dissent and debate

The YES to Independence campaign is about to launch in Scotland this Friday, followed shortly thereafter by the 'Jubilee' holiday - the establishment trying to reinforce the institution of monarchy aided by a sycophantic media hyperbole.  So vile it is like trying to spoonfeed us, and especially children, something sickening and poisonous while rotting corpses litter the house.  It's out of control.  Astonishingly, this weekend there has been an attempt by parts of the YES campaign to silence any discussion whatsoever on the subject of the monarchy, saying this will damage the campaign.  The reality is that trying to silence people is what is damaging and absolutely unacceptable.  As if the intolerance and imposition of monarchy upon us was not bad enough already.  It is completely and utterly wrong to try to stifle debate on this or any other issue. 

Scratch the surface and one of them declares as a monarchist.  So no-one is supposed to say anything for fear of upsetting the monarchists?  Why would that be?  The answer is because they have no arguments to debate with, which they even admit themselves, 'not one decent, logical, morally-sound argument for the retention of the Royal family in the 21st century'  wrote a monarchist on Sunday here before claiming 'we love' Liz Windsor, as if it was about her as a person and not about a secretive, monolithic institution absorbing millions in public money every year, with an outrageous sense of entitlement to any and all public money astonishing populated by anonymous officials who speak as buildings - 'the palace says' 'Clarence House denies', an institution reinforcing and perpetuating an antiquated feudal political system with monarchic powers swilling around to be accessed by whomsoever manoeuvres their way into Number 10, completely disproportionate to the democratic mandate their party did, or did not, gain and irrelevant to any deals struck with other parties.  Too much of the wrong kind of corrupting power, available at Westminster.

How can we 'love' this remote woman who most of us have never met, nor ever will meet, and whose image is so very carefully controlled, as is she?  We do not know her.  Your town will contain a sweet old lady who may appreciate a bunch of flowers if that's your motivation - give one of them some of your 'love'.  Monarchists who profess 'love' for Liz Windsor should perhaps consider being at the centre of this stultifying institution as 'their' queen is an abuse of her a sad life  She has no human right to vote, stand for election or determine her own destiny, she has not the right to speak anything but the elected government's words.  She is silenced in public as the institution also tries to silence dissent from the people. She and her son do have the right to veto government legislation of course and she has access to the Prime Minister's ear every week where no-one knows what she says then when she is not silenced.  Still it would appear that this 'royal' family would be happier and we'd all be healthier if they were a corgi-whisperer or a woffly weatherman.  Certainly there are monarchy fanatics like this who fill their homes, or business as in this case, with memorabilia and try to impose their fanaticism on others, but there are fanatics of many things and people, so what?   Should one of the Beatles or Bay City Rollers have been head of state?

We're told 'the problem' for republicans is everything we say 'makes perfect sense 'and yet here we are'.  Ah, as if by magic.   The monarchy springs up like a snowdrop through the frozen ground.  Absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the £36,000+ ,of public money of course, that offices at Clarence House and Buckingham Palace have access to every single day to use in the PR promotion of the institution of monarchy then?  Not the relentless sycophantic media.  Nothing whatsoever to do with the insidious permeation of institutions and organisations with 'royal' this, 'royal' that, patron of this, patron of that, the Crown in Parliament, the Sovereign at the core and apogee of a class structure never dismantled, the same families in power century after century.  The descendant of the schemer behind the Glencoe massacre and the union, John Dalrymple Master of Stair, in the House of Lords now.  In 1911 the House of Lords and parliament passed an Act stating it would become determined by popular vote rather than heredity, and then, what happened?  Did they all prick their fingers on a needle and fall asleep for a hundred years?  They may as well have.  The excruciating spectacle last year of the Speaker of the House of Commons whispering in the chamber about how "very rare, very sparing and very respectful" any mention of the royal family should be, when MPs were trying to discuss the unfortunate behaviour and associations of Andrew Windsor.  Perhaps a fairy dies every time the royal family is mentioned in Westminster.  But apparently none of this is what is reinforcing the monarchy, which is actually a Christmas miracle in the face of its own indefensibility.  Aye right.


