Wednesday’s announcement that the Prince and Princess of
Wales are to separate could have come as little surprise to anyone who has seen
even the smallest snatch recently of the low-grade soap opera that is the
British royal family. It had been obvious for years that the marriage was on
the rocks.
Equally unsurprising were the sycophantic expressions of
concern for the royal ex-couple to be heard from all in the House of Commons
but a handful of left-wing Labour MPs after John Major had made the
announcement. However repellent they find the candyfloss and waste of the
House of Windsor, politicians of all parties feel the need to pander to what
they perceive as widespread royal ism among the voters. Rather than say what
they think about the monarchy, they keep quiet.
They would be better off speaking out. The monarchy's
excesses in the past few years have combined with a general decline of
deference to weaken popular support for the institution.
The passenger on the Clapham omnibus knows that the
breakdown of a long-term relationship is an unhappy experience for anyone. He
or she also knows that it is far more easily bearable for someone with several
homes and a massive income for life, paid out of public funds, for an undemanding
job with unlimited holidays.
There is a growing popular sense that the British monarchy's
time is up – that if we are to have a monarchy at all it should be on the
Scandinavian model, with the monarch an ordinary citizen and the relatives of
the monarch required to earn a living like the rest of the population.
For Tribune, that
does not go far enough. The underlying problem with the monarchy is not that it
has become a farce, although it has, but the hereditary principle on which the
whole institution rests. In a democracy, a person should not have political
power simply on account of who his or her parents were. Yet, as all the solemn
discussion of the constitutional implications of the royal separation made
clear, that is, in the end, what the monarchy is all about.
By all means tax the parasites and make them travel around
London by bicycle, but the solution is a republic with an elected head of
state.
