Translated from the original by Vicenç Navarro The message that the Spanish establishment – the power structure for the financial, economic, political and media elite – has been promoting 24 hours a day, three hundred sixty five days a year and through thirty- six years of democracy, is that, as result of a model Transition, […]
Posts Tagged ‘Monarchy’
A King is born
Jul 22nd, 2013 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.While I’ve been writing this, we – Her Majesty’s subjects – have been allowed to learn that a baby boy, weighing 8lbs 6oz was born to the Royal couple at 25 past four this afternoon. Whoopie-doo. Now, I can just about remember the last time the media was dominated by Royal baby hysteria. The year was […]
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Prince Charles: tax dodging, accountability and arrogance
Jun 17th, 2013 by Jon Lansman.The royal family, opinion polls told us last year, is enjoying its highest ever level of support – 80% favour the country remaining a monarchy including 74% of Labour supporters so this is not a propitious time to launch a campaign for a republic in Britain. However, Charles Windsor seems to be doing his best on […]
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Hilary Mantel on Kate Middleton
Feb 20th, 2013 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.Kate seems to have been selected for her role of princess because she was irreproachable: as painfully thin as anyone could wish, without quirks, without oddities, without the risk of the emergence of character. She appears precision-made, machine-made, so different from Diana whose human awkwardness and emotional incontinence showed in her every gesture. Diana was […]
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Two Milibands, One Nation, One Monarchy
Dec 4th, 2012 by David Osler.The late Ralph Miliband made his name as a Marxist theoretician through detailed elaboration of the proposition that the Labour Party can do absolutely nothing for the working class. His two boys, or so the lefty joke has it, have very loyally done their best to prove the old man right. Now it looks as […]
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The nasty unglamorous side of life at the royal palace
Jun 7th, 2012 by Jon Lansman.Behind the pageantry of the jubilee lies the seamier side of working to support the monarchy. We’ve all now read about the disgraceful exploitation of unpaid young people on a compulsory work placement being forced to sleep rough in central London by a Tory-supporting ‘charity’. Here, a cleaner in the Royal household talks about the bad […]
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Whatever happened to Labour republicanism?
May 31st, 2012 by David Osler.It’s just a guess on my part, but even today, a significant minority of Labour MPs would perhaps privately profess support for a British republic. Maybe even Ed Miliband, if you caught him alone over a beer, would concede the absurdity of selecting our head of state exclusively from the ranks of a single family […]
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A Very British Radicalism
Apr 27th, 2012 by Dominic Curran.As the Jubilee approaches I am looking forward to the increased republican mobilisation. However, I fear that much of the republican discourse is in a language that will not really resonate with most people. Much of the arguments seem to be based around the liberal ideas of fairness, meritocracy and allowing anyone to achieve the honour […]
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Never mind equality for first-born royals; what about equality for everybody else?
Oct 30th, 2011 by David Osler.‘Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world,’ Edward Gibbon presciently remarked more than 200 years ago, ‘an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.’ In this respect at least, not a lot has changed over the past two centuries. Heaven only knows what the great historian would […]
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Royal Wedding Special No 3: The conclusion… of England’s bourgeois revolution
May 4th, 2011 by Jon Lansman.It’s official, David Starkey says so: the old aristocracy, the one based on land and genealogy, is dead. The entitlement of the new ruling class to be gathered in Westminster Abbey last Friday is based on money alone. A public school education certainly helps, but lots of money will do, however you acquired it. Posh […]
