Down With the Royals (8 page)
Read Down With the Royals Online
Authors: Joan Smith
In the end, trust is at the heart of this matter. It is a paradox that we trust ourselves to elect MPs and hence the government of the day, made up of individuals with the power to make laws, set tax rates and even take us to war against other countries, yet we don’t trust ourselves to choose the person who carries out an equally important but ceremonial job, representing our values on the public stage and pulling us together at moments of crisis. No matter how much the country changes,
we are always represented by the same mono-cultural individuals who look nothing like so many of us. Why should one section of the population – white, conservative, upper middle class, publicly heterosexual, Christian – have a monopoly on how the nation presents itself to the world? Why can’t I and people like me have an opportunity to vote for someone whose values are closer to ours? I can think of many individuals who would do the job with greater warmth and spontaneity than the Queen or Prince Charles – the author Philip Pullman, the human rights campaigner Pragna Patel or the artist Grayson Perry, for instance. In a world dominated by celebrity, it would be refreshing if less well-known people decided to stand, using social networking sites to launch their campaigns. I wouldn’t even mind if a member of the former royal family put him or herself forward as candidate, although I wouldn’t vote for them. No matter who was elected, we could choose someone else next time if they didn’t do a good job.
What I do mind is the fact that the same bland and unrepresentative woman has been head of state longer than I’ve been alive. I’m embarrassed when British
politicians and athletes are expected to mumble ‘God Save the Queen’ at public events, demonstrating an affection some of them don’t actually feel, as well as the fact that very few of us know more than the first verse. I have no doubt that a country as diverse and culturally rich as ours, with such a huge range of talent in business, politics, medicine, law and the arts, can do better than this. If anything, the question of what we look like to the world has been made more urgent by the Scottish referendum; I don’t want to live in an increasingly disunited kingdom, torn apart by competing forms of nationalism. A republic of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is long overdue, and so is the opportunity to celebrate the values – equality, fairness and compassion – that bind us together. In the twenty-first century, we shouldn’t still be imploring an imaginary deity to save an inherited head of state. If we can only find the courage, we are perfectly capable of saving ourselves.
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First published in Great Britain in 2015 by
Biteback Publishing Ltd
Westminster Tower
3 Albert Embankment
London SE1 7SP
Copyright © Joan Smith 2015
Joan Smith has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the publisher’s prior permission in writing.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.
ISBN 978-1-84954-901-1
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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