Monarchists are trying to tell us that a majority of people are so enamoured of Elizabeth Windsor and so thrilled in anticipation at the prospect of Charles as their next head of state that they won't vote YES to independence if they think NO is the best way of keeping the monarchy?  The concept is ridiculous.  What about the many who will vote YES as the best and quickest way to get rid of it?  That's the reality.  And how do you argue for escape from the Westminster system without talking about what the Westminster system entails?  It makes no sense.  Tell the truth and shame the devil.  This should be about opening things up not shutting them down, about moving forward not standing still and terrified.     
    
People should not be silent, nor bow their heads, nor be forced to stand up for something they don't believe in or are actively opposed to and they should not be forced to swear an oath of allegiance they do not mean one word of.  Any blind faith some people might have in monarchy is their problem, not ours, and they're welcome to it.  People can carry on their worshipping and fanaticism about this family after they have been removed from hereditary position in government, access to public money and occupation of public buildings and land.  Don't be surprised if they might not want you to though.


    

The Palace and the Pit - from Keir Hardie speeches and writings - Forget your 'royal' baby

In June, 1894, occurred the terrible disaster at the Albion Colliery, Cilfynydd, South Wales, when over 250 men were killed.  About the same time President Carnot, of France, was assassinated and the Duchess of York gave birth to a son, the present Prince of Wales.

Mr A.G. Gardiner, in a character sketch of Keir Hardie in his book, 'Prophets, Priests and Kings', wrote of Hardie's antipathy to royalty: 'He hates the Palace because he remembers the Pit.'

In an editorial article in a special edition of the Labour Leader, June 30th, 1894, Keir Hardie wrote the following article, entitled 'Snobbery' : -

'The Welsh holocaust puts everything into the shade this week.  Two hundred and fifty human beings, full of strong life in the morning, reduced to charred and blackened heaps of clay in the evening.  The air rent with the wail of the childless mother, the widowed wife and the orphaned child.  Woe, woe unutterable everywhere, all through that fair Welsh valley.  Only those who have witnessed such scenes, as I have twice over, can realise what they mean.  Only those who know, as I know, that these things are preventable and solely due to man's cupidity, can understand the bitterness of feeling which they awaken.  We are a nation of hypocrites.  We go wild with excitement and demand vengeance when some hungry half-mad victim of our industrial system seeks to wreak his vengeance on the society which is murdering him by inches; and we piously look heavenward and murmur about a visitation of providence when two hundred and fifty miners are blown to bits because society places more value on property than it does on human life.  Coal must be got cheap - even if 1200 sturdy miners are murdered yearly in the process - twelve hundred hearths made desolate.

Never, surely, did the innate snobbery of respectable British society show itself to worse advantage than on Monday of this week.  At a quarter to four on Saturday last 251 men and boys were killed by an explosion in the Albion colliery Cilfynydd, near Pontypridd, in the Taff Valley, Wales.  That same evening at ten the Duchess of York was delivered of a son at the White Lodge, Richmond.  On Sunday evening about half-past nine, President Carnot, on his way to the theatre, was stabbed by an assassin, and died shortly afterwards.  Monday's papers were full of these things.  in every case the London morning press on its placards made announcement of the events, though in every case the murder of the French President took precedence.

The Daily Chronicle and the Daily Telegraph evidently consider the birth of a prince of more importance than the murder of 251 Welsh miners, as the items were disposed of in the following order -

   ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT CARNOT

BIRTH OF A ROYAL PRINCE

COLLIERY DISASTER IN WALES

The evening papers were even worse.  The Sun, Liberal (T P O'Connor's paper), the Star, Liberal, the Echo, Liberal Unionist, the Evening News, Tory, all came out with placards on which there was not a reference to the Welsh disaster, the murder of Carnot alone being noticed.  The Chronicle puts its account of the murder in a black border.  No black border is given to the account of the murder of the Welsh miners.  Three full columns are allotted to the former; only 2 and 1-5th to the latter.  The Star leading article is headed 'France - Our Sympathy'.  Not a word about the Welsh miners.  The Sun article is devoted in Tay Pay's best style to Carnot and the royal baby, with two fugitive references to the Welsh disaster.

