Should we abolish the Royal family?

[Gandalf]

Never

the royal family is inerent to the british way of life

As a brit i personally feel nothing prouder but knowing i am serving my queen and country as a proud upstanding citizen!

Inherent?

The fact that the rich should tread upon all those that stand below?

Are you serious HMH, surely this is satire?

In what way have you ever served Queen or country?

Every day of my life i get up at 5.30 in the morning to go to a job that pays way below what it should and having to hand over endless amounts of taxes

Doesnt bother me though. The royals were here long before me and they`ll be here long after me

Because a few hippy wannabe flag burners want a socialist pure society where everyone does different things yet we all live by the same means because it suits those concerned doesnt mean we all have to be of that persuasion.

Im at the bottom of the ladder yet still my beliefs far outweight my own personal gains

That's a weak philosophy.

It's not about socialism either. It's about what is right.

The Royal family has no relevance, do you not see this? They have huge homes and wealth and still they claim from the taxpayer. You earn fuck all per hour and they are still taxing you....and yet you think this is okay....after all they were here first?

Don't blame it on the hippies or the socialists...blame it on your own piss poor system and blame your monarchy as well. They are to blame. And yet you want the monarchy? They provide nothing.

[Nameless]

Legally and historically talking, they are irrelevant. They could disappear that the democratic REgime would still work damn fine in most case. In Belgium it is a bit different but it is all another case, maybe here Albert is kinda gathering the country in one piece but once the situation will be fixed over here, the King doesn't have much significance neither. As for England.. well, they are used as promotion tool from time to time but that is all. I wouldn't advocating to give them the guillotine but I would certainly be in favor that the State stops to give them any high royalties though.

[HattonTheHammer]

Inherent?

The fact that the rich should tread upon all those that stand below?

Are you serious HMH, surely this is satire?

In what way have you ever served Queen or country?

Every day of my life i get up at 5.30 in the morning to go to a job that pays way below what it should and having to hand over endless amounts of taxes

Doesnt bother me though. The royals were here long before me and they`ll be here long after me

Because a few hippy wannabe flag burners want a socialist pure society where everyone does different things yet we all live by the same means because it suits those concerned doesnt mean we all have to be of that persuasion.

Im at the bottom of the ladder yet still my beliefs far outweight my own personal gains

That's a weak philosophy.

It's not about socialism either. It's about what is right.

The Royal family has no relevance, do you not see this? They have huge homes and wealth and still they claim from the taxpayer. You earn fuck all per hour and they are still taxing you....and yet you think this is okay....after all they were here first?

Don't blame it on the hippies or the socialists...blame it on your own piss poor system and blame your monarchy as well. They are to blame. And yet you want the monarchy? They provide nothing.

As they have been for the last 600 years

Why all of a sudden is the time right now to abolish their power?

[Gandalf]

Legally and historically talking, they are irrelevant. They could disappear that the democratic REgime would still work damn fine in most case. In Belgium it is a bit different but it is all another case, maybe here Albert is kinda gathering the country in one piece but once the situation will be fixed over here, the King doesn't have much significance neither. As for England.. well, they are used as promotion tool from time to time but that is all. I wouldn't advocating to give them the guillotine but I would certainly be in favor that the State stops to give them any high royalties though.

If I could have 62 pence from every tax payer once a year I would never work again....but as this is the Queen this is justified... And she has all that invested wealth too, plus lands that she doesn't even need.

[Gandalf]

Every day of my life i get up at 5.30 in the morning to go to a job that pays way below what it should and having to hand over endless amounts of taxes

Doesnt bother me though. The royals were here long before me and they`ll be here long after me

Because a few hippy wannabe flag burners want a socialist pure society where everyone does different things yet we all live by the same means because it suits those concerned doesnt mean we all have to be of that persuasion.

Im at the bottom of the ladder yet still my beliefs far outweight my own personal gains

That's a weak philosophy.

It's not about socialism either. It's about what is right.

The Royal family has no relevance, do you not see this? They have huge homes and wealth and still they claim from the taxpayer. You earn fuck all per hour and they are still taxing you....and yet you think this is okay....after all they were here first?

