The Monarchy

News that the Queen is short of money has unearthed the usual cynicism and mealy-mouthed republicanism-lite from people who don’t really mean it. For myself I can’t get excited about the monarchy costing £40 million; a president would cost just as much, and I remember reading that the Italian presidency costs a lot more.

There is another issue to the monarchy which I think we should all be talking about and Mick Hume, an interesting man underneath his Marxist hoodie, touches on it in an article in the Times but in my view doesn’t quite get there.

When I have been asked why I am in favour of the monarchy, my reply has always been that I like there being someone more important than the Prime Minister: I get reassurance from the fact that some nutter who has climbed the greasy pole can’t abolish or recreate the army, can’t call an election without the monarch’s say-so. We invest powers in the monarchy to save us from nutty or corrupt politicians and we call this checks and balances.

The last time I can recall the monarch using her powers was concerning the removal of Gough Whitlam as prime minister of Australia in 1975 (he was another politician who didn’t use his right name; his was Edward). But since then, nothing.

Truth to tell, the monarchy, or, let’s be honest, the Queen, is too scared to use any of her powers for fear the populace might rise up in anger (there are still mumblings in Australia about the Whitlam business 33 years later). And the crucial point here is that rather than go into abeyance the powers are instead vested in the Prime Minister, who has enormous powers of action and of patronage: he can start wars, call elections, extend treaties, appoint bishops and peers, all in the name of the Queen.

Now this is not, in my opinion, satisfactory, and not what we had been led to believe we were getting. If there was to be any proletarian chipping away at the monarch’s powers the chips should have gone to the people and their parliament, not to a dictator who to cover up the extent of his power still pretends to ask the monarch’s advice and walks backwards out of the room. And to some extent I blame the Queen for this: she, in my opinion, has allowed it to happen because she doesn’t understand what is going on.

I would be in favour of a different monarch – I think Charles is far and away the most intelligent and thoughtful member of the Royal Family – but I should prefer republicanism to dictatorship disguised as subservience.