And these are the papers from which the working classes expect political light and guidance.  Never in the history of British journalism was there anything more offensively snobbish than the display with which I am dealing.  Everyone would mourn with Madame Carnot, and rejoice in a subdued kind of way with the Duke and Duchess of York in the birth of their child, but it is to the sore-stricken poor of that Welsh valley, that the true hearts of this great nation will turn with its overwhelming sympathy.  For the lick-spittals of the press who have no ears for the cry of the poor widow and orphan, and who attempt to see in the birth of a child to the Duke and Duchess of York, an event of Divine significance to the nation, there can be nothing but contempt.  The life of one Welsh miner is of greater commercial and moral value to the British nation than the whole royal crowd put together, from the royal Great Grand-mama down to this puling royal Great Grand-child.'

What he wrote in the Labour Leader he did not fear to say boldly on the floor of the House of Commons in a speech opposing a motion moved by Sir William Harcourt (Hansard, June 28th 1894): -

Sir William Harcourt's motion read as follows: -

'That a humble address be presented to congratulate Her Majesty on the birth of a son to His Royal Highness the Duke and Her Royal Highness the Duchess of York'

Mr KEIR HARDIE - "Mr Speaker, on my behalf and those who I represent I am unable to join in this public address.  I owe no allegiance to any hereditary ruler (interruptions) and I will expect those who do to allow me the ordinary courtesies of debate.  The resolution, Sir, proposes to congratulate Her Majesty on the birth of a son to the Duke and Duchess of York.  It seeks to elevate to an importance which it does not deserve an event of daily occurrence.  I have been delighted to learn that the child is a fairly healthy one, and had I had the opportunity of meeting its parents I should have been pleased indeed to join in the ordinary congratulations of the occasion.  But when we are asked as a House of Commons representing the nation to join in the congratulations, then in the interests of the House I take leave to protest.

There is one aspect of this question which concerns the House of Commons.  A Minister of the Crown is required to be present on this interesting occasion.  I submit, Sir, that such a proceeding is not calculated to enhance the dignity of this House in the eyes of the nation.  (Interruption and a voice, "Rot.")  The hon. gentleman may say "Rot."  If this hon. gentleman mixed freely with the common people as I do, he would have known their opinions on this question.  Sir, that point of view demands that a protest of some kind should be made in this House.  It is a matter of small concern to me whether the future ruler of the nation be the genuine article or a spurious imitation.  Now, Sir, this proposal has been made because a child has been born into the royal family.  We have the right to ask what particular blessing the royal family has conferred upon the nation that we should be asked to take part in the proceedings today.  We have just heard it said that Her Majesty had ruled for over half a century.  I would correct that, Sir, by saying that Her Majesty has reigned but has not ruled.  I remember, in reading about the proceedings in connection with the Jubilee, that one point made was that during the fifty years of Her Majesty's reign the Queen had not interfered in the affairs of the nation.  That may be reigning, but it is certainly not ruling.

Then, there is the Prince of Wales.  What high dignity has his Royal Highness conferred upon the nation?

Colonel SANDERSON (Armagh) - I rise, Sir, for the purpose of moving that the hon. member be no longer heard.

Sir WM. HARCOURT - I hope that the hon. and gallant member will not press his motion.  I do not think it would tend to produce the result he desires and which I think we all desire - namely, the prevention of disorder.

Mr KEIR HARDIE - I was about to observe that I know nothing in the career of the Prince of Wales which commends him especially to me.  The "fierce white light" which we are told "beats around the throne" sometimes reveals things in his career it would be better to keep covered.  Sometimes we get glimpses of the Prince at the gaming tables, sometimes on the racecourse.  His Royal Highness is Duke of Cornwall, and as such he draws £60,000 a year from the Duchy property in London, which is made up of some of the vilest slums.  (Cries of "Question.")

Mr SPEAKER - The hon. member must keep to the terms of the resolution.

