The Queen Is Dead!
Long Live the King!
The phrase "end of an era" can get bandied around a bit too much, but in this case it seems appropriate. After all, an American born the year Elizabeth II ascended to the throne would be eligible, in fact been eligible, for Social Security by the time her royal tenure had ended. There will be a funeral, and Charles, Anne, Andrew, Edward, William, Harry, Peter, Zara, Beatrice, Eugenie, Louise, James, Camilla, Timothy, Sophie, Kate, Meghan, and whoever else--is the Fergie who's not a pop singer in town? --will all have to put aside their differences and show their respects, as families do at funerals. Though he's technically king right now, Charles III will get his own coronation ceremony at some point in the future, and that should be fun to watch, what with all the pomp and pageantry and catwalks. Just don't get too lost in the fairy-tale spectacle. While it's true Britain is one of the world's oldest monarchies, paradoxically, it's also one of the world's oldest...
...democracies.
And at the end of the day...
...it will be this person, and this person's successors, that matter.
Sorry, Charlie.
Your summary is quite correct and I think applies in Britain too.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, do you mean to imply that Australia also has a new king? I haven't forgotten about the far-flung nation-states of the Commonwealth, but Britain is Ground Zero for all things Windsor.
DeleteAnd just think of all the prime ministers she has seen. Tis rather sad. I was thinking she might be immortal.
ReplyDeleteMaddie, she lived almost as long as Norman Lear.
DeleteWinston Churchill was her first Prime Minister.
Hi, Kirk!
ReplyDeleteI was hoping the reaper pulled a Tony Dow prank on us, but alas, the queen actually is dead. It's in all the papers and apparently true. I just checked, and thankfully Claire Foy and Olivia Colman are both AOK. Regarding Liz Truss, I don't mind conservatives nearly as much if they're hot. Yes, good buddy, there's a new Charlie in town. From now on, the old ones will need to share the fame:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkXCD0UaVEY
Have a safe and happy weekend, good buddy Kirk!
Shady, Helen Mirren also once played the late monarch.
DeleteI unfortunately didn't remember the name, but Claire Foy played Anne Boleyn, and played her very well, in the British miniseries Wolf Hall, seen here in the USA on--where else? --PBS. All about the rise of Henry VIII's fixer Thomas Cromwell, I highly recommend it.
I'll have to do a post on Herschel Bernardi one of these days.
Exactly. And “this person” is a fright.
ReplyDeleteOh, Mitchell, it's not meant as a political endorsement, just an acknowledgement that all this royalty stuff is a mere sideshow (a taxpayer-supported sideshow, but it's not my country.)
DeleteThat was simply my own reaction to “this person.” Your post was clear and well done.
DeleteMay she rest in peace. During Princess Diana's funeral, I remember thinking she never showed emotion and it made me judge her. But now I look back and I think what a strong leader she was.
ReplyDeleteUpper Lip Stiffness Syndrome. I hear it's endemic in that country, JM.
DeleteRIP. Such a shock here in Scotland and the UK. Seem like the world is put on hold.
ReplyDeleteThat was the last photo of her on 6th Sept, I remember thinking she did not look well at all in that :-(
I really thought she'd live as long as her mother, into her 100s. But after Philip died last year, she really was never the same :-(
Ananka, straight from Wikipedia:
Delete"On 6 September 2022, she appointed her 15th British prime minister, Liz Truss, at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, the first and only time she did not receive a new prime minister at Buckingham Palace during her reign."
I'm not sure how much of a sideshow it is. There's a lot of strong emotion around about the change of monarch. Apparently unimportant things can sometimes change the mood of a place. It's interesting that Boris Johnson was ultimately kicked out for partying during lockdown, not for all the other horrific things he did. It was like partying while people died summed up his whole attitude somehow. It'll be interesting to see how Charles handles his new role.
ReplyDeleteJenny, it's your country, so you know it much better than I do. I admit to having a difficult time getting my head around monarchy in the 21st century and how it's reconciled with modern notions of a republic, except to say if it works, it works. Britain is one of the freest countries in the world, and were I a citizen of it, I'd think I'd be much less concerned about possibly losing my civil liberties than I am here in the United States, despite having a Bill of Rights that's considerably more constitutional than yours. And whatever Boris' shenanigans, he never encouraged an insurrection, as Trump tried to do here the January before last. Liz replacing Boris seems to me a little like Ford replacing Nixon. Even if the general public didn't specifically vote for the change, both occurred within a democratic framework (Congress having earlier approved Nixon's choice to replace Spiro Agnew as vice-president; the mass resignation of ministers that made it impossible for Johnson to govern.)
DeleteMost, I guess all, parliamentary systems have a separate Head of Government and Head of State. In Britain Liz Truss is now Head of Government and Charles III is now Head of State. In France Élisabeth Borne is Head of Government and Emmanuel Macron, an elected president rather than an inherited king, is Head of State. Here in the United States, the Head of Government (or the Head of 1/3 of the Government) and Head of State is the same person, currently Joe Biden, which gives us a presidency with kind of royalist trappings. We've seen how that can be abused. Maybe we Americans should think about dividing the two.
Jenny, I neglected to mention that the Prime Minister of your country is not directly elected by voters, as is POTUS, but comes into power by leading whatever political party gets the most votes, thus the allowing to change prime ministers while the party still holds power. Very different from what goes on here.
DeleteThe parliamentary system intrigues me. After all, worldwide, it's the system most democracies have. The United States is an outlier in that regard.
DeleteTruss was elected by about
ReplyDelete160,000 people....even less than I originally thought.they are the paid up members of her party, which has lost many "moderates" and is overwhelmingly old, wealthy and white. . She got their votes and hence walked into the PM by, broadly, promising far right policies that will penalise most people other than old rich and white ones. It isn't democratic, she is overwhelmingly unpopular with the nation but that's part of our system. Oh I should say I don't mind your comments on our system by the way cause you're entitled to them, whatever they may be. There's a lot about both your country's system and ours which is less than ideal. I agree with Churchill who famously said democracy was the worst system.... apart from all the others!
Fair enough, Jenny. As I told Mitchell, I wasn't in any way endorsing Truss, only pointing out that she may have more effect on the lives of Britons, at least in the short term. I also wanted to remind people, particularly Americans caught up in all the royalist glamour, that Britain has a VERY impressive democratic and proto-democratic tradition that goes back to the mists of time. Nobody is even sure when Parliament was first called Parliament, only that it happened in the 1230s. But the idea of a body of lawmakers and policymaker that exists outside the Monarchy goes back to sometime in the 10th century. American democracy was merely a jump start on something that got underway in Britain 900 years earlier. Big Ben, which for Americans watching Hollywood movies at least, is probably London's most recognizable landmark, is not part of Buckingham Palace but the Parliament building. Whether people here know that or not, I'm not always sure. Anyway, I guess I was using Truss as a symbol of Parliament and hence a symbol of British democracy, and anytime you use a living person as a symbol, well, as you so aptly pointed out, there ARE problems. And I most certainly agree that American democracy is not much to brag about these days, and maybe even less so in the future!
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