Wednesday, April 06, 2011

It is the Royal Wedding, soon!

The royal Wedding is soon. Later this month, in fact. Everyone in Britain has been given a day off to celebrate the Royal Wedding, or to ignore it, as they see fit.

I am somewhat ambivalent to the Royal wedding. Unlike some people I do not follow everything the Royal family does, but unlike other people I have nothing against them. In fact, I am something of a Royalist. The system of government that we have (with the King or Queen in a fairly ceremonial position only, with certain exceptions) works, by-and-large, quite well and my rule is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

The Queen or King never has to go out on the hustings, never has to indulge in electioneering and can, sometimes, back a cause that might not be very popular, but is the morally right thing to offer their support to.

A president, however, might shy away from such activities if -for example- it is within several years of his or her election.

The system is fairly cheap (in fact the Crown Estates generates far more income than is spent on the Queen and the rest of the Royal family) and the Queen also pays taxes, though legally speaking, she doesn't have to, but does it voluntarily, instead.

Plus there is the tourism industry and the amount of income the Royal family generates. Far better, one would suggest to say: "That's where the Queen lives, and as the Royal Standard is flying, she is at home, now," than: "That's where our Royal family used to live, when we had a Royal family.

"Oh, look! Over there is a poster for the election of the president. He is likely to be re-elected as a couple of months before the election he introduced a new law that, although popular with much of the electorate, might be seen to be grossly unfair on certain minorities. But shhhh! We'd best not talk of such matters, as the Presidential Intelligence Service have spies everywhere!"

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