Mr KEIR HARDIE - I will bow to your ruling, Sir, and proceed to the subject of the resolution.  We are asked to rejoice because this child has been born, and that one day he will be called upon to rule over this great Empire.  Up to the present time we have no means of knowing what his qualifications or fitness for that task may be.  It certainly strikes me - I do not know how it strikes others - as rather strange that those who have so much to say about the hereditary element in another place should be so willing to endorse it in this particular instance.  It seems to me that if it is a good argument to say that the hereditary element is bad in one case, it is an equally good argument to say that it is bad in the other.  FROM HIS CHILDHOOD ONWARD THIS BOY WILL BE SURROUNDED BY SYCOPHANTS AND FLATTERERS BY THE SCORE (Cries of "Oh! oh!") and will be taught to believe himself as of a superior creation.  ("Oh!" oh!")  A line will be drawn between him and the people whom he is to be called upon some day to reign over.  In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour round the world, and probably rumours of a morganatic alliance will follow (Loud cries of "Oh!" "Order!" and "Question!"), and the end of it all will be that the country will be called upon to pay the bill.  (Cries of "Divide!")

As a matter of principle, I protest against this motion being passed, and if there is another member of the House who shares the principles I hold I will carry my protest the length of a division.  THE GOVERNMENT WILL NOT FIND AN OPPORTUNITY FOR A VOTE OF CONDOLENCE WITH THE RELATIVES OF THOSE WHO ARE LYING STIFF AND STARK IN A WELSH VALLEY, and, if that cannot be done, the motion before the House ought never to have been proposed either.  If it be for rank and title only that time and occasion can be found in this House, then the sooner that truth is known outside the better for the House itself.  I will challenge a division on the motion, and if the forms of the House will permit, I will go to a division in the hope that some members at least will enter their protest against the mummery implied in a resolution of this kind.

Mr SPEAKER - The question is that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty to congratulate Her Majesty on the birth of a son to his royal Highness the Duke and her royal Highness the Duchess of York.

The putting of the question was followed by loud cries of "Aye!" from all parts of the House.  Mr Keir Hardie alone replying in the negative.  Mr Speaker declared that "I think the Ayes have it," but Mr Keir Hardie challenged the statement.  The House was cleared for a division.  On Mr Speaker again putting the question Mr Keir Hardie repeated his negative, but did not again challenge Mr Speaker's words.  "The Ayes have it."

The Address was accordingly agreed to.'

A Chamber full of deplorable crawlers of no sensibility.  Only one principled man.

Keir Hardie remarks on diamond jubilee

'Even under a representative system of government it is possible to paralyse a nation by maintaining the fiction that a reigning family is a necessity of good government. Now, one of two things must be – either the British people are fit to govern themselves or they are not. If they are, an hereditary ruler who in legislation has more power than the whole nation is an insult. Despotism and monarchy are compatible; democracy and monarchy are an unthinkable connection.

If we are for the Queen we are not for her subjects. The throne represents the power of caste – class rule. Round the throne gather the unwholesome parasites who cling to the system which lends itself to their disordered condition. The toady who crawls through the mire of self-abasement to enable him to bask in the smile of royalty is the victim of a diseased organism. No healthy, well-developed people could for one moment tolerate an institution which belongs to the childhood of the race, and which in these latter days is the centre, if not the source, of the corrupting influences which constitute Society.

The great mind, the strong heart, the detestation of wrong, the love of truth whether in cot or palace will always command my respect. But to worship an empty form, to make pretence to believe a gilded mediocrity indispensable to the wellbeing of the nation – where is the man who will so far forget what is due to his manhood?

In this country loyalty to the Queen is used by the profit-mongers to blind the eyes of the people. We can have but one feeling in the matter – contempt for thrones and for all who bolster them up.'

Oath of Allegiance campaign

 

We have recently contacted Scottish ministers pressing that the Oath of Allegiance to Elizabeth I and her heirs and successors, sworn by MSPs prior to taking their seats at Holyrood as representatives of the people, be made voluntary rather than compulsory as soon as possible. As many MSPs and the First Minister state prior to taking the oath, their primary allegiance is to the Scottish people. We believe the oath sworn should refect that truth and an alternative oath should be drafted.

