Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, has announced his retirement at the age of 95. I don’t quite see the point of retiring from a job as a figurehead, but I guess even Walmart greeters can expect to see some time off, so good for him. The BBC did report on it, and made this statement that made me laugh:
He is famed for off-the-cuff remarks he has made at royal engagements around the world over the years.
Yes, I suppose you could say that.
One down. So when are y’all getting rid of the rest of the royal family?
Thems fighting words .Just kidding ,can’t stand the bloke ,i wish some one at the receiving end of one of his off the cuff
remarks had told him to f *** off .
Never. They will never get rid of the royal family. It’s far too useful to have around. Having a separate Head of State who is officially non-partisan (and for the most part even apolitical) when it comes to politics has been very handy for the British over the decades. And they can look at our system – where the head of state and the head of government are the same person and elected in a highly partisan manner – or other systems – where the head of state and the head of government are different people, but are still elected in a highly partisan manner – and can see the trouble both of those systems cause.
I’m reflexively anti-monarchist, but there’s something to be said for separating the duty of “representing the nation as a symbolic figurehead” out from the duty of “running the government”. I don’t think a monarchy is a good idea to keep lying around like a loaded weapon waiting to go off, but I’m not sure that electing your symbolic figurehead provides better outcomes than Britain has gotten (at least out of Elizabeth II – it may be that once she passes it becomes very apparent that the benefits were really about her and not from their system of selecting symbolic figureheads at all.)
I don’t know, but not in my lifetime, and I doubt in the lifetime of yesterday’s newborn infants. The amount of fawning over that decrepit institution that goes on, both over ‘ome and here in the colonies, is utterly appalling.
You Americans don’t have much over us, politically speaking, but you do at least have the absence of “divine right” in your political system to be thankful for.
(Not sure about “never”, though – demographic changes, hard though the current political powers-that-be are fighting against them – are not on the monarchy’s side. I suspect someday the whole thing will wither away to such an irrelevance that no-one will believe it justifies a line-item in the budget any more. Of course, they’ll always be Buck House and the Coldstream Guards and so on – tourism’s a big money-maker.)
Of course, it we did do away with the Royal family we would then require a President for our Head of State. How’s that working out for you?
You don’t need a monarchy to have that. And even if you retain a monarchy, you don’t need to give them a constitutional role, nor do you need to give them vast amounts of public money.
Those are not the only options. Plenty of nations have non-executive heads of state who function as purely symbolic figureheads. Although I’m not entirely sure why you need one…
Given his penchant for playing politics, I think Charles is likely to cause a constitutional crisis within a year of taking the throne.
The best thing for the Firm would be if they skip out Charles and pass directly to William. (This is unlikely unless Charles dies before his mother, admittedly.)
Some random thoughts:
Did he receive any kind of salary for figureheading?
What does a retired figurehead pull down in his pension?
I wonder what he’ll have to pay for his medical now.
I was quite puzzled by this. What does it mean for a parasite to “retire”?
Dunc @5 –
Those are not the only options. Plenty of nations have non-executive heads of state who function as purely symbolic figureheads.
I know. That’s why I said “or other systems – where the head of state and the head of government are different people, but are still elected in a highly partisan manner”. I can’t think of a government where the head of state is a) elected and b) it is non-partisan. You have countries like India and France who elect their head of state (symbolic President) but they are still partisan figures. (Perhaps I’m wrong and that option exists – I’d like to know of some examples to see how they’ve done in the 20th century compared to us or Britain).
As to why its useful – it removes the nationalist symbolism off of the head of the government, making them a pure political figure. The Queen gets to absorb all of the magical nonsense that people in this country feel about the office of the President while the Prime Minister is rightly seen as just a political operative. It’s a healthier setup in a lot of ways. (If we could get rid of the magical thinking that surrounds the office of the President that would be even better, but I’m an old man and I’ve given up hoping that my fellow countrymen will give up on magical thinking – especially when it comes to the role of the President – in my lifetime.)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the figureheading duties these people do could just as easily be done by a dead king as a living one. This is why we should wait until 2066 and then start again with WIlliam the Conqueror. We don’t have to dig up what’s left of him and sit it in Buckingham Palace with an ermine robe on it, but quite frankly everyone would be disappointed if we didn’t.
And the really sad thing is that the Queen is still the head of state for Oz. Our fault because we did not sort it in 1999 with Australian republic referendum.
Maybe he can consult with Drumpfh once he is run out or resigns?
Who is or isn’t a “partisan figure” is largely in the eye of the beholder… There are certainly places where the head of state is not associated with a political party (e.g. Andrej Kiska of Slovakia). If you’re looking for a century’s worth of record then you’re going to struggle, because of the vast amount of political change most places saw during the 20th C.
Not a bad idea… Personally, given the popularity of the “it’s good for tourism” argument, I’ve long been in favour of making the Loch Ness Monster our head of state.
In further response to jerthebarbarian @#9, this may be of interest: Non-partisan presidents.
This isn’t going to please UKIP. He’s Greek, he’s lived off the taxpayer for most of his adult life and he was smuggled out of his country on a boat fleeing an invasion.
He’s the classic east European asylum seeking refugee scrounger. And now he gets to retire at our expense.
Winston Churchill, a man with a gift for a snappy turn of phrase, once described democracy as:
That’s how I’ve always felt about the British Monarchy. It has lots of problems, but the alternatives are probably worse. I mean, the last thing we need is more politicians… the ones we have are bad enough.
Dunc, #13
I think the Americans beat us to it with making the Loch Ness Monster their head of state this year…
Probably after you’ve caught up with France and Britain and behead YOUR parasitic royal family
The Brits can keep ’em all, so long as that nice Mrs, Windsor just _stares_ at Trumplethinskin if he ever visits.
fusilier
James 2:24
To be fair to our dear old Queen ,she just does the job ,she doesn’t pretend to be an expert on every thing under the sun like most male members of the firm .
