German obsession with the British Royal Family

Yet another sycophantic, oleaginous tribute the Queen today with the leader "Mit 80 ist die Queen beliebter denn je" ("at 80, the Queen's never been so popular") We are not amused.

What a load of recycled horse-shite.

Take, for example, the last sentence: "Neulich waren Amerikaner hier. Die fragten tatsächlich, warum wir Schloss Windsor so dicht an den Flughafen Heathrow herangebaut haben." ("Americans were here recently, and they actually asked why they'd built Windsor castle so close to Heathrow").

The British royal family is German, so I guess that explains a little bit about it.

I always thought the only people who care about the British Royal family were the Brits?

that old and still picking her nose... tsk.

[img]http://www.ultimate.eclipse.co.uk/links/queen-nose-pick.jpg[/img]

I don't even think the Brits care about the German, I mean British Royal Family...

Especially since germany has enough (ex)-royalty of their own, much hotter too. I remember surfing around a while back and came across some pics of some rather tidy (and rich) german princesses.. Cant quite find them on google now though...

I'd say ship em back to Germany where they came from, but then they'd be leeches on us Germany-based tax payers, instead of leeching off my family back home.
Bit of a conundrum, really...

hell, no, you should see the coverage in places like Sweden. At least we seem able to ridicule our own royal family

Don't say that to my brother-in-law, he'll chin you! Royalists, eh?

they are good or tourism i believe but the majority of folks couldn't really give a toss.

They are still good to tourism dead!
And look at this! The money'd be far more worthwhile spent on hospitals or education

you'd still have to fork out similar money for a President as Head of State. Just look how much the German Bundespresident costs and he does fuck all for tourism, dead or alive.

How much does he cost?
Anyhow we're paying for Tony Blair and his cronies already aren't we?

Sorry, are you advocating killing the Royal Family?

History will judge the generation that gets rid of the Royal Family as one of the most ignorant and short-sighted in centuries.

Their relies the Romanovs got offed in a revolutionary situation but I'd prefer the Sue Townsend route and leave em on social security in a sink public housing estate.

why does everyone get so worked up about the money wasted on the Royal Family, and yet not on the billions the Government wastes in other ways too numerous to mention

EDIT I am off to Feldmoching See to do a bit of nude swimming and sunbathing.
till later

Don't be silly! Why think that? Am saying you can still go and see castles and palaces and Royal museums when you don't have a Royal Family any more. ( )


Brilliant book that

I am surprised all the free marketeers haven't suggesting out sourcing the Royal Family. There must be some out of work Eastern European royals that could do the job for a lot less.

They pay tax and bring money into the country in the form of tourism. (think I read that Charlie's tax bill was about GBP 7m this year.)

I still hate the interbred bastards!

History will judge that those without a sense of humour lead very dull lives.

yes and Germany also have a Bundeskanzler and his cronies.

It is called splitting the function of Head of State and Head of Government which *most* democracies do (except those leading examples of the USA and France).

I get worked up about

IC Cards
Replacing Trident
TWAT

and all the rest of it too don't worry.

Its crap that it is such an extended royal list. We should have no more than say 6 "official" royals that are paid for...all the others can piss off and get a real job.

Oh yeah and we should confiscate all their assets and give them an allowance. They can still live in Buck House but none of this 25 private secretaries stuff, and must allow daily tours inside etc.

Maybe we can have "Royal Pop Idol" where we get to pick the 6 we want. Best of a bad lot etc.

what are IC cards?

and I'd have thought you'd get more work up about DICK than TWAT

Excellent idea.

isn't that what a general election is for? last time they voted in Blair and his cronies. Do you think the Briths voting public can be trusted to vote in a decent head of state after THAT performance?

germans (some at least) don't only have an obsession with the british royal family but love the whole european lot. older ladies love reading the trash magazines neue post etc who live from telling stories about monaco, sweden, belgium, etc etc etc.
i also think there is a historic reason, with the exception of france, all european countries had royals for centuries until early 20th cent. democracy is still very young.

i think you'll find having a monarchy does not (or did not) preclude having a democracy.

But if had the hereditary principal we would have got Mark Thatcher as PM

actually, being serious about this, "elective monarchies" are not unprecedented. The Roman senate used to elect Kings, so too were the Kings of the First German Reich. Maybe this is a way to modernise our monarchy

I think the best way to 'modernise' the monarchy would be just to get rid of them. We don't need them any more.

No prizes for guessing what we would get if it went to the vote:

says you.

if you get rid of them you have to replace them with something. I certainly don't want Blair as Head of State AND Head of Government. Just look how George W Bush has ruined the international standing of the US. I don't think you have this problem quite as much if you separate these roles. Therefore you would need a President as Head of State (whilst keeping a Prime Minister as Head of Government) and he would cost similar bucket loads of money as a Monarch and do shit all for tourism or trade.

Actually, it was only 3.3million, as stated in the posted article.

At the end of the day, we're talking about 62p per person. This is absolutely nothing. And like them or not, they do a lot to promote Britain, enough I'm sure for you to get your 62p back.

My biggest problem with royalty is that in a society that is struggling to promote equality you can be given a position or a status based solely on your birth. Hasn't the concept of superiority/inferiority by bloodline gone out of fashion a long time ago?

IMO the class system needs to go, birth should have nothing to do with what you can acheive in life. If I want to be the queen of england or a queen of the night, should be up to me and my abilities alone.

Says you.

Should we even need a Head of State, do you really think they will cost us more than £37million a year? Besides it's not just the direct Royal Family that needs getting rid of but all the other so called 'Royals' too (Dukes and Princes etc) they also cost us money each year.