We’re asking that people contact their MSPs and press them politely on this issue. You can find out who your MSPs are here Find your MSPs  Currently some MSPs are members of Republic Scotland yet the first thing they must now do in a democratic Parliament to which they have been elected as representatives of the people is swear an oath they do not mean. That is a blight on the bud of Scottish democracy and must end.

We are calling for this now as the 320 year anniversary of the Glencoe massacre is on February 13th this year and this revolved around the clan Chief, MacIain, having been six days late in swearing an oath of allegiance to the king.

That day 13th February 1692 two companies of the Argyll regiment of the British Army were given an order signed by the king to massacre Scottish children in Glencoe. It was the orginal plan of the Secretrary of State, James Dalrymple Master of Stair who played a crucial role in the subsequent 1707 Treaty of Union, that all the clans be destroyed. ‘I hope the soldiers will not trouble the government with prisoners’ reads his letter to that effect. But they only had the excuse for the Macdonalds - the Chief had to make his way through blizzards and was an old man. He went to Inverlochy (renamed 'Fort William') and was told he had to sign at Inverary. But Glencoe was a public relations disaster as the soldiers had been guests of the Macdonalds for nearly two weeks prior to the massacre, unaware of the order to come, so the act was ‘murder under trust’. Of course they could not carry out their orders to the letter which were to ‘put all to the sword under seventy’that they ‘be cut off root and branch’and that MacIain’s ‘sons do upon no account escape your hands’. They used guns which alerted the whole glen. Many escaped including the Chief’s sons but 39 were murdered and died horribly including women and children and about the same number perished in the snow trying to flee.

The order is in the national Library of Scotland. (transcript below)

‘Sir,

You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebels, the Macdonalds of Glencoe, and to put all to the sword under seventy. You are to have a special care that the old fox and his sons do upon no account escape your hands. You are to secure all the avenues that no man escape. This you are to put into execution at five of the clock precisely; and by that time, or very shortly after it, I'll strive to be at you with a stronger party. If I do not come to you at five, you are not to tarry for me, but to fall on. This is by the King's special command, for the good and safety of the country, that these miscreants be cut off root and branch. See that this be put in execution without feud or favour, else you may expect to be dealt with as one not true to King nor Government, nor a man fit to carry Commission in the King's service. Expecting you will not fail in the fulfilling hereof, as you love yourself, I subscribe these with my hand at Ballachulish.

Feb 12, 1692

Robert Duncanson

For His Majesty's Service,

to Captain

Robert Campbell

of Glenlyon’

We say there should now be no forced oath of allegiance.  What kind of future do we want for Scotland?  Should it be one of reason, rights and common sense or should the first thing in the Parliament be a forced oppressive oath redolent of a tyranny that should be over?

This parcel of war criminals

 

Today's Scotsman contains an article which references the Master of Stair 'this most expert and effective advocate of the Union ' and orchestrator of it in 1707 who dropped dead a few days later after his drivel and iniquity. For some reason it fails to mention that for which he is even more infamous – he was one of the king's Scottish ministers found responsible by the inquiry into the order 'by the King's special command' in London to two companies of the Argyll regiment of the British army to massacre Scottish children at Glencoe. The king having signed the order shielded Stair from any punishment other than being dismissed from the Secretaryship of State. Of course the king slunk away unpunished.

Not just a parcel of rogues then, orchestrators of 'murder under trust', completely morally bankrupt, evil men.

And we're told there will be a king Charles and another king William. Really? 

Of course we have a king now, he's called David Cameron and he might have the tiniest of little minorities and have had to cook up a connivance with the LibDems but that's irrelevant once he is in Number 10 as then he has his shiny mitts on the royal prerogative and he now has more power in the confines of this country than Barack Obama has in America. He can take the country to war, write law, decree yachts, on his whim it stands. If there were a queen there she could do the same, and if there were a democratically elected governing body in the same city as she was, like say for instance a Greater London Council and she didn't like who the people of London had voted in she could simply say "I abolish you" and that would be that. And that's exactly what she did.  The royal prerogative might not actually be used to do things in every case but it can be used by the PM and by the Privy Council and lies behind the great power Prime Ministers have to see that their will is done.

