I find it bizarre that anyone would defend the monarchy at all, but calling the Queen an icon of any kind is just daft. She was born into a medieval institution that has no place in a democracy and which is entirely out of step with progressive ideals.

James gets it spot on at http://www.republic.org.uk/blog.

Perhaps HRH is closer to Jade Goody than a feminist icon

Hell, no!

Parvinder Singh:

“Not just the ’sons come first’ rule. Anyone who marries a Catholic automatically loses any claim to the throne as do ‘illegitimate’ children, ie. whose parents were not married.”

Yes, and I am going to write a second piece on the monarchy and religion, which deals with this.

“Rumbold, you recall Elizabeth I’s reign showing that women could be great leaders. I would add Queen Victoria – The Empress of India as well. And before people start calling me an imperialist, taking the cue from Python – What have the Romans ever done, sorry Brits ever do for India?.. they did build great buildings, road, train system and Parliamentary democracy, so there.”

Good point about Victoria. She was probably the greatest of all of our queens, but by that point it was accepted that a female could rule well. I will decline to comment on what Britain did for India, as it won’t end well.

“Whether we love or hate them, would miss if they didn’t exist. right?”

And like Bananabrain says, look at the alternatives.

Jess:

“But the problem is that introducing reform leads, I think fairly inevitably, into abolition.”

I don’t think that would be the case. The British monarchy has always proven itself willing to adapt, or else had reform thrust on it. Of course, sometimes it takes a bit of time (such as the fact that British monarchs continued to call themselves Kings/Queens of France until 1802, depsite losing their last piece of French territory in 1558).

Bananabrain – your logic seems to be: “If we abolish the monarchy, that would mean having a president. There are some bad people who have had the title ‘President’. Therefore, anyone called President must be a bad person.” Pretty weak.

Abolish it now!

chirac, anyone?
mugabe?
clinton?
dubya?
khamenei?
assad?
mubarak?
musharraf?

deary deary me. at least monarchy has something going for it. but yes, get rid of the gender rule.

b’shalom

bananabrain

But the problem is that introducing reform leads, I think fairly inevitably, into abolition. Once the concept receives any scrutiny whatsoever, well, the foundations crumble. Or perhaps I’m wrong, and reform of this kind – as I believe has already been undertaken in other EU countries – would save the monarchy from collapse?

I don’t know that Elizabeth has done anything much to qualify as a feminist icon!

Rumbold, you recall Elizabeth I’s reign showing that women could be great leaders. I would add Queen Victoria – The Empress of India as well. And before people start calling me an imperialist, taking the cue from Python – What have the Romans ever done, sorry Brits ever do for India?.. they did build great buildings, road, train system and Parliamentary democracy, so there.

The monarchy is a medieval institution, that’s obvious, but I fear if we got rid of them, a rich and at times uncomfortable history and tradition mixed with hypocrisy would go. And let’s not forget their infidelity (King Edward VII’s affair with Alice Keppel which produced Camilla’s Grandmother for one), the support for Hitler (Brownshirt Prince Charles Edward who became head of the German Red Cross when they were carrying out euthanasia on ‘undesirables’ and King Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson, lifelong supporters of Hilter, as well as Prince Phillip’s Nazi in-laws), the list goes on…

The ‘House of Windsor’ or should I say the ‘House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’, is a Germanic branch of European royality both from the Queen’s side and Prince Phillips’. Shame this didn’t prevent two world wars but alas, that’s pantomime. Whether we love or hate them, would miss if they didn’t exist. right?

An understatement if there ever was one. It will affect about 1 in 60,000,000 every 100 years or so. Thats incredibly small, so small that i imagine many people couldn’t be bovered to even contemplate which member of royalty misses out on the privilege of becoming the head of our so called democratic state.

Perhaps we should bring in a rule that the head of state should retire at 65 to collect his/her pension. If we get the ball rolling now it’ll come into place in about 5 years time and let the baton pass straight to Wills. Lolol.

Imagine how Charles and Camilla would feel. Di could have her revenge at last.