Lately I've been reading and listening to lots of people who disagree with the UK having a Monarchy; they've been quite free with their opinions and I have listened patiently but now I'm going to outline why I think it is essential we have one.
When I was younger I was a Republican; I thought the Monarchy cost too much and that nobody should be allowed to have that much money just by an accident of birth. I read a lot of history books and through them came to realise that the history of Britain and it's people is the history of the Monarchy.
Proportionally for my income The Queen only costs me 66p each year; whereas I pay 77p on defence, £1.14 towards running the Government, £1.81 on education, £2.37 on health, and £4.35 for 'social protection' (the formulation and administration of Government policy and legislation) I would personally much prefer to pay my 66p to the Queen than many of the other things my tax money goes on. I disagree with IVF on the NHS for example but I have to pay it anyway.
My main reason for supporting the Monarchy is that I firmly believe we'd be culturally lost without them; we would have absolutely no cultural identity as our nation has been shaped by their existence since the beginning of our history. The Queen is the head of State of 16 other countries and, as Head of the Commonwealth represents another 53 countries - she undertakes around 2000 official engagements at home and abroad every year and brings in over £180m through tourism not counting the money tourists spend on restaurants, entertainment, hotels, transport and retail. I'm sure this money comes in handy.
I think you'll agree that apart from the World cup every 4 years and Royal occasions there is not one other event that brings us together as a Nation. we don't even bother to celebrate St George's Day but every 4 years we gather together to watch one of the shittiest football teams on the face of the Earth lose spectacularly - we start off waving our flags all patriotically and we always end up ashamed. That is if you even like watching football; if you don't then you have nothing to unite you with your neighbours.
On Friday people from all over our country came together to celebrate something nice; we sat together, decorated our streets and focused on one singular event - and when those WW1 bombers flew over Buckingham Palace there was a lump in my throat because I felt patriotic. I was proud that people from all over the World had bothered to come to London to see this and were watching it in their millions around the globe. They had gathered together and stayed up late for it and I felt proud that it was my country they were focused on.
I think the main members of the Royal Family take their responsibilities very seriously; they work tirelessly with charities and institutions all over the World representing our country and we should thank them for it because I wouldn't want to do it day in day out always with people complaining until the day I die. So I'll happily pay my 66p to have some semblance of cultural and National identity - I'll even pay your share if you like.
Americans who don't agree should frankly just get on with busying themselves with World domination through intimidation and fear; we can see where your tax dollar goes. And if you live in the UK and don't agree in the Monarchy, then you just settle yourselves down quietly to wait another 3 years until the minority gather to celebrate British pride and unity through watching some blokes try to get a ball into a net. How proud we are of their efforts.
If we lose the establishment we would lose our entire identity; Christ, we British don't have much to start with, and if we lost the Monarchy we'd only have a shitty football team to bring us together... and I know which one I'd rather have.
Well put.You know that I disagree with you, but I think we both agree in our right to hold different opinions.I had a long discussion last night with a friend who is of much the same opinion as you and eventually we agreed to disagree.I think its great that the people of this country are united by something other than a third rate football team and we all know that the royals are here to stay no matter what people like me think of them.I am in the minority.I am, however very patriotic. My patriotism is based on the generations of British who have built our country, fought for our country and our right to have such differing opinions.We are very lucky to live in such a place.Sarah x
ReplyDeleteNice Urban! I agree...I know I'm not British, but I am kind of fascinated by the Monarchy..it would definately be an entirely different world without them! And it would be strange to be born into that fishbowl world...one of the things I thought was pretty funny was that when William was studying art history, some of the paintings he was learning about are owned by his grandmother! Their whole world is peculiar and facinating to me...I still think some of them have really, super bad taste in hats though! lol!
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