So people of Scotland have given Alex Salmond an amazing democratic majority and David Cameron is coming at him with the autocratic, unaccountable, corrupting, dangerous, tyrannical, fundamentally evil power of a king. Westminster is a creaking ancient mess and so is the unwritten constitution full of pointless precedents and traditions, only those in the government have any power to do things and Cameron trumps all else. Half the government is unelected and so is the head of state. So quaint in a 21st century 'democracy' don't you find? So sick. Speaker John Bercow said to Paul Flynn MP when the latter was attempting to criticise Andrew Windsor's errors in judgement and boorish behaviour when representing the country as Trade Ambassador: "References to members of the Royal Family should be very rare, very sparing and very respectful. We have to be very careful in our handling of these matters."  How crawling.  How ridiculous. And the Speaker is all about the rules.

Scotland has a chance to escape this, to move into a new landscape where the people truly govern themselves. Only this will deactivate the SNP vast coalition with its one over-riding aim of independence, only then will Scottish politics breathe and move on. If we wait for more of the so benevolent 'giving' of powers that Cameron tries to kid us with as he 'gives' legal power (I give you the power to reform the cobweb-ridden half-baked joke that anachronistic Westminster 'democracy' is Cameron, get on with it, but you'd better be quick), where are the Crown estate and renewable energy powers Alex Salmond asked for with his huge mandate from the Scottish people?

Cameron and Westminster will give absolutely sweet FA powers to the people of Scotland, or England or anywhere else unless it's cooked up to the Westminster system's benefit. We must take those powers for ourselves. Absolutely all the way. Wake up, peoples of Britain.

'Born from Evil

the union, Jack
the butcher's apron'

Truth Must Out

It was a bad day for the monarchy when the Independent broke the story of palace attempts to gain access to money from the state poverty fund to pay their fuel bills. And for those in denial over this one - I have had a response from a monarchist just saying it’s not true - just remember the palace confirmed the story, it’s never been in any doubt whatsoever. This had been discovered through Freedom of Information requests which the palace has now been made exempt from, meaning that if this happened again we could not find out. A Republic spokesman was quoted on that day: “These documents are clear evidence of the contempt the Palace has for ordinary people in this country. We have our head of state demanding cash that has been set aside for low-income families, for the most vulnerable in our society.

“This sense of entitlement speaks volumes about the attitudes of the Windsors and their household. For them it’s all about take, take, take.” That was what most people felt. My partner when fuelling up at a garage that day was met by an enraged mechanic absolutely furious and outraged at the story and delighted to be shown a Republic membership card - the first he’d heard of it. The fact that the palace could even consider making such a request is astounding. While let’s remember when they were previously asked to by the government committee looking into their requests for more money they refused to open up the palace to the public for more days per year in order to be more self-sufficient, and they failed to deliver documents asked for by the same government committee. So they clearly feel they can do whatever they like, not what they’re asked to or for. A very similar response when Elizabeth decided to honour Andrew with one of the highest honours in her personal gift, after his associations with criminals, dictators, and a convicted paedophile came out, when the people, even government ministers were calling for him to be dropped from his position as Trade Ambassador - this was her considered response. And now despite having ‘stepped down’ from the position, there he is still flying off to Saudi Arabia on public money. Next year they’ll be trying hard to promote the monarchy as being all about a benign 85 year old woman. Do not be fooled. The monarchy is a vast, unaccountable institution comprised of many vested interests, the core family both complicit and sacrificial, and nothing about it is benign. This country is full of 85 year old women and they all deserve at least as much respect as Elizabeth Windsor, many of them rather more. Toadying, sycophancy, obsequious crawling behaviour to this institution and those who populate it is nothing short of a sickness.

