1,141 years ago King Alfred (the 32nd great grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II) became the first effective King of England. Since then we have had a healthy supply of Henrys, Georges, Williams, Arthurs, a few more Charles, and a sprinkling of Elizabeths and Victorias. One cannot deny that the royal family have been around for a very long time. For better or for worse, it doesn't look as though this will be changing any time soon. Just the other week we heard news of our precious princess Katie soon to deliver the next of kin.
This is all well and proper, but many people do not understand what the point of the Monarchy is. Ok, they bring tourism and publicity to the UK economy, and probably overall the money that this brings in is more than the gastranomical amount of public money spent on polishing their silver spoons. But could these funds not be invested more efficiently elsewhere?
What are your views on the British Royal Family? I pose this question to my OISE Oxford colleagues and got some mixed responses:
Office worker 1: "On the one hand the Royal Family seem fairly pointless as they do not have much political influence and it doesn't seem very democratic for someone to be born into power. However, they do raise a lot of money for charity and bring in a lot of money through tourism which is obviously an advantage. We should count ourselves lucky that we do not have a corrupt Queen. She is so inoffensive at the moment that people aren't too bothered about getting rid of her but once she's gone, who knows how long the monarchy will last."
Office worker 2: "I do not see a point of the Royal Family at all! I don't understand the political system where there is a government and a monarchy. Those two should not exist simultaneously. We either chose our leaders or we don't. The monachy doesn't bring much to society, if anything they eat up too much of our public funds."
Office worker 3: " From a rather uninformed standpoint, I believe that the Royal Family is a positive feature of modern Britain. For many people in Britain and from abroad they are inspirational figureheads and offer huge amounts of goodwill and support to a wide range of charities and other organisations. The Queen has been a central and steady influence on British society for 60 years. The Diamond Jubilee celebrations this year were a time of great fun and provided a boost to international opinion on the UK. In many ways could the royal family provides the great in Britain?"
Office worker 4: "In politics, you never know what you're going to get Politicians have so much to prove.. The stability that our Monarch has brought to our country over the last 60 years is immense. 2012 has been a terrific year with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, a Royal wedding, and a future heir on the way. What is there not to be proud of?!"
Interestingly today marks the first time that a monarch has attended a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in over 200 years. Whilst this might be interpreted by some as an attempt by the Queen to re-assert her political authority, it seems the real reason for her attendance is the announcement that a portion of Antarctica is shortly to be named after her in celebration of her Jubilee; perhaps not the most pressing matter on the political agenda.
English footballer, Joey Barton, who recently appeared on Newsnight, is known to have some pretty controversial views. Click on the image below to read his article about the pros and cons of the Royal Family.
This is all well and proper, but many people do not understand what the point of the Monarchy is. Ok, they bring tourism and publicity to the UK economy, and probably overall the money that this brings in is more than the gastranomical amount of public money spent on polishing their silver spoons. But could these funds not be invested more efficiently elsewhere?
What are your views on the British Royal Family? I pose this question to my OISE Oxford colleagues and got some mixed responses:
Office worker 1: "On the one hand the Royal Family seem fairly pointless as they do not have much political influence and it doesn't seem very democratic for someone to be born into power. However, they do raise a lot of money for charity and bring in a lot of money through tourism which is obviously an advantage. We should count ourselves lucky that we do not have a corrupt Queen. She is so inoffensive at the moment that people aren't too bothered about getting rid of her but once she's gone, who knows how long the monarchy will last."
Office worker 2: "I do not see a point of the Royal Family at all! I don't understand the political system where there is a government and a monarchy. Those two should not exist simultaneously. We either chose our leaders or we don't. The monachy doesn't bring much to society, if anything they eat up too much of our public funds."
Office worker 3: " From a rather uninformed standpoint, I believe that the Royal Family is a positive feature of modern Britain. For many people in Britain and from abroad they are inspirational figureheads and offer huge amounts of goodwill and support to a wide range of charities and other organisations. The Queen has been a central and steady influence on British society for 60 years. The Diamond Jubilee celebrations this year were a time of great fun and provided a boost to international opinion on the UK. In many ways could the royal family provides the great in Britain?"
Office worker 4: "In politics, you never know what you're going to get Politicians have so much to prove.. The stability that our Monarch has brought to our country over the last 60 years is immense. 2012 has been a terrific year with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, a Royal wedding, and a future heir on the way. What is there not to be proud of?!"
Interestingly today marks the first time that a monarch has attended a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in over 200 years. Whilst this might be interpreted by some as an attempt by the Queen to re-assert her political authority, it seems the real reason for her attendance is the announcement that a portion of Antarctica is shortly to be named after her in celebration of her Jubilee; perhaps not the most pressing matter on the political agenda.
English footballer, Joey Barton, who recently appeared on Newsnight, is known to have some pretty controversial views. Click on the image below to read his article about the pros and cons of the Royal Family.
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