The Guardian chose this image to mark the close of the Platinum Jubilee events:
Please forgive my cynicism, but I think that the staging of this photo was what this whole event was about. The Queen wanted it to be seen that there was a succession and that the eugenic supremacy of the House of Windsor is assured until maybe the end of the century. The message was simply 'we are still in charge'.
Oddly, the desperation implicit in that message was best expressed by Joanna Lumley in an interview I saw yesterday. She was frantic for the message in this photo to be believed, but fearful that change was coming and that conflict and division would result. Quite incredibly she said we'd look back at this as a golden time. Implicitly she predicted the nation was ready to ditch the monarchy, and she clearly felt, the establishment that went with it.
Maybe the Queen senses that too. I suspect both may be right. This old order and the privilege implicit in it and the endorsement for past abuse that it still provides has no place in the 21st century.
I wish no harm at all to those in the House of Windsor. I wish that the system that they head be gone. This country needs to move on.
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A word of warning to the wise.
We know that we have a ‘deep state’ here in this country. However, it is not made up of ultra lefties and Trots or Marxists the Daily Mail et al scream about daily.
Rather it is the enduring institutions of wealth and privilege that acts as a deep state ‘permafrost’ in this country ensuring that our social strata will stay the same for generations to come.
The Windsors might very well on the way out, but there will be others who will step into the gaps left behind – the whole confection will be either reinvented or re-hashed.
All in the name of ‘restoring the natural order of things’ of course for out back seat rulers.
The Guardian chose the correct image. The country* is preparing to move on and the image captures how that will happen. This weekend illustrated again, not that it was needed, that the monarchy continues to occupy an important place in 21C Britain and how it is adapting to the changing expectations of those it serves (so well). The phrase “soft power of the monarchy” which was repeated often yesterday was very apt.
* even some Scots chose to join in 😉
Maybe you missed the National’s front cover stories this weekend
Just so reassuring and comforting to know that Kings Charles II, William V and George VII are ready to rule over us for the rest of the century. We would l be terrified to face a future without them – just think how awful it would be to have to think about how we might govern ourselves.
Marie Antionette didn’t see it coming either.
I would suggest that the flight to Varennes shows that Marie Antionette very much did see the need to escape from Paris to somewhere safer. For all her faults, she has been much traduced.
Be careful what you wish for – the French revolution quickly turned to a reign of terror with thousands executed, and ultimately the rise of Napoleon and his wars across Europe for 20 years, followed by conservative stasis for another three decades, and then the revolutions of 1848 led to a second Napoleonic empire, ended by another European war.
I understand the strength of feeling, but the violent rhetoric on display elsewhere here is not at all helpful. Politicians may be right, they may be wrong, but in the main I think most politicians are trying to do their best to improve people’s lives. We can condemn the government’s failures, and we can certainly talk about electoral or constitutional reform, without tarring them all as “scum”.
I would agree
I said I wish no harm to anyone in the Windsor family for very good reason
My comment referred to ‘let them eat cake’ which certainly did show that until the balloon went up Marie Antoinette was as insulated and complacent as many of her current British equivalents. She could hardly have failed to notice the danger by the time of Varrenes.
Most Tory politicians are certainly not ‘doing their best to improve people’s lives’ and the strength of feeling against them is based on the fact that there appears to be no democratic route out of the wholesale failure of the British state and even if there was there was there is no-one that sensible people would elect to tackle that.
By all accounts, Marie Antoinette would not flee without Louis XVI and spent some considerable time – weeks, months – persuading him of the danger.
“Let them eat cake” is one of the usual libels. There is no record that she ever said it. Rousseau wrote in the 1760s about a “grande Princesse” saying something similar, years before she even came to France, and the words were first put in her mouth in the 1840s. Unlike the other xenophobic or misogynist libels, such as incest, it was not thrown at her during the revolution.
She was not blameless – she led an insulated, wealthy, aristocratic life, and she certainly held back reforms that may have saved the French monarchy – but she is not the fount of all evil as she has been portrayed.
As with many historical figures, the public perception and the reality lie far apart.
I tend to regard Joanna Lumley as an establishment figure, so the report of her interview is fascinating, is that what those in power might be thinking?
Who knows?
Lumley is another Project Fear avatar for the gilded back-seat drivers who actually run this country – they’re really pushing the boat out now.
I think that there will be an orderly transfer of power to be honest – they seem to be in the throes of getting rid of Johnson whose value to them has gone up only insofar as they can now blame him for everything negative and be seen to ‘coming to their senses’ and getting rid asap.
