Elizabeth the Useless:
Sixty Years a Rubber Stamp
By Sean Gabb
Those of us who pay attention to such things will have noticed a difference between the BBC coverage of the Golden Jubilee in 2002 and of the present Diamond Jubilee. Ten years ago, the coverage was adequate, though reluctant and even a little stiff. This time, it has been gushing and completely uncritical. There are various possible reasons for my observation. The first is that I was mistaken then and am mistaken now. I do not think this is the case, but feel obliged to mention it. The second is that Golden Jubilees are rare events, and Diamond Jubilees very rare events, and that extreme rarity justifies a setting aside of republican scruples. The third is that the BBC was taken by surprise in 2002 by the scale of public enthusiasm, and does not wish to be caught out again. The fourth is that, while not particularly conservative on main issues, we do now have a Conservative Government, and this is headed by a cousin of Her Majesty. There may be many other reasons.
However, I believe the chief reason to be that the new British ruling class has finally realised what ought always to have been obvious. This is that, so far from being the last vestige of an old order, dominated by hereditary landlords and legitimised by ideologies of duty and governmental restraint, the Monarchy is an ideal fig leaf for the coalition of corporate interests and cultural leftists and unaccountable bureaucracies that is our present ruling class. The motto for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee was “Sixty Years a Queen.” The motto now might as well be “Sixty Years a Rubber Stamp.” If, during the six decades of her reign, England has been transformed from a great and powerful nation and the classic home of civil liberty into a sinister laughing stock, the ultimate responsibility for all that has gone wrong lies with Elizabeth II.
Now, I can – as Enoch Powell once said – almost hear the chorus of disapproval. How dare I speak so disrespectfully of our Most Gracious Sovereign Lady? Do I not realise that, under our Constitution, Her Majesty reigns, but the politicians rule? How, in all conscience, can I shift blame for what has happened from the traitors who actively worked for our destruction – Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, Tony Blair, and the others – to a woman without executive function who has always devoted herself to our welfare? The answer is that, if she never projected the theft of our ancestral rights, it was her duty to resist that theft, and to resist without regard for the outcome – and it was in her power to resist without bringing on her head any of the penalties threatened or used against her subjects. But she did not resist. At no time in the past sixty years, has she raised a finger in public, or, it is probably the case, in private, to slow the destruction of an order of things she swore in the name of God to protect.
Let me explain the true functions of the English Monarchy. Many foreigners have looked at all the bowing and kissing and walking backwards, and thought England was some kind of divine right despotism. Others have looked at the assurances of Walter Bagehot, and believed that England was, to all intents and purposes, as much a republic as modern France or Germany. Anyone who believes either of these things is wrong.
The function of the Monarchy is to express and to sustain our national identity and all that stands with it. The Monarchy reminds us that our nation is not some recent arrival in the world, and that the threads of continuity between ourselves and our distant forebears have not been broken. England and its Monarchy exist today, and five hundred years ago, and a thousand years ago, and one thousand five hundred years ago. And, as we go further back, they vanish together, with no sense that they ever began at all, into the forests of Northern Europe. And with the fact of immemorial antiquity goes the idea of indefinite future continuation. Any Englishman who studies his national history finds himself uniquely in a conversation across many centuries. What an English writer said in 1688, or in 1776, or in 1832, is not alien to us now, and still has some relevance to our understanding of what kind of people we are.
Her Majesty has discharged her expressing function. However, since all this needs, at the most basic level, is for her to occupy the right place in her family tree and know how to smile and wave, she deserves as much praise as I might claim for having two legs. If, like the Emperor of Japan, she never said or did anything in public, she would still express our national identity. The problem is that she has done nothing to sustain that identity in any meaningful sense.
By law, the Queen is our head of state, and Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and Commander in Chief of all the armed forces. She appoints all the bishops and judges, and all the ministers and civil servants. She declares war, and all treaties are signed on her behalf. She cannot make new laws by her own authority and impose taxes. To do either of these, she needs the consent of Parliament. On the other hand, she can also veto any parliamentary bill she dislikes – and her veto cannot be overriden by any weighted majority vote of Parliament. These are the theoretical powers of an English Monarch. Except where limited by seventeenth century agreements like the Petition of Right and the Bill of Rights, she has the same legal powers as Henry VIII.
During the past three centuries, though, the convention first emerged and then hardened, that all these powers should be exercised in practice by a Prime Minister who is leader of the majority party in the House of Commons. He may be called First Minister of the Crown. He may have to explain himself every week to the Monarch. Where things like Royal Weddings and Jubilees are concerned, he mostly keeps out of sight. But, as leader of the majority party in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister draws his real legitimacy from the people. No Monarch has dismissed a Prime Minister, or tried to keep one in office, since the 1830s. No Monarch has rejected a parliamentary bill since 1708.
Because it is unwritten, and because its various conventions are in continual flux, the English Constitution can be rather opaque. It is, however, based on an implied contract between people and Monarch. This is that, in public, we regard whoever wears the Crown as the Lord’s Anointed. In return, the Monarch acts on the advice of a Prime Minister, who is accountable to us.
But, like any other agreement in a common law country, this implied contract is limited by considerations of reasonableness. It ceases to apply when politics become a cartel of tyrants and traitors. Once the politicians make themselves, as a class, irremovable, and once they begin to abolish the rights of the people, it is the duty of the Monarch to step in and rebalance the Constitution. It is then that she must resume her legal powers and exercise them of her own motion.
