Is anyone else here a Republican?

[Cmack88]

I am agasint the royal family and the way that they get our tax money! and th obviuos benifits they get just for being "royal" the queen is desended from bloody germany! wat are ur views?

[Bangkok]

Ewood, I have  afantastic mental image of being biological stew!

 

Regarding royals, some are good (notably Anne) at charity work and promoting worthwhile issues.  Charles does ok at enviromental issues but is not so good at managing his personal life.  Phil is an absolute disgrace and should never be allowed to speak in public again.  Some of the younger ones need to get real (and not go to every singe Rugby World Cup match and behave like an a**e).  The Queen does ok, but needs to modernise and move away from traditions that are no longer relevent (or that don't bring in tourist Yen, Dollars, Euros or Reminbi)

[bernardo]

Hello beale - don't worry about allen.  He wasn't being rude.  He meant "So Interesting!  Unbelievable! You're Amazing!"

[Tweed]

Well said Allen. The people who support the royals must have a very low opinion of themselves if they think the royals are somehow above the rest of us.

Bernardo funny? When did that happen. His abreviations and coloured type (and the content) are starting to irritate a lot of people, apart from the likes of smudge et al who live in a land of fluffy clouds and teedy bears.

[beale]

Doesn't it mean Stick It Up Your @rse to bernardo's God Save The Queen? If not, apologies - that kind of makes me the rude one!

Back to the original point though, yeah, historically royals have accrued a sh*tload of cash through brutally heavy taxation techniques, they murderously suppressed the peasant's revolt too but they also gave us the rule of law and have provided inspirational figureheads in times of national crisis. None of this I think the current crop can feel shame/take credit for. This should be about what a constitutional monarchy means in the 21st century not the 12th and the funding point was dealt with  by old Ewood there. There must be 1001 other killer arguments as to why they are not relevant.

 

Also, my world is not one of fluffy clouds. It is full to bursting with grim realism and gritty unpleasantness. It's like a Ken Loach film down here and I still think bernardo is funny.

[Cmack88]

ahhh shut up ewood

[CHOPS'R'US]

I'm not sure if anyone knows this but i'm sure there are some out there that do. I watched a documentary on the royal family and the their family tree and back before ye old henry the viii was made king a queeen or someone a like(i cannot remember exactly)had an affair while her husband was away fighting and basically he couldn't have been the dad to the baby who actually became king. In the documentary it went out to Australia to find the real king of today which was just some random guy who had migrated there 20 years ago from the UK, they asked him 'if' he would ever consider being king if they had done this properly and he would never have done it because he thought it was all so false. I prefer to have a monarchy over a president any day to keep us away from what the US has problems with every 4 years but then what do they actually do for us besides taking money away from us?And that goes for government too, but then they need to source money from somewhere don't they. Prince Harry seems to be a right little ***** and rebel but who can blame the poor kid with what he has been through in his life i am only grateful for the normal(whatever that may mean)life i have been privilleged to have. The thing with Princess Diana was a set up because she was pregnant with a muslim baby(what a scandal that would have been)so they got rid of her as they couldn't face the pure embarrassment this would have caused the royal family. I'm sure you guys and i know you do have your own views on this so please let me know what you think. Chops'r'us

[Cmack88]

nice answer there yes i agree with all your points. but where did u get this information on Diana?

[Straw]

I happen to be australian and having a governer general rather than a royal family doesn't save money as they serve for four years and then recieve a pension of over a hundred grand for good. so we are usually paying out millions to people who no longer do anything. people dont come to australia to visit them either and they dont even help charities. i wish we had a holiday house for the royal family so we could grab more of the international tourism industry (like we dont have enough).

 

[srd]

allen, et al, you seem to have some serious issues with people of any wealth, which is somewhat unreasonable - jealousy is not a good enough reason to oust the royal family.

I'm from a wealthy family, inherited from many generations ago, and I do know where the money came from - hard work, endeavour, entrepreneurialism, and not at anyone's expense (i.e. think Branson not Tate...). To generalise about all wealth and suggest it is all derived from disreputable sources is inaccurate and naive.

I couldn't give a monkey's about the royal family, but don't think their position is worth the debate - what would anyone gain if they were 'deposed'? It would mean MPs wasting thousands of hours debating an issue that, like fox-hunting, is up for discussion because of class issues, rather than the issue itself.