And re one of his off the cuff remarks ,about people in the war just getting on with things afterwards ,Helen Bamber did some work with returning prisoners of war from the far east .
Allegedly prince Philip has to call his wife “your majesty” in public.
I’m not sure if it’s true, but I have little problem believing it.
cartomancer @17: That’s really unfair to Nessie. She’s a shy, retiring creature who has never caused anybody any harm.
davidc1, #1
And violate his free speech?!?
He married into the job, it’s not like he earned it.
Of course, she was born into hers.
Hereditary leadership makes as much sense as being a heriditary physicist. – Richard Feynman
They could get rid of the monarchy, but then they’d have to write a constitution or charter, and it would all be so much bother.
I don’t understand why they haven’t gotten rid of the House of Lords, though. What was left of its special powers was removed back in the 2000s when they finally replaced the Law Lords with a UK Supreme Court.
Welcome to my blockquote hell. :(
He’s so famed, I was in my 30’s before I realized QE2 wasn’t a widow.
Bring back tanistry. It would so much more fun to watch royals killing each other off so they’re the last man standing when the people vote for the new King. This heredity thing is so boring. At least tanistry will thin out the royal herd.
The monarchy is TRADITION!! Can;t disrespect tradition by tossing it away! That’s what the Southern State residents keep telling us “elite Northuhners” when we object to the Confederate flag on display all over the South. “It’s Tradition!, Slavery was yesterday, you already won to war and abolished slavery! We just want to wave this piece of cloth! Can’t you work with us?”
*barf*
sorry I derailed. BRB
That doesn’t sound like much of a bulwark against government overreach to me. Did you at least get Mexico to pay for it?
consciousness razor @31: That’s what’s so ironic about it.
I like the monarchy, it’s Voltaire’s prayer incarnate! You can’t really take them seriously.
I’m really disappointed that the old boy is retiring after all these years. I’m never going to win the dead pool if this keeps up.
Re the house of lords ,there is a saying about the labour party ,old socialists don’t die ,they just go to the house of lords .
Does the good Doctor know that there are Bishops sitting in the HOL ?.
The worst thing is the toe-curling adulation for these people, as if there was actually something special about them. Princess Horsey has a new hairdo, and this is front page news in ‘serious’ newspapers. I do understand that we need something to distract the proles while they’re being shafted, but surely we could do better than this? Aren’t there enough dumb celebrities to clog up the airwaves already?
Lazy git took early retirement. But he was sometimes entertaining. From The Grauniad’s collection:
“If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she’s not interested.” (on the Princess Royal [his daughter])
“When a man opens a car door for his wife, it’s either a new car or a new wife.” (on marriage)
“Where did you get that hat?” (supposedly to the Queen at her coronation)
The royals are a bunch of chinless, incestuous parasites, and deserve to be first against the wall when the revolution comes, but I did get a chuckle from a few of those lines.
Just returned from the polling station, where a nice, obviously tory couple subjected me to “whispered” disparagement due to my choice to wear a Sex Pistols God Save The Queen T-shirt. Apparently “people like me” don’t deserve to vote. Ain’t that nice.
call me mark@6 Charles will be king for at least long enough to abdicate, because of the line of succession. And I’ve read more than one opinion piece that says he won’t abdicate even if he is old as dirt when he takes the throne.
Short answer: Never; see Trump, Donald.
Longer answer: I was a republican (in the British, not American sense) until I spent a few years in the USA and got to observe the presidential election closely. And this was Clinton 2. I realised that this is not a situation where logic and reason perform well; although theoretically a hereditary monarchy is a vastly inferior system to an elected presidency, it seems that in practice it isn’t. One must keep the selection of Head of State completely independent of the disgusting, corrupt business of politics. It also works out cheaper, surprisingly enough: consider the 4-yearly multibillion dollar expenditure for a US president, and suddenly the civil list starts to look like a bargain.
s.
I dunno, I think that William and Harry can do a lot of good, and I’m not just talking about updating traditions, here. The Princes seem to be truly decent people who give a shit about improving society.
Philip and Charles, however… *facepalm*
I forget, was it William or Harry who dressed as a Nazi for a costume party?
Right, Chigau, because nobody has ever, ever done something dumb as a young adult and later looked back and gone, “Yeah, that was a dumb thing to do”…
Grow up.
Have a porcupine.
Take your rapey porcupine reference and kindly fuck off.
Go watch someone nursing in public.
Yeah, no — I’m polite enough to look away, asswipe.
How about you take your fucking porcupine and demonstrate on yourself what you’d like me to do with it…
@Steve Pells #41 – What do you think of the German system, where the president is Head of State but the political leadership is in hands of the Bundeskanzler?
Rietplium-I think it’s administratively better than the king-in-all-but-name presidential system of the USA, France, any number of banana republics and African autocracies, but it lacks something. With Germany, and similar examples like the Republic of Ireland, the president seems to be a (possibly respected) figure, but a very anonymous and even somewhat pointless one. On the other hand, if Queenie gets off the plane you know immediately you’re dealing with the UK and don’t have to wait for the news report subtitles to come up at the bottom of the screen.
A monarchy also provides a tangible link between a country’s (that is, a people and their culture) present and history. It may not be a fashionable thought, and many liberal intellectuals who consider themselves “citizens of the world” or similar might disdain the notion, but I think many people like to feel a connection with their past and a sense of place. A long-established, naturally-evolved institution such as a monarchy provides this more easily than a “synthetic” one such as a presidency.
s.
Why would anyone think a British royal wouldn’t say anything else?