Unsurprisingly, I’m not a huge fan of her nibs. The glorification of wealth, hereditary privilege and power attained through her ancestors being better at committing and organising violence than their competitors sticks in my craw just a touch.
Having said that the constitutional monarchy is a neat legal fiction which enables the apparatus of the state such as the police, prisons and armed forces to be separated from the government of the day. Which is quite handy. Uprooting it all would be a hassle, there isn’t really a great consensus on what to replace it with and, gosh darn it, a lot of people think she’s doing a good job opening things and waving (which is all she should be able to do, lacking any democratic legitimacy as she does).
So, couple of options I’ve been thinking about for the inevitable day she no longer reigns over us:
1) Pick the next monarch by lottery. The current royal family are there because they won a lottery of birth. If we’re going to pick sovereigns by chance can we at least have a competition that’s open to everyone? Year of mourning, an NI number is picked out a hat and voila! Yer King/Queen. No passing it on to your kids, reduced civil list, couple of houses, set for life.
2) Keep the monarchy, lose the monarch. The Prime Minister would pick up what limited aspects of being Head of State that doesn’t currently reside in that office and is useful. But Charles isn’t King. Nothing changes politically as the monarch has no power that she can exercise – she neither warns nor advises the government of the day, if she refused assent to a Bill we’d have a full blown constitutional crisis. She doesn’t actually do anything. It’s a non-job. If we can’t just pick anyone to do it, and there are problems with option 1, let’s not have anyone do it.
It’ll be cheaper and doesn’t involve celebrating massive iniquity.
#1 by Duncan Hothersall (@dhothersall) on June 5, 2012 - 6:26 pm
The problem with option 1 is that the royals are trained for it and a random wouldn’t be. Maybe we could finesse that option by making it a bit more Tibetan – random choice is made every X years from the babies born that year, child is seized from its parents and thrown into a life of luxurious slavery until it is needed, and then becomes monarch. No?
#2 by Aidan on June 5, 2012 - 6:34 pm
I’m not sure what they actually need to be trained for? Waving isn’t that hard is it?
The Tibetan idea is attractive but I’m not sure how I feel about the removal of agency over their life. OTOH, how much agency do most of us really have anyway? *goes off to ponder his life in a deterministic universe naval*
#3 by No_Offence_Alan on June 5, 2012 - 7:09 pm
Well being a non-job is the point, isn’t it. No foreign leader is going to complain about the PM being busy and having to see the Queen instead.
Just regard the royal family as live-in caretakers of some historic stately homes.
#4 by Indy on June 5, 2012 - 8:42 pm
You say the Queen doesn’t actually do anything but that is not true. She may not do MUCH but she does some stuff and so do the rest of her family. Ceremonial stuff, meeting dignitaries, opening things etc.
I think senior government ministers should do as little of that sort of thing as possible. It is just not a good use of their time to be hanging about shaking hands and making small talk.
So if we are going to replace the monarchy – and remember it is a whole monarchy not just the Queen herself or King – then we need to replace it with something or someone capable of doing the same job.
Clearly in this case it matters whether we are talking about the role of the monarchy or an elected head of state in the context of an independent Scotland or in the context of the UK. Because obviously Scotland is smaller and there would therefore be less for a monarch/president to do than in the UK.
But even in the context of an independent Scotland I don’t think you could just say oh the First Minister or Deputy First Minister can just carry out the functions of the monarch. You do need a person to do the job as their job, not just an add-on.
If we go for an elected head of state I think it would be important that the person is not a divisive or particularly political figure. I’m not saying it can’t be an ex-politician but would need to be someone who was universally respected. And willing to do the job.
It really wouldn’t be a stroll in the park to get that right. How would you stop someone like Tommy Sheridan going for the job? Or even, God help us, George Galloway? I’m not suggesting those two would actually go for it but people of that ilk. Running for president would give someone a platform and how can you control what they use that platform for? You really can’t because it would be pretty undemocratic.
It does need thinking about.
#5 by Iain Menzies on June 5, 2012 - 10:13 pm
I was with you right up until the last line.
It doesn’t need thinking about any more, it works.
But since you said it i have thought about it (for all of 10 seconds) In the UK setting we do nothing, like i said it works.
In the case of a potential independent scotland we do a canada. Keep the Queen as de facto head of state but appoint a governor general type figure, tho possibly titled something else, as the de jure head of state. Guardian of Scotland possibly?
#6 by richard on June 6, 2012 - 1:29 am
A Chancellor, like we had from 1603 to 1707; the Presiding Officer/Speaker of Parliament, who takes over the monarch’s duties in his/her absence.
#7 by Topher Dawson on June 5, 2012 - 10:04 pm
The monarch takes care of a lot of ceremonial stuff which would otherwise waste the time of the Prime Minister who is actually getting on with running the country. Think how much of Obama’s time is wasted being a figurehead.
Occasionally the monarch can hold a country together between governments, as in King Juan Carlos of Spain when Franco died. They might have fallen into another nasty military junta.
When Her Maj joins the great throne room in the sky and Scotland is independent, perhaps we should privatise the monarchy, with fixed term 10 year contracts. We could invite tenders from the houses of Stuart (Michael of Albany), Romanoff, Windsor, Connery, Connolly. It is after all what England has done a couple of times, inviting in outsiders to reign when the incumbent was insufficiently fertile.
Or maybe we’ll want to be a republic, and elect a president. If so I hope we go for a Mary Robinson type of figure. We don’t have to stay with the Windsors if we don’t want to.
#8 by BM on June 6, 2012 - 7:29 am
Why not have both a President and a monarchy? The President can take over the more executive powers the Queen currently has (separation of powers and all that being important, they shouldn’t just go to the Prime Minister) and the Monarch can retain the purely ceremonial stuff (riding around in a golden carriage, owning all the swans, spreading cake).
#9 by Aidan on June 6, 2012 - 10:46 am
the Queen doesn’t have any executive powers these days, they’re all exercised by the PM.
#10 by Grahamski on June 6, 2012 - 8:24 am
Obviously in the 21st century it’s ridiculous to have our head of state determined by who their mammy is.
‘The Voice’ was such a huge hit that it seems the fairest way to select our head of state is to make a similar show called ‘The Sovereign’.
I’m quite happy to have Tom Jones, Will.I.am, Jessie J and that Irish guy nobody’s ever heard of decide who should give it the pomp and circumstance on our behalf….
#11 by rullko on June 6, 2012 - 10:01 am
Yes to the lottery suggestion. The Lords should use the same system.
#12 by Tattie Scones on June 7, 2012 - 5:32 pm
There is a third way to look at
http://www.tattie-scones.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/why-queen-is-worst-of-both-worlds.html