The need for this duty to be performed has been apparent since at least 1972, when we were lied into the European Union. The Conservatives did not fight the 1970 general election on any promise that they would take us in. When they did take us in, and when Labour kept us in, we were told that it was nothing more than a trade agreement. It turned out very soon to be a device for the politicians to exercise unaccountable power. The Queen should have acted then. Indeed, she should have acted – if not in the extreme sense, of standing forth as a royal dictator– before 1972. She should have resisted the Offensive Weapons Bill and the Firearms Bill, that effectively abolished our right to keep and bear arms for defence. She should have resisted the Bills that abolished most civil juries and that allowed majority verdicts in criminal trials. She should have resisted the numerous private agreements that made our country into an American satrapy. She should have insisted, every time she met her Prime Minister, on keeping the spirit of our old Constitution. There have been many times since 1972 when she should have acted.
At all times, she could have acted – all the way to sacking the Government and dissolving Parliament – without provoking riots in the street. So far as I can tell, she has acted only twice in my lifetime to force changes of policy. In 1979, she bullied Margaret Thatcher to go back on her election promise not to hand Rhodesia over to a bunch of black Marxists. In 1987, she bullied Margaret Thatcher again to give in to calls for sanctions against South Africa.
And that was it. She is somewhere on record as having said that she regards herself more as Head of the Commonwealth than as Queen of England. Certainly, she has never paid any regard to the rights of her English subjects.
The Queen has not sustained our national identity. It is actually worse than this. By expressing that identity, she has allowed many people to overlook the structures of absolute and unaccountable power that have grown up during her reign. She has fronted a revolution to dispossess us of our country and of our rights within it. How many of the people who turn out on Jubilee Day, with their union flags and street parties, will fully realise that the forms they are celebrating now contain an alien and utterly malign substance?
This does not, in itself, justify a republic. Doubtless, if a Government of National Recovery ever found itself opposed by the Monarch, it might be necessary to consider some change. Such a government would have only one chance to save the country, and nothing could be allowed to stand in its way. But this should only be an extreme last resort.
Symbolic functions aside, the practical advantage of having a monarchy is that the head of state is chosen by the accident of birth and not by some corrupted system of election; and that such a head of state is likely to take a longer term, more proprietorial, interest in the country than someone who has lied his way into an opportunity to make five lifetimes of income in four years. We got Elizabeth II by a most unhappy accident of birth. But we may be luckier next time. Sooner or later, the luck of the draw may give us a Patriot King.
As for Her Present Majesty, she may be remembered in the history books as Elizabeth the Useless. Even so, she is our Queen, and has been that for a very long time. I suppose this should count for something come Jubilee Day.
I’d like to hear the opposing argument
Martin Crutwell writes but is unable to post:
Sean’s excellent article is written in the measured words of an academic whereas my prose is more vociferous. My small claim to fame may be that in my website http://www.camrecon.demon.co.uk I was perhaps the first person to point out that She had broken Her Coronation Oath which amounted to a solemn promise to govern according to our laws and customs. Since she and politicians are all public servants they may only act as allowed by law. Conventions are not law but practices outside the law. It was not customary for England to be governed by a foreign power. What She and the politicans did was forbidden on both counts therefore. No doubt in my mind too, it was treason.
Though always patriotic I too was incredibly ignorant of our constitution until I met late Wing Commander Leonard Young and so different was his explanation that I had to sweat blood to simplify it, as I hope my site has done for others.. What hope for the millions of subjects/citizens who under media guidance suspect no evil? I quote Bagehot on my website to confirm that it is all for show and no substance.
As an old West Country anti-marketeer who knew the truth from the start I am amazed to still see those who claim that the 1975 referedum was to “GO in” rather than “STAY in or COME OUT”. 67% it may have been but the dice was loaded as government had all the money for propaganda. Since, as I understand it, the Marxist plan is to destroy the nation states we must assume that all main parties are infiltrated and that the EU and mass immigration are the two main tools by which is being achieved.
Martin Cruttwell
I have no wish to go down the republican route, but I reluctantly agree with your general theme here Mr Gabb. I am still pro-Monarchy, but an deeply saddened about the Queen’s ambivalent role during what amounts to the destruction of our constitutional sovereignty.
Christine,
There is no opposing argument.
Unless you make excuses for her by trotting out the old “…she was misled by evil counsellors…”
She has been wrong for SIXTY years. She is not an ornament. She is part and parcel of how this nation is governed. And she dropped the ball. At least seven times to my certain knowledge.
Make no mistake, this woman abdicated in 1972 when she allowed us (or opened the door at least) to be ruled by a foreign power. Her Oath expressly forbids her from doing that.
Since 1992 she has been a European citizen, just like the rest of us.
And Sean, a small thing but vital: we have not been known as ‘subjects’ since 1983. Check your passport.
CR.
Lets look back in a couple of hundred years and see if history agrees with your opinion. Until then I”ll remain aloof.
A thoroughly nasty article, attacking someone who, by convention, cannot defend herself.