Am sure far more British people would prefer to pay 62p towards a hospital or school though. What do they actually do to 'promote' Britain? State visits that we never hear/see? Would you really argue we make a profit on them?

I thought most outsourcing went to India these days.

The Daily Mail would have a field day if the royals were outsourced from Bangalore.

Forget Posh and Becks, here's the new king and queen:

[img]http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200510/r60820_167405.jpg[/img]

[img]http://www.manchesteronline.co.uk/ContentResources/892.$plit/C_17_Articles_151133_BodyWeb_Detail_0_Image.jpg[/img]

Fighting outside a pub wankered on alcopops, playing the lottery and checking the bargain bucket in KwikSave. All chavved up like the rest of us!

OG, if my general memory of european history classes is not completely forgotten, then the monarchs/aristocracy were powerful im comparison to their parliaments or assemblies (1st damper came with napoleon...) until late 18th century. magna carta etc only happened in uk.
we are not even taking of 100 years democracy and if you consider women's voting rights, then even less. (1st european state: austria 1918)

They add value to the economy. Plus anything the Brits have that the French, Germans and Italians don't gets a tick in the box also. Luxembourg could kick Monaco's ass but it is still more revered more than the rest of mainland Europe because it has a Royal Family.

well, you see, its all about checks and balances. You have to have something to keep the power of the executive (ie the PM and the cabinet) in check. The US do this with a rather complicated method which I doubt many people really understand (except those geeks who paid attention in class) involving the congress and the US Supreme Court. If we chose to get rid oft he Queen and make the Prime Minister both head of government and head of state, we would need SOMETHING to keep him/her in check.


i never said a President as Head of State would cost more, I said the costs would be similar. In fact, I should imagine that the costs of having a Supreme Court à la USA isn't all that cheap either.

What utter rot! 'value to the economy' please explain. And even if Monaco didn't have a Royal Family it's still got the best GP track in the world!

Now read this if you please. (you too OG)

errrm both Luxembourg and monaco have a so called royal family.

this link proposes EXACTLY the split between Head of State and Head of government as I already outlined. This, therefore, nullifies all your arguments about cost savings by getting rid of the Monarch as head of state.

Did you actually read that link yourself?

Yes sure did, and I learnt somethings! However I still doubt it would cost more than £37 million (and the rest) per year though meaning I STILL argue it'll be cheaper.

The reason is simple, its an acknowledgement of culture and heritage.

Just as the English admire the Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, and the Great Budda. We can appreciate the different aspects of tradition and the contribution in making the world different.

Americans, just see these as take away restaurants where you can get a curry, sweet and sour chicken, or thai green curry... with large fries and a milk shake!

For every German who appreciates the English Royal Family, there are at least 10 Americans. 90% of yanks know the Queen, the other 10% either cannot read or think its a gay guy at the end of the street.

[quote]
well, you see, its all about checks and balances. You have to have something to keep the power of the executive (ie the PM and the cabinet) in check. The US do this with a rather complicated method which I doubt many people really understand (except those geeks who paid attention in class) involving the congress and the US Supreme Court. If we chose to get rid oft he Queen and make the Prime Minister both head of government and head of state, we would need SOMETHING to keep him/her in check

WRONG

We have an Executive and a Legislature in the UK, and the Queen/Royal Family are neither.

The people vote for an MP. The party that has the most MPs forms the Government and elects (within itself) the Prime Minister. Convention is that, the Party Leader becomes the Prime Minister but this is not a requirement. The PM and all the other MPs (651 of them) sit in the House of Commons.

The House of Lords is the UK upper house, the checks and balances. This is made up of Lords and Ladies handed down over the centuries, and those appointed by the Government in the Honours List.

Any new legislation proposed by the Commons must be approved by the Lords, otherwise it doesnt pass through to the statute book. Only when both Houses have approved the proposed bill, it goes to the Palace to be signed into law, by the Queen.

The Parliament Act was introduced earlier this century to overrule the Lords objections to proposals but this is used infrequently and only on issues considered urgent/important. The argument being the Commons which proposes the legislation is elected by the people, whereas the Lords objections come from an unelected house.

Either way, the Queen signs the bills into Law, and has no authority over the House, her role is strictly ceremonial. This was all decided around 400 years ago, before civilisation dawned on the shores of the US.

Perosnally I couldn't give a stuff about the Royal familly. Anytime there is something about them on TV it's automatically change channel time for me. I remember being in England on the day of Diana's funeral and I had to stay at home all day and watch the cartoon channel as it was the only way to avoid having to see it on TV and avoid all the people wandering around pretending to be upset.

We can keep them if it really helps the economy but I don't see why they can't live in a small part of 1 of their many palaces and do their own housework. Oh and once a week do some kind of community service at an old persons home or cleaning toilets. That would really be giving something back to the society that allows them to live the lives they do and might make them appreciate it a bit more as well.

WHL, 2 corrections:

The monarch does not generally choose the leader of the largest party as UK Prime Minister but the person who can command the largest majority in the House of Commons. the 2 are not nescessarily the same.

For foreign treaties and military matters, parliament is not soverign but the monarch. These powers are given directly to the executive. Thus Tony Blair has the "right" to drop boms on countries that have oil withough legally needing to consult parliament.

Also, Tony removed the right of heriditary peers to sit in the Lords a few years back. The Lords is now a rubber-stamping outfit appointed by the government. Not much point having a second house or a monarch really - its only for show.