Brenda's Wealth Shock

[pebblethefish]

When I was about eight, I told my parents that I wanted to be a queen when I grew up, reasoning that all the sitting around and waving looked pretty easy. When they'd picked themselves up off the floor from laughing, they explained the other definition of queen.

[Patrick Thistle]

The tourism angle is proven because nobody ever visits Paris ever since they guillotined their royals, do they?

[Lang Spoon]

The Louvre is famously empty.

[ad hoc]

Not to mention the Palace of Versailles

[ad hoc]

See also the Imperial City in Vienna, Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, and the Winter Palace in St Petersburg

[Lang Spoon]

I'd love for Holyrood Palace to be an art gallery instead of somewhere the fuckers park themselves for a week or two in summer before fucking off to kill animals and patronise peasants at Balmoral.

[Antepli Ejderha]

See also the Imperial City in Vienna, Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, and the Winter Palace in St Petersburg

When Atat?rk abolished the Sultanate all the wealth went to the treasury along with the buildings.

Topkapı and Dolmabah?e being the most famous of many palaces.

The wealth that could come to the UK if they abolished the monarchy would be like the North Sea oil dividend, think how much money could be slashed off income tax. The Tories would love it.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Disestablish the church while we're at it and don't let them pull the shit they did when Wales tried to disestablish.

[Duncan Gardner]

Find monarchism utterly confusing like i've never really understood why anyone would be in favour of it...[or] their insistence that they're "good for tourism"

Apart from the soap opera aspect, Brenda's own longevity is important. Charles (probably) won't have that regardless of how popular or respected he is or becomes.

Rather than sneer at the public for being thick shouldn't we encourage them to be better informed? Not that Parisian or Viennese tourism is likely to be the best place to start...

My late mother became more royalist later in life. I used to remind her of past cynicism, inherited by me. We watched the PR puff film from 1970 at primary school. My brother was delighted that fellow 6 year old Prince Edward had the same jumper. "Who's she kidding, dressing him at M&S?" sniffed Ma

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Agreed. Entirely baffling. But there's all sorts of other horrific boot-licking that goes on that I find equally baffling.

The older I get, the more I find the House of Lords baffling. I've just tried to look up whether any other countries have an completely* non-elected house, and it appears it is limited to the Cook Islands, Canada, Somaliland and Lesotho. Three of those are wholly or mainly for tribal representation purposes, and Canada's is limited to 105 members, meaning "ours" is the only one which serves as a paid retirement home for former MPs, and/or a vanity project for celebrities. Of course we too have a tribal representation aspect with the permanent presence of the bishops.

The 1997 Labour government should have abolished it when it had the opportunity, motive and means, instead of sending it into consultation purgatory, but then the 1997 Labour government should have done a lot of things.

*Malaysia and Zimbabwe have part elected / part nominated houses.

[ursus arctos]

The German Bundesrat is technically non-elected, but is much more subject to democratic processes and pressure than the Lords (it is also an unusual upper house in other ways)

The composition of the Bundesrat is different from other similar legislative bodies representing states (such as the Russian Federation Council or the U.S. Senate). Bundesrat members are not elected—either by popular vote or by the state parliaments—but are delegated by the respective state government. They do not enjoy a free mandate and serve only as long as they are representing their state, not for a fixed period of time.

Normally, a state delegation consists of the Minister President (called Governing Mayor in Berlin, President of the Senate in Bremen and First Mayor in Hamburg) and other cabinet ministers (called senators in Berlin, Bremen and Hamburg). The state cabinet may appoint as many delegates as the state has votes (all other ministers/senators are usually appointed as deputy delegates), but may also send just a single delegate to exercise all of the state's votes. In any case, the state has to cast its votes en bloc, i.e., without vote splitting. As state elections are not coordinated across Germany and can occur at any time, the majority distributions in the Bundesrat can change after any such election.

The number of votes a state is allocated is based on a form of degressive proportionality according to its population. This way, smaller states have more votes than a distribution proportional to the population would grant. The allocation of votes is regulated by the German constitution (Grundgesetz).^[5] All of a state's votes are cast en bloc—either for or against or in abstention of a proposal. Each state is allocated at least three votes, and a maximum of six. States with more than

• 2 million inhabitants have 4 votes,
• 6 million inhabitants have 5 votes,
• 7 million inhabitants have 6 votes.

It is notable that pre-WWII had a House of Lords (called the House of Peers in translation).

Its dissolution was one of the principal elements of the occupation authorities' new Constitution

[Lang Spoon]

The franchise of the Irish Seanad is limited to posho graduates like Berba, and fuckin thick as brick corrupt councillors. Panels voted in by councillors are supposedly linked to sectors of the economy in some Corporatist nonsense like a fuckin Salazar/Pius XI wet dream (in practise usually party hacks young or old (apart from the Uni candidates) pretending to "represent" say Agriculture). Plus the Taoiseach gets a load of nominations to pacify party has beens who've lost their Dail seat.

It's not as bad as the House of Lords shit show, but it is pretty embarrassing as second chambers go.

[elguapo4]

Fine Gael offered a referendum to get rid of the Seanad, but people would rather give two fingers to Enda Kenny than vote for it.

[Lang Spoon]

Yeah and to be fair to vote for abolition you had to trust that glad handing wandering hands bastard that he'd reform the Dail and Committee system enough to provide oversight against an executive that loves to model its power and majesty on the Westminster lads and beat the Dail chamber into submission without proper debate (Except all whipped votes are three line whips, pathetically).

