What appears after this brief introduction was written earlier this afternoon. Since I wrote, The Queen has died. Whatever I think of the institution of The Monarchy in British political life, I am conscious that a woman had died and that her family is mourning her loss. I do extend my sympathy to them, as I would to anyone experiencing the death of a close family member.
My one slip from grace in my slavish following of The Guardian newspaper, was when the Independent informed readers that it would NOT print ‘royal’ news, the tittle tattle of various parasitic members of the House of Wettin, that used to (and still does) drive me to impotent fury. Perhaps I am deluded in thinking that there was ever a proper broadsheet (in the days when the Indie was a broadsheet) that would dare not report the most trivial of non-escapades of the various princes, dukes, and other hangers-on.
However, The Queen is not just a relic of an outmoded and undemocratic from of government, she is also the Head of State, and as such she has an importance because of her role, that little in her life has justified her for. Whether I like it or not (and you can tell that I don’t) The Queen has an importance in our national life, and she is generally liked and admired.
It is clear that her health has worsened, and members of the royal family have journeyed to Scotland to be with her. She is a very old woman, and there must be an expectation that her life is coming to an end. It must have been disconcerting, to say the least, if The Queen read the newspapers and watched social media to see the amount of informed speculation that has centred on her demise and how it would be handled. We even know the code phrase that will be used to indicate her death, “London Bridge is down!” And if she dies in Scotland, then “Operation Unicorn” will swing into operation which will deal with the movement of her body from wherever she dies to London.
Of course, not only the details of what happens to her body and what ceremonial will be associated with its burial has been widely discussed, there is also the question of the succession as the crown passes to Charles III or George the whatever if he decides that to be called King Charles brings up too many memories of the people decapitating the king who was the first of that name.
There again there is the character of the heir apparent: his unfaithfulness to his late wife; his meddling in affairs of state; his reactionary views; his general unpopularity. The Queen has been a positive but anodyne figurehead, doing what has laughingly been described as her duty, wearing various hats, and waving to crowds. She is revered because she has been around for a long time, and unlike so many of her relatives she has managed to maintain a low profile of well-behaved, unreachable, otherness. Her ‘act’ will be a very difficult one to follow, and Charles (or George) has not shown himself prepared to accept the publicly (and possibly privately) undemonstrative quiescence that has marked her reign.
Charles has ideas, and is not backward in making them known, as the ‘spider letters’
eventually made public by reporting and efforts by The Guardian highlighted. I find it difficult to imagine the new King Charles (or George) taking a back seat and allowing the elected (ELECTED) representatives of the people to go about their work without his interference. If he does meddle, then he risks upsetting the delicate series of compromises that allow such a grotesque form of archaic deciding on the head of state in a so-called civilized and developed country.
Primogeniture to decide a head of state is an absurdity, and perhaps if Charles (or George) can’t restrain himself from taking a more overt role in government than his mother did, then he could preside over the end of the institution.
Already the whole edifice is wonky, with the car-crash interview of Andrew merely the latest in a series of scandals that illustrate with glaring obviousness the unsuitability of this family or any family to ‘rule’ a country for generation after generation merely because they happen to be one particular family.
What follows is written on the evening of the 8th of September as I have escaped from the frankly ridiculous hagiography about the life of somebody who appears to have been a rather ordinary person placed in extraordinary circumstances by the actions of a randy duty-denying uncle.
I tried to listen to Truss giving some absurd puff to the late Queen, by saying, “she was the rock on which modern Britain was built” but listening further to her nasal, monotonous whine was way beyond my patience and I turned her off.
I fear that I am going to have to do a great deal of turning off in the coming days, as history is re-written, being seen through the twisted bi-focals of boosting a fairly empty figurehead into a dynamic force for good.
Given the embarrassingly gushing coverage of the Queen Mother’s life when she finally died and the humiliating lines of people waiting to see her coffin, I dread to think what repetitious garbage we are going to be forced to accept as ‘reportage’ and ‘fact’ given that the Queen was around for 70 years, meeting and chatting with the great and the good – and indeed in many cases, the clearly not so good. And doing what? What did the Queen actually do during her reign?
It is a fair point to make that, given the way the relationship of the Crown with the elected parliament works, if she had actually tried to do something substantive, then there could easily have been a constitutional crisis. There are clear (or at least clearish) limits to the power of the monarch. In theory the power is enormous, s/he is head of state, head of the armed forces, justice is administered in his/her name, s/he is head of the established Church of England, and so on. But if the monarch dared to exercise those powers, then the state would descend on the crown and force an abdication.
The monarch can wield a sort of soft power and, behind the scenes, according to the reporting of newspapers like The Guardian, direct power on laws so that sections related to the interests of the royal house can be excised, or obligations erased. But mostly the monarch can try and influence - after all, s/he has the direct ear of the prime minister, and she has a council of privy counsellors to keep her informed. But to be that near the levers of power and being unable to press them must be frustrating, and it takes a certain type of personality to be able to be placid and allow things to happen when, in theory you are the one who could make a difference.
We are now going to have to go through the unfolding process of a state funeral, followed by a coronation. Truss must be thanking her lucky stars that not only will she have two massive ‘Bread & Circuses” events to keep the people thinking of something other than their parlous financial states, but also, she will be in the foreground, mixing with the royal family and the Grand Gathering of the Clans of presidents, prime ministers, royals, and other VIPs to bolster up her image. Johnson must be foaming at the mouth thinking that he has been effectively side-lined on an occasion when he could have inflated himself to an absurd extent.
And how much is all this going to cost? At a time when people are frightened about the coming winter because they will not be able to afford to heat themselves and eat, how can we possibly justify the millions that will be spent on what is going to be a couple of tasteless jamborees?
My plan would be for the power, electricity, gas, water companies to fund it all out of their obscene windfall profits. It would only (!) cost umpteen million to back the funeral and coronation and that would be a midge bite to the billions that they have made by doing nothing – and just think how those saps laying wreaths and feeling a personal loss over a person who has barely acknowledged their existence would feel. As usual, those suffering and taxed the most, would doff their caps and thank those who exploit them.
You could always argue that at times of national desperation the one thing that is needed is some sort of distraction – and who doesn’t like a good funeral, and we do them so well. And what better for a government that believes in unicorns, to have the fairy tale splendour of gilt coaches, jewelled crowns, robes, lords, choirs, and troops to keep the people happy. I wouldn’t put it past this Tory government to give each primary school child a coronation mug and a day off, rather than ensure that they are properly fed.
I hope that the Queen’s death gives the British people an opportunity to re-assess the value of a royal family, with the eldest child of one particular family becoming the king and head of state.
It is time to bury the Queen with due dignity. And it is also time for us to bury the whole institution.
Let Queen Elizabeth II, be the last of her house and her line.
