Should we abolish the Royal family?

[Kirkland Laing]

The problem with getting rid of them means you have to replace them. Right now the Queen does the job of President, she's our official head of state. If you look around at other heads of state, you see the former French prez Mitterand recently was found to have had his hand in the till for hundreds of millions to bring his influence to various legislation, the former president of Germany Kohl pocketed over two billion with a b the same way. The Prez of a third world country like Mexico got caught doing over a hundred mil of crooked lobbying for a Mexican telecom billionaire, that allowed the billionaire to gouge his customers. So the Queen as somebody who OKs legislation but doesn't get involved in it removes an entire layer of corruption from the very top of the country that would otherwise be there.

If we booted the royals tomorrow who would take over? The front runner would be war criminal Tony Blair, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of British soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis so that he'd be guranteed millions in post-number 10 earnings. He's already been caught taking money to lobby for companies in the Middle East through his office as official peace envoy out there. He's a total scumbag, and he'd be the most likely choice had we got an ongoing presidential system. And he's be living in Buckingham Palce too, and it'd still need its roof fixing. Tony wouldn't be paying that bill either.

So yes, they represent the class system and yes, they're originally German/Greek, but they actually save the average Brit money every year and they do bring in the odd tourist or two. Plus you have integrity and class in Buck House representing the country versus a hideous war criminal who should be in a cell in the Hague. No question that on balance they should stay where they are.