Don't blame it on the hippies or the socialists...blame it on your own piss poor system and blame your monarchy as well. They are to blame. And yet you want the monarchy? They provide nothing.

As they have been for the last 600 years

Why all of a sudden is the time right now to abolish their power?

Now is as good a time as any. I suggested earlier that the end of WW2 would have been a good time.

Power? What fookin power? They have none? They are just mouthpieces for what the populace wants to hear.

[HattonTheHammer]

That's a weak philosophy.

It's not about socialism either. It's about what is right.

The Royal family has no relevance, do you not see this? They have huge homes and wealth and still they claim from the taxpayer. You earn fuck all per hour and they are still taxing you....and yet you think this is okay....after all they were here first?

Don't blame it on the hippies or the socialists...blame it on your own piss poor system and blame your monarchy as well. They are to blame. And yet you want the monarchy? They provide nothing.

As they have been for the last 600 years

Why all of a sudden is the time right now to abolish their power?

Now is as good a time as any. I suggested earlier that the end of WW2 would have been a good time.

Power? What fookin power? They have none? They are just mouthpieces for what the populace wants to hear.

They are to millions the echelons of everything that represents this great country

No they dont neccesary throw their weight around like a dutch monarchy. Far from means they are useless.

Youve spent far too long away from our great isles. Come back to the light and you`ll realise this country cannot exist without our beloved royals

[Gandalf]

As they have been for the last 600 years

Why all of a sudden is the time right now to abolish their power?

Now is as good a time as any. I suggested earlier that the end of WW2 would have been a good time.

Power? What fookin power? They have none? They are just mouthpieces for what the populace wants to hear.

They are to millions the echelons of everything that represents this great country

No they dont neccesary throw their weight around like a dutch monarchy. Far from means they are useless.

Youve spent far too long away from our great isles. Come back to the light and you`ll realise this country cannot exist without our beloved royals

What a crock of shit.

I know enough to know that countries without dumbass royal families do just fine. And you want to pretend it means something. I've spent plenty of time away from home learning, you don't learn things from idiots in the UK.

[HattonTheHammer]

Now is as good a time as any. I suggested earlier that the end of WW2 would have been a good time.

Power? What fookin power? They have none? They are just mouthpieces for what the populace wants to hear.

They are to millions the echelons of everything that represents this great country

No they dont neccesary throw their weight around like a dutch monarchy. Far from means they are useless.

Youve spent far too long away from our great isles. Come back to the light and you`ll realise this country cannot exist without our beloved royals

What a crock of shit.

I know enough to know that countries without dumbass royal families do just fine. And you want to pretend it means something. I've spent plenty of time away from home learning, you don't learn things from idiots in the UK.

Good for them

we havent all got paint from the same canvas have we?

What works for one country doesnt neccesarily for another!

[BIG H]

They were discussing this topic on Talksport last night

My opinion

1.) The Royals bring in a shed load of money from tourism... But that's a historical thing, it's about buildings and history, not about the actual people - who come here thinking they will actually see the queen France hasn't had a monarchy for centuries and Paris has far more tourists than London

2.) They do a lot for charity - Correct, but it's us that pay the money into the charities and we would still do it if Deavid Beckham was the face of the charity instead of Prince Charles

3.) It's our history! - So what, are the Royals throughout history really people to look up to and aspisr to? Rapists, theives, murderers!

4.) They have no executive powers are not elected - we need to get with the times and kick them out

[Wayne]

They are to millions the echelons of everything that represents this great country

No they dont neccesary throw their weight around like a dutch monarchy. Far from means they are useless.

Youve spent far too long away from our great isles. Come back to the light and you`ll realise this country cannot exist without our beloved royals

What a crock of shit.

I know enough to know that countries without dumbass royal families do just fine. And you want to pretend it means something. I've spent plenty of time away from home learning, you don't learn things from idiots in the UK.

Good for them

we havent all got paint from the same canvas have we?

What works for one country doesnt neccesarily for another!