It is only in retrospect that all the incremental changes complained of can be recognised as having led to profound changes. At each step in the 60 years little of great significance appeared, for the most part, to be happening (like a lobster plunged into cold water, it’s too late once you realise it’s being heated). The Queen, and her advisers, were as susceptible to this process as anyone. She did not seek her position, but took it as a matter of duty, no doubt aware that, unlike most of those in power, she had intellectual limitations such that she was not able to get Higher Education – she did the best she could, given her education. As someone in their 20’s, aware that you have only average education, how confident would you be at contradicting Winston Churchill as Prime Minister Mr Gabb?
Nor is the argument that she had real power remotely convincing. We all know that the convention is that she acts as advised by her government, and it would only be in the event of truly massive illegitimate act by her ministers (e.g. forming a Quisling government at time of foreign occupation) that she would be justified in speaking out against them, and appealing for the popular support of the people.
Cheap, nasty, and not remotely convincing.
I’d like to see this one filled out a little more first.
Surely there’s not the slightest chance of being protected by a Monarch loyal to England? The current crop of heirs to the throne have all been baked in the same mould. Made of the same dough. QE2 will be the role model for too many years to come. She became our Useless Queen, the next Monarch will be our Useless King from the outset. So what does the author of the piece offer up in way of an alternative? Apart from becoming a Republic is there an alternative?
What about the role of the nation’s police force which daily becomes more obsessed with their own fire-power – shouldn’t the Monarch be worried about that even if out of fear for her own safety. From having few or no guns at their disposal forty or so years, they are now arming themselves to the teeth. Soon they’ll be a force to reckon with even for a Queen.
‘Lied into the European Union’ Well done Sean. Absolutely true and many people know it but few ever say it. That’s the really big problem here isn’t it. No one dare say anything anymore… and what has Queen Elizabeth The Useless done about that? For sixty years she’s been the best placed Brit to at least try to do something. It’s not been hard to see that the writing’s not being written on the wall anymore.
85 year old woman handcuffed, arrested, humiliated then put in a police van simply because she offended a few Muslims by telling them they should go home. She’s 85 years old. For almost her entire life she’s been free to say such things. She’s been charged for committing a criminal offence and is due to appear in court in July. The wrists of people in their 80s bruise easily. Anyway, the Muslims went inside to ‘worship’ someone or other and then all went back home no doubt to celebrate winning yet another battle against another non-believer.
QE2’s the Keeper of the Faith but which one I wonder? At least her eldest son told the truth when saying he was the Keeper of all Faiths. King Charles The Already Useless. Something to look forward to then Sean.
I won’t be here in a couple of hundred years and neither will you.
We have a huge problem today. Let’s fix it today. No need to wait.
Lawful Rebellion is your remedy, and it is your duty as a Briton to “…Distrain and distress her in all possible ways, …until redress has been obtained…”.
If she has been ‘misled’ it is up to us to tell her.
CR.
Britain was near bankrupt after World War II – then the Labour Atlee government decided to give the process another push by finishing off the creation of the Welfare State, and nationalising large sections of the economy.
Not of this was the fault Princess (now Queen) Elizabeth.
Sean appears to demand a POLITICAL monarchy (something the young Elizabeth was carefully taught that tne monarchy must NOT be) – with the Queen actively getting involved in issues of policy, not acting as the ceremonial heart of the people (a romantic vision – something that some people admire and some people do not).
Indeed the ceremony and tradition appears to irritate Sean – with is a rather unEnglish attitude.
Oddly enough I rather agree with Sean that the monarchy should be more involved in politics (as, for example, the Prince of Liechtenstein is), but that goes against everything the young Elizabeth was taught.
I also suspect that the Queen’s husband also has some sympathy with the view that the monarchy should have been more involved in political matters – but he is just “Prince Phillp” he is not King.
Had he been King things might have been different – perhaps (for example) the United Kingdom might not have fallen to the EEC-EU.
More likely the monarchy would have been quietly reminded of the reality of things.
The monarch (in modern Britain) may only voice the opinions of the establishment (on South Africa or any other matter) – shoud the monarch voice anti establishment opinions (as Prince P. might want to do) there would soon be no monarchy.
“Better no monarchy then” – so the tidy minded rationalist might maintain, but the British (especially the English) find the ritual and traditions comforting. And the Queen takes the ritual and cerimonial role very seriously.
Paul, your comments/opinions sound reasonable unlike many other comments. Speaking as an American I am very glad to see we are not the only country with right-wing kooks who appear very fearful for the future; and can take simple, normal, or traditional actions/reactions as substantial proof that “they” are working against us. I thought U.S. was the only country where the division between liberal and conservative was strikingly black & white with no grey areas. And the only difference between your conservatives and ours is that our conservatives believe (and loudly proclaim) that god is on only their side.
I live on historic, pedestranised, mal Konushnaya in St Petersburg when I am there which was until yesterday evening. From the statue of of Gogol near Nevskii Prospekt stretching to the far end towards the James Cook pub there is now a public ehibition celebrating 300 years of the Romanovsthis June 22. Possibly 160 display boards praising the Romanov legacy and listing Russia’s artistic, farming and industrial achievements and progress up to and including the exile and later murder of Czar Nicholas and his family. I reflected on our royal family’s concern for their own future when even the Bolsheviks thought their royal family should go to England.