We have to remember though, that the all-pervasive insidious nature of the institution means that many people are unconscious of its reality. The poverty fund story was a truth that got out and they’ve plugged that gap. We should publicise that truth loud and far and reiterate it, amongst others. We should concentrate on criticising the actions of the monarchy but to make it too much about the personalities involved is a counter-productive mistake - the perception could be that we’re criticising people when the truth is if we had a ‘royal’ family who were philanthropic, altruistic angels, well for one thing they would abolish themselves at that point, but we still wouldn’t want a monarchy because it’s not about them personally at all, they are to a greater or lesser extent puppets of the establishment and it’s the establishment which has to fall because it’s fundamentally wrong and damaging. There’s no point if we just get a new bunch - we don't want any, of any stripe, sex or religion. The most dignified and momentous thing that they could do now is to wait not upon the order of their going but to just bow to the advance of democracy in 2011, take up their sycophants, and go.

"You can't have Disneyland without Mickey Mouse."

One of the most common 'argument's 'for' the monarchy that we hear is this myth of the great tourism revenue the 'royal' family are purported to draw into the country. Even fairly intelligent people will trot out this commonly held belief as though it were some kind of unanswerable trump card. Embarrassing though this is as an argument for the basis of who a country's head of state should be, let's deal with it first as if it were a valid reason.

There is no actual basis in factual proof for this claim. Indeed quite the opposite would be the case, as the fact is that publicly owned palaces, castles and houses are being used as private residences by one family and they or their officials are blocking them being opened up to the public as a source of revenue. If this were not the case perhaps Buckingham Palace could be our Louvres displaying the 'royal' art collection, which is also owned by the public but which the public can currently see only 10% of (100,000+ items). But the situation now is that, although asked to by the previous government, the current custodians refuse to open up the palace more to even be self-sufficient, but come cap in hand to government asking for yet more money for its upkeep and fuel bills. source 

Also the 'royal' family are not themselves on display anywhere, so if any tourists did come here to view same, they're likely to be disappointed. Would you go to Norway, Denmark or Sweden to see their 'royal' families? Why do you think people would come here to see the Windsors? Despite the enormous hype surrounding 'royal' weddings Visit Britain's own data has shown tourists actually avoided this country in the periods surrounding them. link

But the crux of the matter is in fact "So what?" People are apparently wedded to this belief and the title of this blog was an 'argument' used on the radio by a monarchist who rang during a phone-in with Republic's Graham Smith. This crystallises the nonsense that this argument is. The land of Mickey Mouse does not have Mickey Mouse as head of state, it currently has Barack Obama and its head of state is accountable, removable and answerable to the people who elected him. We have a head of state chosen by accident of birth, who is none of these things, who is trundled about and whose speeches are scripted by others. We have the Mickey Mouse head of state, and it's embarrassing. Especially in 2011 when we go to war to 'bring democracy' to other countries, it looks extremely hypocritical when we ourselves can vote for less than half our government i.e. not for the House of Lords and not at all for our head of state.

With every new generation of 'royals' a claim of monarchic 'modernisation' is made - but nothing ever really changes. It's not in the interests of the people who take advantage of its unaccountability and secrecy, the anonymous officials who hide behind buildings "Buckingham Palace says" this and "Clarence House denies" that, who have access to millions in public money every year with opaque accountability - a system screaming out to be abused, where else would villains want to be? Neither is it in the interests of the politicians to change it as the dodgy deal done with monarchy centuries ago, before women could vote, before working men could vote, before any man who didn't own a certain amount of land could vote, hands the prime minister and privy council great powers - too much of the wrong kind of power. Not the accountable powers of elected representatives but the tyrannical powers of a monarch. This intolerable institution is suffocating for democracy, for the country and for the sacrificed human beings at its centre. "I'd rather have stayed in the navy, frankly." "Any bloody fool can lay a wreath at the thingammy." and what was Elizabeth's reaction when she saw that symbol of the great white hope for the monarchy and supposed tourist attraction, Kate's wedding dress display? "Horrid. Horrible. Creepy." Yes. It really is.