HMH, what exactly does the Queen do for you? I might not agree with all my elected officials, but they are doing SOMETHING that makes an impact on my life and thus they draw a salary for it. But what does a figurehead with no power do for you that she should remain?

There are plenty of things that are tradition that don't have a place. For both our countries, at one point, slavery was tradition. And why all of a sudden should it be ended? Because there is never a better time than right now to upright the upended, to fix things that do not work. As a capitalist, I'm surprised you would be in support of something that doesn't make money. And you should never be satisfied with being on the bottom rung of the ladder because someone says so. Think about how hard you work for your money and how you give it away to someone who does nothing for you or anyone. How upside down is a society that values people who do nothing and devalues the working man?

[Gandalf]

They are to millions the echelons of everything that represents this great country

No they dont neccesary throw their weight around like a dutch monarchy. Far from means they are useless.

Youve spent far too long away from our great isles. Come back to the light and you`ll realise this country cannot exist without our beloved royals

What a crock of shit.

I know enough to know that countries without dumbass royal families do just fine. And you want to pretend it means something. I've spent plenty of time away from home learning, you don't learn things from idiots in the UK.

Good for them

we havent all got paint from the same canvas have we?

What works for one country doesnt neccesarily for another!

They are still inherently stupid arguments that you are making and I will pick you off whenever I can be bothered...which will be most likely tomorrow when I tuck into this thread proper.

[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.

[JazMerkin]

No, I don't think we should. Whilst they are largely insignificant for me & I'm no fan, they are both good for economy & more importantly they mean something to a substantial number of British people. So yeah, I believe we should keep them.

[Kev]

Of course we shouldn't abolish the monarchy. It's an absurd idea based on some ridiculous understandings of history.

The monarchy isn't something that the people of Great Britain or an earlier government invented they are the Royal family because they were the rulers of this country for the best part of a 1000 years. All of their historic buildings and palaces are theirs, owned by them not the state.

How can the state abolish them and take away their stuff? It's fucking ridiculous, how would you like it if the state decided to abolish you and gave all your possessions to the state?

It's such a flawed understanding of history it makes me laugh.

Secondly the Royal family is tremendous value for money. They provide a cornerstone and bedrock of traditional British values. I find it remarkable that those who oppose rampant immigration and the growing multicultralism in our nation would vote for removing something that is the very fabric of Britishness.

Overseas we are known for our Royal Family and our castles. Get rid of them and we are known for Eastenders and Coronation Street.

The Queen is our head of state and I will be so bold to say hands down the best Head of State in the world!

Why?

Because she is the only head of state who can occupy from a position of neutrality. It's an amazing thing. She represents Britain itself rather than any political party, religious group or social agenda.

As Kirkland Laing wisely pointed out, who would you replace her with

Who wants as head of state a politician who represents a party, who may be seen disfavourably by the people. Look at how popular or not Gordon Brown and Tony Blair have been both domestically and abroad.

To some people, in the event of a tragedy for example people would see it as an insult to be met with such a figure representing their countries condolences when many blame them for whatever tragic fate has befallen them.

The queen does FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR more for the good of this country than David Beckham or any number of vastly overpaid professional footballers and BBC television presenters.

They are great value for money and one of the few things in this country to be proud of.

Yet because they are not entertainment people resent paying for them, whilst happily handing over £40 a month to Sky, it's fucked up.

Also the Royal Family and the Queen especially is a priceless asset in times of natural disaster and war. We are an afluent nation right now living in peace times but the Royal Family went a long way to keep morale going historically in times of war and disaster. Such a bedrock is NEEDED for a strong civilisation to unite behind.

The last time we abolished the monarchy look how that went. Cromwell was such a cunt he even banned Christmas. When he died the nation rejoiced and immediately invited back Charles II, the son of the king they had beheaded to rule over them once again.

Keep the Royal Family, they are an invaluable asset to this country.

[Andre]

I saw some documentary a while back where they traced the real direct descendant that should be the real King going by pure bloodline.

You have yourself some German ring ins there that got placed into power.