“Bloody Nicholas?” A convenient excuse for the House of Hannover to exclude their blood relatives. As you note Sean, Elizabeth adhored her commonwealth jaunts and preferred the murderous thug Mugabe to the far sighted Ian Smith.
Elizabeth the useless? Elizabeth the bloody useless.
.
There is a great deal of truth expressed in this discussion but also much sadness that we as a nation should come to this. There is also a degree of misunderstanding. The coronation of the monarch is an election. During the ceromony the Archbishop of Caterbury asks our assembled representitives if we are willing to accept the person before them. Were it not an election the question would be irrelivant. Henry VIII always refered to his coronation as his election. We have the lawful right to reject the first in line and elect a sibling.
The monarch cannot be separated from national politics being the official Governor of the nation and Head of the Executive. The government of the day, which has no powers of its own, is no more than a delegated authority appointed by the monarch on the people’s behalf for a strictly limited period. Talk of parliamentary sovereignty is simply nonsense, only the people are sovereign.The monarch is the physical embodiment of the people’s sovereignty. Parliament therefore is subordinate to the people through the sovereign who has enormous powers at his or her disposal to control Parliament, to the extent of dissolving it on the people’s behalf at any time during its limited lifetime. It is for this reason that the monarch is made Commander in Chief of our armed forces, the personnel of which take an oath of allegiance to the monarch and so to the British people.
There is mention above of constitutional changes evolving through ‘convention’ . There is no such lawful procedure as convention has no force in law. ref. ‘Halsbury’s Laws of England’.
There has always been talk of republicanism in this country and lengthy discussions as to whether or not we as a nation should be a republic, which rather suggests that few if any people know or understand what a republic is. It is quite simple, a republic is a country in which the people hold the supreme power in the land. This country therefore is and always has been a republic with a democratically elected leader; (that should cheer a few people up). In 1215 it became necessary to reassert this truth at Runnymede. This unquestionable democratic principle was again upheld in no uncertain manner with the execution of Charles 1st in 1649, and a reassertion again became necessary in 1688 with the Declaration of Right. It was our ancient republican principle that the founding fathers took with them to North America where they call their leader a president but the office is much the same as the office of monarch is here, and it is no coincidence that both offices are presently under threat for they represent the people’s lawful right to self rule and governance.
Our republican history goes back to our ancient Celtic ancestors long before the Romans arrived. After the Romans left the Saxons and Vikings brought with them from the Celtic continent very similar systems of leadership and governance. It was the Normans, who had adopted the Roman Catholic faith and its aspirations of political domination over national leaders by diminishing and then removing the people’s lawful authority over their leaders, that started the decline of the old Celtic republican principle and system in this country. It is a fact that the power seeking Roman Church never goes away. We have in our past had numerous anti-Roman Monarchs but we have also had a few dangerous collaborators whose association with Rome, usually covert, have cost this country dear.
With this regard one is mindful of the Queen’s long standing close friendship with Cardinal Hume whom she chose to honour, and her visits to the Pope, not to mention her publicly kissing the papal ring, acts that to a constitutionalist suggest traits of treason. There is also the matter of the Queen’s decision to invite the Pope to visit this country to take high mass in Canterbury cathedral, the home of the Anglican Church, which was only abandoned at the last minute by a small group of Anglican indignants. It must not be over-looked that the Church of Rome is not just a religion it is a political entity in its own right with a history of international political and material aspiration. It is not by chance that one time British subjects that are now enforced citizens of the EU are obliged to carry a driving licence bearing not the head of the Queen or even the Crown, symbol of our lawful sovereignty, but the Roman Catholic emblem the twelve star Halo of the Madonna as adopted by the predominantly Romanist EU which now rules us.
We don’t need a revolution or a civil war to get our country back, or indeed a public execution, one would hope we have moved on a little from such measures. What we desperately need is the will to educate the mass as to how we have been betrayed and so provoke their rightful indignation. My much missed late friend and fellow campaigner Norris McWhirter used to remind us that our enemy’s greatest weapon is incredulity. Fortunately there are signs that the incredulity is steadily melting in the heat of the people’s political frustration.
Bob Lomas. The Magna Carta Society.
The Rise and Fall of England.
Elizabeth I was her people’s Queen,
Elizabeth II was not what she seemed.
Elizabeth I made her country strong,
Elizabeth II did her country wrong.
Elizabeth I built her fences great,
Elizabeth II left open the gate.
Elizabeth I built a fortress shore,
Elizabeth II pushed open the door.
Elizabeth I did freedom bring,
Elizabeth II kissed the papal ring.
Elizabeth I kept the world at bay,
Elizabeth II gave her country away.
I am a devout mionarchist and would like to see European republics revert to being monarchies. Something like the US but with a monarch rather than a President. I don’t always agre with the royal family but still regard Her Majesty as the world’s greatest lady.
Mark, she’s sold us out in the same way as her grandfather sold out the landed aristocracy and then his cousin of Russia. A hundred years ago, GV could have taken a stand for the Constitution against Lloyd George and Churchill. Instead, he kept his mouth shut and watched the puncturing of an order that had done much to keep his ancestors under control. He watched the Czar and his family go to their deaths, rather than make trouble for himself with the lefties. EII has been making the same sort of easy choices since 1952. We’ll all be slaves, tagged and barcoded, and her son and grandson will still be wafted in safe luxury between palaces and to and from their grouse moors.
