WILL AND KATE

BY THIS TIME TOMORROW it will all be over. Will and Kate will be married and the celebrations will have begun up and down the land in villages, towns and cities. Union flags and bunting  will be blowing in celebration - while merriment will abound throughout the country. There is nothing like a popular royal occasion to cheer up the hard core royalists for whom the monarchy is impervious to republican sentiment at such times.

            Some two billion people worldwide are expected to watch the event unfolding on television screens and in different time zones. The occasion will bring thousands of extra tourists to London from countries who long since chose the republican road; but whose people nevertheless have a soft spot for a royal wedding.

            Far from being dead, the institution of the British monarchy continues to flourish much to the annoyance of our own republicans who will no doubt, either spend the day hidden under a duvet popping anti-depressants, or sitting miserably in the corner of a pub downing quantities of alcohol, and hoping to consort with like-minded iconoclasts to give vent to their disgust and cynicism at the vile and loathsome display unfolding.

            As for myself I find the monarchy harmless, and therefore have little emotion either for or against the institutions continuance. But on the whole the monarchy is responsible for more good than harm. Having long since vacated the dogma of Divine Right, I see no reason to persecute  the British Monarchy. They match pound for pound any monies they get from the public purse with the amount of tourism they attract to London.

            As far as the Queen is concerned, she has served the nation well and deserves its respect. She stands among the giants of the monarchy such as Elizabeth I, Queen Anne and Queen Victoria. If we have to have a monarch, then we have been incredibly lucky with the female variety. Which may now lead to a change in the constitution to allow the first born irrespective of sex to take the throne. How many, for instance, would not have sooner seen Princess Anne push Charles aside and take the throne?

WE HAVE IN THIS COUNTRY an almost perfect symbiosis between monarchy and parliament. To change this wholly workable state of affairs would, I believe, prove disastrous. For the alternative is a bland republicanism that can only orchestrate a bureaucracy, as we have witnessed in Europe today.

            History is important to any nation, and monarchy exemplifies this principle. This country has, for its size, seen the greatest empire ever built, and left a great democratic legacy behind from its departure from empire. In comparison to other empires who competed with us, we were by no means the worst example of such a phenomenon. Yet it seems that the British Empire has had more antagonism shown toward it in the modern world than it ever deserved; and much of this criticism was due to our own countrymen’s censure and disapproval, rather than from that of other countries.

            Tomorrow at Westminster Abbey, a young couple will get married. It will, if truth be known, be watched outside of the abbey mostly by women and members of the gay community – which means there will be more than one Queen on show tomorrow.

            But what I like about the whole business is how miserable and angry those on the Left will feel about the occasion. If the event upsets the so-called ‘progressives’ then I wish the couple every happiness.

FROM 1968-1983, I myself tiptoing among the radical Left. First of all, as a member of the Labour Party who found the experience un-bohemian and not at all what I was after. Even the Left of the Labour Party fell well short of what I thought Che Guevara would have found acceptable.

            I always voted Labour despite my joining the British Communist Party (BCP) in about 1972. In fact all BCP members did the same knowing full well that the Labour Party was the only realistic engine for socialism. It was a happy time for me in the BCP. I attended branch meetings in my town where a most colourful and somewhat bizarre collection of comrades gathered on many a cold winters night to put the world to rights.

            I eventually lost patience with the Left when the Labour Party picked poor old Michael Foot  to lead them. It was in 1983 when the longest suicide note in history was written in the form of a manifesto for that year’s General Election, that  I began to turn aside from Left-wing politics. Admittedly, my true political and patriotic nature came to the for when the Falkland Crises reared its head and we went to war with Argentina some two years earlier.

            But after the general election  in 1983 I started to believe that socialism was merely a utopian plan constructed from of a time in this nation’s history when the working class were indeed the wage slaves of capitalism.

            Today I support none of the main parties. If there were a Conservative Party to vote for I would willingly oblige. But sadly that now extant body no longer provides the compulsion to do so. All the main parties are much alike and the values that made them have been so compromised that people like myself are forced to turn to fringe parties in order to place their vote. As far I am concerned, I will vote for UKIP wherever one is standing in my constituency. For UKIP is the only party that holds onto what was once regarded as Conservative values.

TOMORROW THE ROYAL wedding will, I hope be successful, not only for the continuance of the monarchy, but also for the young couple getting married.

            But most of all I hope that, as an institution, the monarchy will continue its role within our society. I hope so because it is largely dependent upon the individual that is crowned at any particular coronation.

            I am not an uncritical supporter of this institution and will not bow to the ‘impregnable sovereignty’ of its decision making. If, for instance, Charles is allowed access to the throne, he cannot expect, at least from the likes of me, any kind of support.

            The monarchy will need to justify itself in the future, and this means that the chosen monarch will provide acceptance among the people.

            I truly believe that the current monarch is staying in power to hopefully diminish the time her successor will spend on the throne after her. I believe Queen Elizabeth would sooner wait for William to reach sufficient maturity and for his father to reach sufficient old age to spend as little time as possible on the throne of England.

            If this is the case, I hope Queen Elizabeth lasts another 10 years on the throne; which would leave her 72 year old son limited time to do much arm to the institution of the monarchy.

            Prince Charles, like all of the sovereigns so christened, is unfit for the job and I think his mother is aware of it and is therefore willing to try and hang on until Charles’ time as king is limited by age in the hope that he cannot do much harm to the institution.