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Rather than sneer at the public for being thick shouldn't we encourage them to be better informed? Not that Parisian or Viennese tourism is likely to be the best place to start...

I'm not sneering at anything. I'm just genuinely don't understand them. For me the polar points are "we should guillotine the fuckers this afternoon" to "well obviously we should get rid but there's more important things to worry about". Actually liking a hereditary aristocracy doesn't feel like an opinion people would actually have outside of like the middle ages when it was dogma that the monarch was ordained by god.

[Duncan Gardner]

Bizarre Löw Triangle apologies. I didn't mean that as a criticism of others, more my own frustration after every unsuccessful election. My detailed plan for political reform trails with 2% while the dead-eyed Tory romps in with 71%

I think the dogma you mentioned still exists, believe or not. Millions continue to insist that Brenda's great-great granda shagging Nell Gwynne or Lily Langtry confers eternal right to rule...

Some light relief with a quiz about Seanad Eireann. My Ma went out briefly as a teenager with a future senator. The other Irish readers should be able to guess

It didn't work out- in later life she dismissed him as a 'blurt' (twat)

[Sporting]

Actually liking a hereditary aristocracy doesn't feel like an opinion people would actually have outside of like the middle ages when it was dogma that the monarch was ordained by god.

My mother was born in the middle ages. Well, actually in 1935 but she was one of these die-hard monarchists who we can sneer about. She thought the Queen was dignity and class and education rolled into one ideal human being.

She was wrong but there were and her many like her. And she was a good person - I don't say this because she was my mum because I have a radically different point of view about my father. She brought me up to be polite and respectful to everyone and I can only think that her outdated views were a product of being middle-class, white and relatively well-to-do.

Wrong she was, bigot she wasn't, and as I said there were many like her, perhaps deceived by current thinking of the time, as many are similarly taken in today. To be better informed is the answer, not sneering.

[Lang Spoon]

Duncan Gardner, Ian Marshall or Mr McAleese?

[elguapo4]

David Norris?

[Balderdasha]

I also know younger people who are slightly in awe of the monarchy. To me, it seems to be similar to holding certain "celebrities" in great esteem. I can just about understand admiring someone who has a clear talent / skill they've developed through hard work, like say Freddie Mercury or David Bowie, but I don't understand people idolising individuals purely for their fame, like Kim Kardashian.

I know young women who identify quite strongly with Kate Middleton, and admire her style / elegance / wholesome version of motherhood, and it taps into a Disney-instilled latent desire to become a "Princess".

Personally, I have a bit of an absence when it comes to admiring fame or power or hierarchy. It often gets me into trouble at work. As I get older, I've had to learn that there are some questions I probably shouldn't ask my "superiors" (e.g. in my twenties I once grilled an American CEO about the lack of Union membership in his firm).

[Duncan Gardner]

Sorry lads, all wrong. The amorous future senator was Sam McAughtry

[laverte]

Can i say how much i'm enjoying Angry Gardner on this topic? Normally you seem so laid-back, it's a pleasure to see you go the whole Hulk, and on such a deserving target.

i'm at the uninterested extremity of BLT's spectrum. i make a bit of a point of not knowing anything about the individual royals and ignoring the narratives that concern them, as far as is possible. i don't think i'd recognise Kate or Meghan outwith a princessy context. It's funny, though, the extent to which i'm expected to have an opinion of them, especially when i'm outside of the UK. Certain French people wouldn't accept that i have any authority to talk about, say, English football, but don't quite believe me when i say they know more about the royal family than i do:

– What do English people think of Meghan?
– i don't know, i don't talk to them about the subject.
– It's awful isn't it, the way she's been treated by the queen?
– i haven't followed it.
– So you're a republican then? Off with their heads, eh?
– i don't really have a position on that.

(That makes me sound like my dad!)

On the subject of sneering: this interests me much more than royalty. As a reproach it has successfully attached itself to "middle class liberals". It feels like it can now be made to cover any expression of incomprehension at or opposition to a contrary political position, so long as that position is held sincerely by someone with cultural 'authenticity', especially older people and white working-class people. i'm also trying to think here about who does not sneer: whose concerns are legitimate, even when they are damaging or inexplicable. We still tend to romanticise 'gut feelings' and overlook the mental, political effort that goes into propping them up.

[Duncan Gardner]

laverte merci Madame I'll admit to have been riffing on this theme since getting my first yellow card at school in 1974. Calling for abolition was unusual then as now, not to mention ungrateful- we got a day off for Anne's wedding, for which my granny got her first color TV to allow me to enjoy MOTD, TOTP etc

[Eggchaser]

A question I occasionally ponder is how long will the House of Windsor remain on the throne? To all intents and purposes we are approaching 200 years since Victoria climbed up there, and we still have the family going strong.

English and then British Royal dynasties have generally ended because there are no more heirs, which was far more common in the past when women weren't in line, royalty fought and died in battle or were done in by rivals, disease carried off heirs with regularity or in a few cases were probably too disinterested in in the opposite sex (or perhaps any sex) to do their duty and produce an heir. That's just not the case now.

[WOM]

My guess is that it will be dismantled peacefully from within. After the Queen dies, and after Charles dies, William will see the writing on the wall and proactively dismantle the whole thing, ceding the properties to the state while keeping a massive amount of wealth for him and his heirs. Bookmark this page and we'll revisit my prediction in 30 years.