Even the moderate Jacobites conceded that loyalty was reciprocal. What’s the point in a monarch who might as well be a wax dummy when it comes to standing up for the people?
A lot of the comment, as in Mr Gabb’s original article, deals with the UK’s entry into the EU, and loss of national identity. Let’s inject some numbers (reality) into this. At the 1975 referendum on EU entry the country voted by more than 2:1 to enter (67% in favour, significantly over the 50% magical figure; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_European_Communities_membership_referendum,_1975#National_.26_regional_results). Compared to any other election, this was a massive majority. The argument can be made that people did not fully understand the consequences (like many I probably did not, voting in favour, only to stand as a UKIP MEP in 2009 (no-hoper – just to fill out the list)), but the result was clear-cut. In her own opinion, let alone as advised by the government and any independent advisers, the Queen could have legitimately been in favour at that time of the supposed loss of national identity. It would have been madness on her part, and utterly unconstitutional, for her to have spoken out against entry at that time, any more than any other of the European constitutional monarchs have ever done so.
Mr Gabb is right, the Queen IS a rubber stamp, but so have all British monarchs been for about three centuries, and that’s because that is what the British people WANTED them to be, and MADE them be, by intentional limits on their powers. The Queen would only be justified in speaking out against her democratically elected government if she was sure that there was massive opposition to their intents. To have that surety I think she would require certain conditions: 1) opinion polls that 80%+ of the people were opposed to the government’s policy; 2) that the government’s back benchers did not support ministers, but supported the Opposition; 3) a unified approach, as a delegation, by the back benchers, with representatives of all Opposition parties, calling on her to intervene; 4) probably understood approval of the police, and probably also the military, that they would stand by the Queen. However, this is a highly unlikely scenario, because if back benchers and Opposition were united in opposition to ministers, then they could call a vote of confidence, and the government would fall, with a General Election to follow, with no intervention needed from the Monarch. Are you seriously trying to tell us Mr Gabb that, given the numbers, the Queen should have vetoed our EU entry in the 1970’s? Do you think that such a veto would have been remotely constitutionally justified?
With regard to the EU, the numbers have never remotely justified intervention by the Queen. Every government since our 1973 entry has supported membership – they were democratically elected, so have a mandate to do so. Perhaps more to the point about massive popular feeling being needed to justify intervention by the Queen, the polls again do not support you Mr Gabb, “YouGov’s latest poll, conducted on April 21-22, puts the margin at 43-35%.”, i.e. just 8% more against remaining in EU than for, and in January 2013 there was a majority for staying in (http://yougov.co.uk/news/2013/05/07/eu-referendum-paradox/); for most of the past two years those against have not even reached the significant figure of 50%. It is utterly absurd to suppose that the Queen should have intervened on the basis of these figures.
In the past 60 years I can think of perhaps only two issues in which the people have been consistently opposed by perhaps 80%+ to the policies of successive governments: a) the suspension of suspending murderers necks from ropes (used to be 70%+ – http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/3802), b) in about the 1960’s, ‘coloured’ immigration.
I have given numbers, so you give us numbers Mr Gabb for the issues in which you think there was sufficient popular support for the Queen to have vetoed the polices of her democratically elected government – no waffle, numbers.
In constitutional terms, the Monarch is there merely as a back-stop against utterly unconstitutional actions, which the mainland European monarchs fulfilled in WWII by going into exile in UK, and which, in modern times, Spain’s King Juan Carlos fulfilled by standing against an attempted coup.
The Queen is a constitutional monarch: “Most constitutional monarchies employ a parliamentary system in which the monarch may have strictly ceremonial duties or may have reserve powers, depending on the constitution.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_monarchy). Those reserve powers are or use only in extremity, and there has never been any justification for the Queen to invoke them. The Queen has fulfilled her duties (which she did not seek) as well as could be expected.
Contrary to French English language news (and some comments here) Queen Elizabeth did not become Queen at the time of the Coronation – Elizabeth became Queen the moment her father died. The Queen has been Queen for 61 years (not 60 years – as French English langage news suggests).
There is no “election” – mistaking the RITUAL at the Coronation for something political is an error. It may once have been different (after all Henry the first – cited Anglo Saxon principles to justify him, not his elder brother, becomming King), but “*I sware to defend the basic laws of England, my older brother will not – therefore follow ME” cuts no ice anymore.
Even the Great Charter of 1215 does not claim that England is an ELECTIVE monarchy – and that Great Charter is no longer (if it ever was) a Constitutional document anyway, as Blackstone in the 18th century (and vile utilitarian creatures such as Maitland in the 19th century) declared that Parliament can do anything it feels like (so much for the Bill of Rights of 1689. or the Great Charter of 1215 or Henry’s Charter of 1100….)
“What’s the point in a monarch who might as well be a wax dummy when it comes to standding up for the people?”
An unEnglish question – the monarchy is the ceremony and ritual, it is “Blackrod” and Silver Stick and Gold Stick (and whatever stick), and the music and the sound of the words (not the content of the words) and so on…..
After all if Queen Elizabeth took her “Corination Oath” as a serious statement of POLICY the monarch would veto the “Gay Marriage” thing as (whether it is right or wrong) it is mockery of Christianity and the “Corination Oath” contains a promise to defend the faith.
