TBH, I've known plenty of people who've not only come to Britain for tourism, but have also settled here, and their reasons for coming to the UK never involve the royal family. (I mean, who here's been to Spain on holiday? Plenty, I imagine. Did you go there specifically because it's a monarchy? Doubt it.)

I think people are forgetting that the vast amounts of money brought in via tourism isn't from students on a budget, it's from fat yanks and middle class Japanese*, both have an extraordinarily high regard for the monarchy. We get rid of our monarchy then these people would go strait to Paris (do not collect £200). How could we compete? They have sun, art, wine and all the really cool places they massacred there royals in where as we would have rain and a polite vote in the house of commons.

*the students are the ones you see and may associate with, the middle class stay in the expensive hotels, go to the theater, eat at the restaurants and so on, we can live without the fuck all a night the students spend on hostels although mcdonalds may suffer.

edit: yes but Spain is a shit hole and all it's historical buildings got fucked up by a mental dictator.

So, we get rid of the monarchy and we have two options: presidential republic or ceremonial figurehead. In the former case, there is no way in hell we'd avoid some political siding, so we end up as the USA, which is the opposite of great. Also, you can bet the sheer amount of money that would be spent, while dwarfed by US presidential run-ins, would cost the country more than the pennies-per-head the monarchy currently costs. As for the latter, I suspect that could be pricey as well, and I bet you'd still end up with class issues regardless.

Personally, I don't really have a problem with the royal family. I don't like them, but they're cheap and reasonably efficient these days.

Keep the royal family, but make them get jobs. Proper jobs. Teach the little shits a bit about the world, like.

Send them to state schools too, for equality's sake. The kids of government ministers too. Perhaps then the powers-that-be would care about state education other than viewing it as another 'service' to privatise.

Don't think a ceremonial president would cost much. A civil servant gets to be involved with diplomacy, open hospitals and do tedious admin for four or five years. Just one man or woman, no extended family of hangers-on. No problem. Then again, even if it cost, I'd rather have expensive democracy than inexpensive feudalism.

*twitch* *grumbles about lefties not ever admitting or caring that the Royals actually do lots of shit jobs already just look at Princess Anne's schedule*

The Queen is 84, Charles is 62 and Prince William is a god damn RAF search and rescue helicopter pilot. Lefty argument fail.

I dislike the monarchy (not personally, I couldn't give two shits about any of them) purely because all practical issues aside I can't help feeling that having the class system enshrined in law is harmful and divisive. I think the country would have been a better place by now if we'd murdered them all a few centuries ago or something.

When was the last time you were fighting in Iraq?

Poor old George III Mad as a hatter by 1811 and somewhat ironically given your post he was the chap that surrendered hereditary revenues (Feudal rights, rent from crown land, post office profits and licences and so on) to parliament in return for a civil list annuity (a flat wage).

^^ This.



^^ And this.

The Civil List is currently bugger-all (in terms of recipients and cost) and the mooted Sovereign Support Grant replacement looks to be similarly restricted. Given the way the UK follows the US, I just cannot see how any kind of elected president would save the UK a great deal of money, nor be particularly beneficial from a political standpoint. The only major advantage is booting out the incumbent after 'x' years; that said, I'd argue the Queen's done a pretty good job as head of state so far. Would you really prefer her to be replaced by a Tony Blair or a Boris Johnson or some other tosspot that Rupert Murdoch tells everyone to vote for?

One of the keys to Liz's success is that nobody, other than her family and her 11 prime ministers, actually knows what she thinks about things. I fear that Charles won't be able to keep his mouth shut.

Moreover, whilst the crown has reserve powers, everyone tries their utmost not to involve the Palace in any political decisions: it would, for instance, have been constitutional for her to have picked the prime minister after last year's election and asked him to attempt to form a government, but the convention is that the politicians and the civil service do not put her in a situation where she would be called to do that.

The monarchy will end when, after a series off odd coincidences, the crown falls to Harry in December 2012, and he asks Camero0n and Clegg outside for a fight.

Needless to say he wins the fight, but is arrested for murder and the country is taken over in a bloodless coup by Rupert Murdoch.

How would we tell?

The news would break for adverts.

Wait... damn!

The Political Studies Association has published an interesting document on AV (pdf).

I said proper jobs, not ones where you might be allowed to actually achieve anything. Get them behind a till at the weekends. They could probably have a tesco to shelve all on their own. Something thankless and demeaning and completely unsatisfying, like what normal people have.


Seriously though, I used to think that the monarchy should definitely go, but for a few years now it's been pretty clear that they basically pay for themselves, and they're useful as a diplomatic tool with a lot of other countries. More so than some dicksplat from the Commons. So I can see a case for chucking them in principle, but also can't deny that keeping them wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

I'd get rid of them all except Harry & Phil because they're funny.

Tl;dr

No, seriously, I'm reading it through now and it's worth reading if you intend to vote in the referendum. Key quote from Page 13, which has hypothetical 'simulations' of previous general elections if the voting system had been AV: "These simulations imply the following: AV always boosts the Liberal Democrats: as a centrist party, they pick up many second preferences."

I think boosted would be more likely. Anyway, who cares? The entire point is that AV is not "kill the argument dead for a generation". Personally, I want STV, or the closest equivalent. I want people's votes to actually count, regardless of whether they're Tories voting in Labour strongholds, Lib-Dems voting in the home counties, or, yes, even UKIP and BNP voters. Every block of voters should have the closest number of MPs representing them in the Commons, not some stupid arbitrary count resulting from a system designed to find a winner in head-to-head competitions.

AV is shit and it won't achieve much, but what it will achieve is NOT killing the argument. It will mean those in favour of PR will have ammunition to continue the fight, rather than us being stuck with a ridiculously outdated voting system until the 2030s at the very earliest.

EDIT: Also, the Lib-Dems are crap, yes? But why? Partly naïvety, for sure, but partly because they're being steamrollered by the senior coalition partner, largely by the sheer weight of numbers. PR at the last election would have returned nearly 190 Lab MPs and nearly 150 Lib-Dems—more than enough for a coalition that would have been far more even. Instead, we get over 300 Tories versus under 60 Lib-Dems—it's no wonder the latter party's getting a kicking at every turn.

Katie tightens her ring.

I think she's going to do well, she's very media savvy and seems a bit of a attention whore, I suspect she sees herself as the new posh spice.

She has old looking hands.

Christ. 300 words of news on that?

You should see the picture in her attic...

If this is true, a bride needs to get a life.

Why is this a news story, exactly? What could they follow that kind of exposé with, "Woman returns dress to shop" EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW?

Closer than you think, torygraph had a SHOCKING REVELATION yesterday. Kate has apparently commissioned three wedding dresses. I did not read the article in case I accidentally saw the comments section.

Hopefully I'm down to work on this day so I don't have to see any of it.

You know it isn't mandatory viewing, right?

Have you been to the english media before?

You can buy a wedding dress from china for $189.If you buy 6, they are only $169 each.

I should include the fact that the radio, TV, papers and <spits>public will all be going on about it.

I for one will delight in the fact that it's not mandatory and will be exercising my right to do something else.

As there are local elections in the 'Ford that day, I probably will end up being given a ballot paper for the referendum along with the one for the councillors. I still don't know what I'm going to do. Not long to go now.