A King Charles is so unattractive. Having read avidly all the Wedding stories - well it started on the Gatwick train when someone left a Mail behind and then I was hooked, she said defensively - it is clear that the Prince of Wales is the real squeezed middle.
His mother is one of the most competent heads of state we could hope for and seems in the best of health, and with a healthy capacity to cut down on minor head-of-state-appearances, which are taken over by her, well, minors. There is the statement, too, that there will be no abdication from duty by the Queen.
To her credit the Prince of Wales's wife has made very plain her preference for a private life as a private wife, rather than a public role; and when the hoary old question of what to call her rolled round once more the feeling of passe and bad news was overwhelming. Enough! It was bad that her husband had to be told by his mother to get a divorce and stop abusing his public wife; it is worse that he then refused to recognize that there is no room for second wives, however obtained, whatever their prior marital statuses (or his), in the more mystical parts of our Constitution. He's not Henry VIII, nor does he have Henry's political excuses for mixing personal predilection with marital duties.
There are many voices calling for Elizabeth to be the last hereditary head of our state but they cannot be listened to because of the lack of means within our political institutions to prepare anyone else for that role. Until the House of Lords is wholly elected by democratic vote, until the second chamber of our legislature becomes a democratically answerable revising chamber and a back-stop restrainer, after the Commons, of the Executive, then we will need at least one more reign while these reforms are made. We will need a transition monarchy that sees the United Kingdom safely into the 21st century and out of the 17th, while we all take a good look at those we have deemed worthy to be elected to the Lords as senior statesmen, and take a view on who might best protect our fluid and subtle constitution from any Executive taken over by thugs of the left - or right.
That monarch cannot be Elizabeth, her whole life has been dedicated to remaining head of state. Nor can it be Charles - not because of his alleged incompetence, or inappropriate interference in matters beyond a constitutional monarch's role, or his unworldliness, all unjustly substituted for the real criticism: that he wishes to take up his mother's mantle. But it could be William.
William has no decades of commitment by action and by declaration to the continuance of an in-the-end unacceptable hierarchy. He can make the historic contribution to our democracy's development by facilitating and encouraging our choosing of our head of state and the reforms demanded for their preparation. Then our monarchy could go out with a bang, not a 'carolingian' whimper. And without leaving a gaping hole, torn perhaps violently, in our constitutional structure that could be filled by charlatans, demagogues, and worse.
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3 comments:
Some interesting ideas HG, but what defence is there against unsuitable people, like certain recent traitorous ministers who have sold our sovereignty down the river, being elected as Head of State by unthinking, brainwashed or just plain stupid Brits? Or would such an occurrence just have to be lived with? Either way, it seems to me that any reforms would need to go hand in hand with massive improvements to our education system.
I think you also assume that the United Kingdom would remain as a single entity, but I wonder if that would be the case in the years ahead.
I also mention in passing that had you had the temerity to write this post in a Thailand context you would by now be doing 30 years behind bars!
While a King Charles maybe unattractive it is our way that these things could happen in the normal order of events. So, for a relatively short time our Sovereign may not be, well, popular. But does the Head of State need to be popular if they do their residual jobs both timely and well? I would have thought that the incompatibility of Sovereign (ty) and the European Union is by far the greater threat to our 1000 year old traditions; what will the Sovereign be doing then? Nothing. Will he or she be resident in the UK? Maybe. Is there a clue in re-linking the Sovereign's public income with the Duchy of Lancaster? Well, I'll have to think about that.
I don't agree that the heirarchy is "in-the-end-unacceptable", nor do I see any reason why our monarchy has to go out at all, whether with bangs, whimpers, or anything else.
It seems to me an admirably muddled, indefinite, but ultimately successful way of running our affairs, and it serves very well to keep the likes of Blair (hawk, spit) from glorifying themselves.
Let us keep it indefinitely.
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