Sean would not be in favour of the Queen doing that – so let us have no more talk of the Queen getting involved in politics.
I may (in fact I do) hate and despise Walter Bagehot (and so many of these Victorian “greats”) – but their position is what won.
The monarchy is part of the “dignified” part of “The English Constitution” not part of the “effective” part – indeed even the bit about “encourage and warn” was not really meant by Bagehot.
Of course Queen Victoria did not agree with this “liberal” position (indeed Queen Victoria had rather harsh words for such “liberals”) however the utiltarian position won out.
There are, in the United Kingdom, no longer traditional basic constitutional rights (indeed the very concept of traditional natural law has been mocked in British legal circles for a very long time indeed – how “inpractical”) and the “rights” of the European Convention and United Nations Declaration are not what people such as Hampden thought of in terms of “rights” (they are not really limitations on government taxation and so on – on the contrary they are excuses for it, these modern “rights” are actually chains that bind the subjects in service to the collective).
Religious faith?
That has been (privately) mocked in official circles for rather a long time. So much for the power of an oath sworn by God.
As it happens Queen Elizabeth is a Chistrian – but the lady has been taught (from birth) that it is her DUTY to go along with established official advice.
Not so much the advice of a single individual (hence the clashes with Mrs Thatcher – who had a few “reactionary” principles) but with government (and establishment) as a whole.
After all even a Prime Minister can (and will) be removed if he or she goes against the official line – as (for example) Mrs Thatcher was removed for going against the official line on the European Union.
In the United Kingdom what matters (above all else) is the offcial line.
As for those of us who hate the official line (as, I confess, I do hate it) – well there is the music and ceremony to comfort us.
And the words of the Coronation are part of this ritual and ceremony (alas! they are nothing more than that).
We live in the nation of Walter “concede whatever it is safe to concede” Bagehot (which, in the end, means concede EVERYTHING of couse) and Parliament-can-do-no-wrong Maitland.
Not the nation of Hampden – or even of Queen Victoria.
Once there was a time when the Conservative party was led by Lord Sailsbury and the Liberal party was led by Gladstone (both men of courage and principle – each in their own way).
But both Gladstone and Lord Salisbury lost in the end.
Gladstone was forced out by Harcourt and Rosebery (who even lied about the final cabinet meeting – pretending that Gladstone supported them and wished them well, in fact he regarded them with utter contempt and left with “a few cold words”) and Lord Salisbury was replaced by Balfour – a classic “social reformer”.
“We are all socialists now” Harcourt and “social reform not revolution” Balfour could fit quite happily into the present cabinet. David Cameron and Nick Clegg woudl get on fine with them.
;
They were not men of firm principles – any more than George V was.
We do not live in an age of people of firm principles.
A monarch like Queen Victoria would last long these days.
The office of the British monarch cannot be compared to those of continental Europe. The Crown carries with it the offices of Governor of the nation, Sovereign Head of State and Head of the Executive. It is the equivalent to the office of the president of the USA. To claim that the Queen has never been occasioned to invoke the powers vested in her by the people is unsustainable when clearly the nation’s very sovereignty has been placed at high risk under circumstances and conditions arguably more sinister than those of 1939.
It is not a matter of what the majority of the people want or do not want, if Parliament acts unlawfully as it did by signing away the people’s sovereignty it is the sworn duty of the monarch to use the powers vested in her by the people to bring Parliament to heel. Not even the people have the lawful right to surrender the nations sovereignty as it is not in the gift of any one generation it being the birthright of generations yet to come just as it was ours. On the issue of public opinion as to whether we stay in or come out of the EU, using opinion poll figures is meaningless on a subject of which little if anything is fully understood by the majority.
The Queen could have been in no doubt that signing up to the Treaty of Rome was treasonous as the issue had been openly discussed in Parliament at length beforehand. Indeed, Lord Kilmuir made the treasonous implications very clear in an open letter to Edward Heath. As a PC it is very unlikely that Kilmuir did not make it clear to the Queen also. At that time the Queen was not a young inexperienced monarch, she had been Head of the Executive and Sovereign Head of State for nearly twenty years and was recognised as being well versed in constitutional affairs.
One can only speculate on what influenced her into betraying her coronation oath and her people. Had her minister Heath and her plenipotentiaries signed the Treaty of Rome without the Queen’s express consent they would have been subject to charges of high treason, which at that time could have ended with a death sentence. Instead Heath was honoured and awarded the Charlemagne Prize, an award very much associated with the Vatican. As for the Queen’s reason for so acting, one is aware of the Pope’s stated belief that the EEC was the will of God. During the great Parliamentary betrayal Heath in his office as PM committed both treason and perjury in the House of Commons. One would find it hard to believe that he would have put his life at risk by so doing had he not been confident that he had the absolute protection of a higher authority.
All organisations have to have a single person at the helm to guide them and be responsible for the doings of the administrators. In this, countries are no different. In this nation that person is the elected monarch. Over the past half century much has gone badly wrong in this country. This has to be addressed and those responsible held to account. Never mind the oily rag, one must address the engineer. The buck stops at Buck House.
You cannot be a Constitutional Monarch if you refuse to defend the Constitution. Mrs Windsor made her bed, my only regret is that we have to lie in the bloody thing too!