Johnson may well be being turned into the sacrificial piglet. Some of us will get some satisfaction from that. But once he has gone, who gets the blame – who is accountable?
Then we will be expected to get behind the new person and go on as before no doubt – he and his crimes will be written into history by his replacements just like any good cod-communist would do.
There will be a short period of ‘stock-taking’ and hand wringing and then the daylight robbery of our state can once more proceed orchestrated from City of London Corporation.
Charles will receive a bung in order to shut him up (or at least be reminded where his money comes from by the Back Seat Drivers) and that will be that until William comes in.
Of course all of this might not come to pass after 20:00 as the now interim PM – Graham Brady (in another slight to democracy) is now calling the shots.
Whatever messages Kier Starmer has been sending to the Back Seat Drivers have not been getting through this time. Because this time the BSD are going in for the kill. They want it all.
But let’s be clear eh and be honest for once? There are lots of ‘ocracies’ out there describing the failings of democracy but I think the best one summing ours up is, it’s a:
‘Crap-tocracy’ – utter crap, nothing but a figment of our imagination, an apparition, a lie, big fat lie perpetrated on us by rich vested perennial interests dug in like ticks who have always been there since the days of old.
Or how about the ‘Had-ocracy’ because believe you me, we’ve all been had – big time.
Fauxtocracy has a ring to it.
“we’d look back at this as a golden time”
125,000 dead due to austerity
250,000 dead due to covid
failing state & failing institutions
all avoidable
Lumley might have been better keeping her trap shut – that way we would still be guessing how dumb she really is (or how insulated from reality).
I pity the two children in the picture.
What ocracy?
Scumocracy sums it up for me, ie rule Of, By and For the scum that somehow always manage to float to the top.
The reason we don’t have democracy (Of, By and For the people) is simply that, despite 11 reform acts, the political system is still run by parties, who only pretend to represent people but in reality, whether Tory A, Tory B or Tory C teams, only ever represent themselves and their paymasters.
And of course it’s all cemented in place with FPTP (a.k.a F***ing Politicians Taking the Piss).
What is less talked about is that the monarchy has failed in one of its implicit if not explicit roles. If I’ve interpreted it correctly, it is to intervene when there is a leader and government that are, to put it broadly, ‘breaking the rules’. Others have pointed out the example of an Australian PM being forced out by the Queen’s representative for far lesser ‘offences’.
Not much point in having a constitutional monarchy if they do not defend that constitution, whether written or unwritten.
I agree with that Robin which is why I wrote a scathing letter of admonishment to Elizabeth I at the time of the proroguing of Parliament asking her how an earth she could just sign something like that when it was just going to harm so many of the people who actually supported her.
The reason was of course was that none of her family were going to be as severely affected by BREXIT or austerity as her subjects. The Windsors would be taken care of because of her lack of curiosity.
And now we know why we do not have a written constitution: because it allows the Establishment to take whatever executive action they need in defence or advancement of their rather untouchable position.
The whole issue about our democracy is hoax.
Did you ever get a response from her office?
Edward
I told her that I was not going to give her my name because of my fear of retribution at the hands of her (shall we say) more enthusiastic supporters?
But I made it very plain that she should abdicate forthwith for signing and sealing the prorogation as she was effectively the last person standing in the name of democracy.
The tone was respectful but I pulled no punches on my conclusions – she was a decent person who had allowed herself to be badly used and in doing so had let down her subjects, many of whom whose lives were going to get worse – and haven’t they?
When though was the last time a Monarch said ‘No’ and what might have been the consequences if The Queen – or Charles III did?
As far as I can see its been about a Century since The Monarchy had any real involvement in UK Politics
As very little innovative progressive change has occured during ER2s reign we surely need to ask how much influence the monarchy has.
A constitutional monarchy does not preclude a happier socialist society. I would prefer to elect my sovereign, unlike the House of Lords. And I want to see the crown’s lands used toward social housing on a large scale
James
A lot of Crown lands are in very picturesque places.
The biggest policy failure in this country is the non-remediation and use of brown field sites for social housing building in many of our inner cities.
What I see in my rural area is lots of farmers selling land for executive home building plots – something dark and sinister is happening in farming as a result of BREXIT.
The Tories – with their centre dictated housing need stats have effectively broken the planning system by over loading housing need on authorities to the point where they have artificially created a crisis which means that planning officers will have no option but to err on the side of housing in their planning decisions when it comes to the green belt.
It’s typical Tory subterfuge – its how to ‘get things done’ without going back to Parliament and changing the law. The Tory party is no respecter of laws – as we know – except the law of the jungle.