Once it was learned that the British government had made available seven million pounds to advertise the merits of staying in the Common Market and less than one million to advertise getting out, that is when it should have been declared a flawed process and declared void. I said precisely that at the time. The percentages for and against really are meaningless unless one considers that advertising is a rank waste of money.
I think too many politicians have never been in business. Which is rather silly when one considers that a trading nation, like the UK, is a business.
We seem to have engineers baking malt loaves, window cleaners treating the sick and sheet metal workers steering the economy. Sadly, many people still believe It might yet work.
Going back to Elizabeth the Useless. She didn’t have to take on the Palace of Westminster. Like her husband often does, she could quietly let her views be known about which way she thought the wind was blowing. When it comes to Europe, even a child had simply to stick a finger in the wind. It could never work, will not work and when governments stop printing money, it’s going to collapse taking with it the savings and most of the dreams of every conscientious and responsible adult in the land.
It will take more than a few fresh faced youths from Eton to lift England back on her feet. With no industry to fall back on we are in dire trouble. In fact, I truly believe the old lady is dying a painfully slow death right now. What degrading and shameful times we’ve been obliged to live through.
Christine I am in many ways a “right-wing kook” myself – accept I do not believe in conspiracy stuff (the opinions of the establishment are in their published works taught in every school and university – only lazyness could make people think there is something hidden is going on). As for Queen Elizabeth I am not privy to her personal opinions (although I would guess they are liberal-left establishment ones – why would they not be?), but it hardly matters and Elizabeth was taught (from her first years) that her DUTY was to represent official (establishment) opinions – whether she personally believed in them or not.
As for religion. I am semi Pelagian heretic (thankfully the Church of England is a “broad church”) – does that infleunce my political opinions? Possibly – I do not know.
Is God on my side in my petty political disputes? I doubt He is interested – I am more concerned with whether, in more general mattters, I am God’s side. Which. as (under the cover of my Jewish family name) I am, in fact, a hot headed Red Neck whose default state is fury……. I sometimes I have fears about.
I intend to do my best, sometimes defeat my nasty desires to do really bad things (I believe in agency – hence the semi Pelagian position) and, for the rest…… declare myself a sinner and throw myself on the mercy of the court.
Christine Brean:
Duck my friend, mighty American is also going right down the pan. Have you seen the state of American finances lately? Your Muslim President, the one you voted for, is seen by many of your own people being… Muslim? No need to add much more to that really. He’ll be out of office quite soon but the fire is lit and already in the hole. You don’t need to get a good seat the action’s coming your way.
I’m not anti-American by the way. I have two homes there and dozens of friends but we’re all fearful for the future. Busily stocking up on supplies and worrying the kids. Like the UK, your government’s gone and boxed itself in both politically and financially. There really is no way left to turn. Unless you can work a miracle.
John Warren – at the time of the vote both my parents were in favour of staying in the EEC (as it then was). Neither of them was in favour of politcal union – both of them fell for the line that the EEC was a “free trade club”.
Of course that is what EFTA was – and what the EEC was NOT.
So propaganda does have an effect – as both my mother and my father went to their graves wishing they had voted the other way.
An American example of propaganda having an effect is the “election they do not talk about” in Bedford New Hampshire (historically perhaps the most conservative town in United States) – this was the vote IN FAVOUR of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932.
It seemed the conservative way to vote – after all Franklin Roosevelt promised to cut taxes and cut government spending and denounced Herbert Hoover as a “socialist”.
It did not take the people of Bedford New Hampshire long to work out that “FDR” (as Franklin Roosevelt started to be called) had not been sincere…..
John – “Liberation Theology” and “Collective Salvation” is no more Islamic than it is Christian.
Barack’s father was a drunken socialist (who, thankfully, did not kill anyone else when he smashed his car up in, yet another, of his binges) does not sound very Islamic to me. And Barack did not know the man anyway.
As for the adoptive father in Indonesia – Barack’s mother actually fell out with him because he (the adoptive father) was NOT antiAmerican (as she was – and her family were, so much for the “ordinary girl from Kansas”), indeed the adoptive father was about the only nonRed Barack has ever known.
Young Barack was sent back to the United States to the tender loving care of his grandfather (a Red) and family friend Frank Marshall Davis (Chicago C.P. and semi professional drug dealer and porn film maker) – I suspect that Barack would have turned out better had he been left in Indonesia.
As for the Chicago years – 20 years at “Holy” Trinity (with Rev Wright – the Marxist Liberation Theology person), no time in any Muslim places of worship.
By the way Edward Said (before he died he was at Columbia – supposedly a friend of Barack during the Columbia years, if so he was almost the only person there who met Barack) was NOT a Muslim either.
Edward Said came from a Christian family in Egypt (the “Muslim agent” stuff is as phony as Edward’s own claims about what the evil Jews supposedly did to his family)
Edward Said is one of those people where BOTH his own story of his life was a lie, and the story spread by his enemies was also a lie.
But then the truth of the man’s life was rather boring…..
Barack’s life history is actually boring as well.
Wasted his time at school (drugs, messing about – and that is about it).
Bank director grandmother pays for him to go to Occidental in California – some Marxist stuff there, but mostly just messing about.
Wire pulling from family friends (Reds – but does it matter?) to get Barack into Columbia.
A lot more Marxist conferences there, but little academic work – which is why (even after all these years) his college records are still sealed (pity as I bet his academic work is as amusing as Michelle’s Princeton thesis is – read it some time, Michelle is trying to be Frankfurt School, but she is so ignorant she gets a lot of it messed up).
The a little while working with the Comrades in Chicago.
Then wire pulling to get Barack into Harvard Law – he actually does some work there (one boilerplate article on the legal background of abortion – and errr that is about it).
Then given jobs (academic and legal – and “charity board”) in Chicago even though he does no work – then given political posts (for example by having all other candidates struck of the list for the Democratic primary for Illinois State Senate – and then having the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate smeared with divorse stuff). Even the two books are not his work (“Dreams From My Father” is partly written by Bill Ayers, and “The Audacity of Hope” was written by a committee – and, boy, it shows).
And that is about really.
A lazy well off kid – who gets on because he is one of the Comrades (as were the family and important family friends).
Even I find it difficult to get angry over this – I feel more like yawning.
Still if the story was spread that Barack was a Muslim in his youth (and he did recite the prayers at school in Indonesia – he even did it, to mock it, for journalists a few years back) and then CONVERTED, that would make Muslims really upset with him.
There is the death penality for converting from Islam.
One-Barack Obama was twice democratically elected.That I wouldn’t have voted for him is irrelevant-these birthers are just sore losers,to be as polite as possible. Two – I believe in an elected Upper House and do not believe 1910 to have been a great point of constitutional principle. Incidentally,I wish Joe Chamberlain had succeeded Salisbury.
Mark – “birthers”? Who mentioned the Clinton campaign staff (or do you not know they invented that game – back in 2008). No one here has suggested that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.
As for “democratically elected” – as the media was running a massive campaign for him since 2004 (yes 2004 – not just since 2008) being elected is hardly a thing of merit.
Indeed being elected due to a backdrop of such corruption is a badge of shame – sadly John Adams was right, a Republic that loses its virtue becomes the plaything of politicians (and their publicity machine) who promise everything to the voters. Such a nation is no longer a Republic – it has become a democracy.
As for “Radical Joe” – do not get me started…….
Still you may be pointing at his idea for an Imperial Parliament – hard to keep the Empire together without any common insitutions (bar the monarchy – which became a ritual thing in the 20th century anyway).
It is perhaps inevitable that such a topic would lure Bob Lomas to reiterate his usual fantasy about the monarchy being elected, based on his idiosyncratic version of history – though, it should be recalled that in the 17th century there were a great many people with the same world view, and we all know the damage they did. Rather than a throwback I like to think of Bob Lomas as being a living relic of a belief system that has otherwise long since past, the last Whig if you will.
I agree with the “fig leaf” suggestion in the article. I would make two comments:
Why do we react as we do to the suggestion of the Queen being ‘Elizabeth the Useless’? Is it, perhaps, because we are so used to thinking that everything about Britain is great and the same as it ever was, that we simply cannot imagine our monarch being anything other than, well, a monarch? Indeed, are we not all living in a constant psychological state of delusion, the delusion where we pretend we still live in a sovereign and independent country rather than an occupied state, the delusion where we pretend that parliament is still the parliament that people like Bob Lomas thinks it is, of King, Lords and Commons, despite the reality of massive constitutional change in the 20th century, the delusion where we pretend that democracy means rule by the people rather than by puppet dictatorship, the delusion where we pretend that the Conservatives are conservative and right wing rather than liberal and left wing, and that the Labour party represent the working class rather than international plutocracy, the delusion where we pretend that masses of migrants are our fellow Britons and that their foreign languages and religions are ‘integration’ into our country rather than in fact straightforward colonization?
Other countries have not been sparing in their use of less than reverential epithets, such as mad, bad or drunkard. Louis V, for example, was the ‘sluggard’, the ‘do-nothing’ and was the last of his dynasty.
A useless monarch may never-the-less still make for a monarch, such as, for example, the Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria. Of course, he had Prince Metternich as his chancellor to uphold the greatness of his empire, alas Elizabeth II has had traitor after traitor forced upon her by the electorate.
My second comment is that should her sex be taken into account? Would a King have acted differently (and I mean generically and not Edward VIII). But then should we not ask the same in relation to Victoria, would Britain have declined into democracy if say the Duke of Cumberland had ascended to the throne in 1837? But then equally what if Edward VI had lived and had male heirs, or if fortune has smiled on Lord Guildford Dudley, would the disasters of the 17th century (and not just for their irruption of Bob Lomas-style misbelief) have occurred? Of course, we can never know.
The democrats have now decreed that men shall no longer take precedence in the royal succession, but perhaps after Elizabeth II what is actually needed is the introduction of salic law?
According to the authorities who became fashionable (Maitland and so on). Parliament can do anything it likes – anything includes sell us out to the EEC-EU.
According to these “classic” writers on law there is no such as Natural Law (just utiltarian calculations of the common good – to be undertaken by the state).
And as for sacred oaths to God (bound up with ideas of personal honour) – all that is just a “feudal relic”.
In short the ceremony 60 years ago was just a pagent, and the words just music (with no contractual content).
There was treason – intellectual treason (the treason of the intellectuals), but it happened long before Elizabeth was even born.
Leonard Young-wasn’t he one of those “Jewish conspiracy” nuts? The Brirish Movement sold his pamphlet in the 1970s.