just how important is the Royal Family?

[Elliot]

Don't worry he's not going to be around much longer - we'll have Lord Snooty and all his Eton chums instead. :?

[dave_mc]

^ now, now, I'm sure the bullingdon club has many noble egalitarian aims...

I despise the Royal Family, they have took our money and spent it until we die an early death overworked. England is not a true democracy. Personally I prefer the French politcal system to any other in the world, we should have a president, but not Gordon Brown, he isn't even English! and he looks like a spaz-mong when he opens his weird fish like mouth.

!!!!!!!!!!!!

the country is the UK, not england. As a citizen of the UK, he is completely acceptable to have as PM. I hate the guy, but on principle I defend his right to be PM. You can't go round annexing countries and then tell citizens of those countries that they can't be PM... we don't complain when we have an english PM.

[Dreichlift]

I despise the Royal Family, they have took our money and spent it until we die an early death overworked. England is not a true democracy. Personally I prefer the French politcal system to any other in the world, we should have a president, but not Gordon Brown, he isn't even English! and he looks like a spaz-mong when he opens his weird fish like mouth.

And thus we see why many Scots would like independance.

Anyway I personally like the Royals, but mainly the unpopular ones as I'm a fan of the politically incorrect and the outspoken. As has been said before the royals bring in a lot in the way of tourism, but also the Queen invests more that she is paid from public funds on various stately homes and estates that would normally go to ruin without assistance, thereby doing much to preserve British heritage. The money she uses for this comes from financial investments and overseas concerns so I say more power to her.

[Elliot]

Its also why many English would like to see Scots independence too.

[nfe]

I despise the Royal Family, they have took our money and spent it until we die an early death overworked. England is not a true democracy. Personally I prefer the French politcal system to any other in the world, we should have a president, but not Gordon Brown, he isn't even English! and he looks like a spaz-mong when he opens his weird fish like mouth.

And thus we see why many Scots would like independance.

Of course, we'd then be ruled by a bunch of wee free mentalist Tartan Tories and we'd quickly get back to not being able to open shops on Sundays and drink, petrol and fag taxes would rocket. Eventually we'd probably slide to the left as people got the huff with the SNP idiots and started voting in the SSP. So that's a positive.

On the UK not being ruled by an Englishman, well, there's more than England in the UK, the name kinda gives it away, you know? And it hasn't been for 12 years, get it up ye.

[CaptainDesslock]

oh, no!

i should've remembered what my mother taught me, never talk about sex, politics, or religion around the table!

[Ted 'N' Leo]

^ now, now, I'm sure the bullingdon club has many noble egalitarian aims...

I despise the Royal Family, they have took our money and spent it until we die an early death overworked. England is not a true democracy. Personally I prefer the French politcal system to any other in the world, we should have a president, but not Gordon Brown, he isn't even English! and he looks like a spaz-mong when he opens his weird fish like mouth.

!!!!!!!!!!!!

the country is the UK, not england. As a citizen of the UK, he is completely acceptable to have as PM. I hate the guy, but on principle I defend his right to be PM. You can't go round annexing countries and then tell citizens of those countries that they can't be PM... we don't complain when we have an english PM.

Glad to see i wasn't the first person here Dave!

The fact that he's from Scotland is completely irrelevant, the English pms we had before him (Thatcher and Major) weren't exactly better for it were they? Although i can't say i like him very much either, always seems to come off as useless no matter what he does.

And thus we see why many Scots would like independance.

Only ones who've seen Braveheart a few too many times (which seems to be most of the SNP by the sounds for them).

[dave_mc]

Glad to see i wasn't the first person here Dave!

The fact that he's from Scotland is completely irrelevant, the English pms we had before him (Thatcher and Major) weren't exactly better for it were they? Although i can't say i like him very much either, always seems to come off as useless no matter what he does.

yeah, definitely.

[Elliot]

Its not irrelevant that he's from Scotland - the UK is an artificial construct created to give England stability and Scotland access to all the trade routes that the English had such as the American and East Indies trade.  Now that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved (and hopefully independent) governments it is wrong and hypocritical for the Scots to vote on exclusively English issues or to take the great offices in England  Its about time that the irrelevant and perenially unpopular political union of 1707 be disbanded leaving the individual countries to form a cultural alliance (if they so choose) rather like the Scandinavians do.  This is especially so given that it the EU now does what the old union set out to do - regulate economic transactions between the various separate countries of the union.  In fact we would all get on better that way. 

[dave_mc]

I don't think that's fair. I think it's a bit rich to decry a very slightly unfair thing which is happening now (and which has only been happening for the past few years, might I add- there was no talk of this unfairness when english votes had much more effect on policies in NI, scotland and wales ) considering the extremely unfair things which england visited upon wales, scotland and northern ireland up until very recently.

Also, the govts are devolved, but plenty of stuff is still done from westminster. it's not true that scots etc. are voting on things which don't concern them, because plenty of it still does.

[Philly Q]

Its not irrelevant that he's from Scotland - the UK is an artificial construct created to give England stability and Scotland access to all the trade routes that the English had such as the American and East Indies trade. 

That's historically true I'm sure, but I think England, Scotland and Wales are essentially artificial constructs.  It's one poxy little island, why divide it up into three tiny "countries" so we can all have silly little disputes and hate each other (even more than we apparently do already)?

By the same argument, a united Ireland makes sense too, but I'm not trying to get involved in any political complexities here...

[dave_mc]

eh, any country is an artificial construct, if you want to get down to it. i don't agree with your island argument, philly, because an awful lot of islands have more than one country in them. plus an awful lot of countries have more than one island.

EDIT: plus i'm not certain you've thought through the ireland thing... making it one country so we liked each other more might just degenerate into a gigantic royal rumble... :lol:

[Afghan Dave]

Ok, I can't stay out of this any longer...

I pretty much agree with 99% of what Elliot has said on this thread.

The Civil war and particularly the interregnum was an incredibly valuable period of political growth and thought. The echoes of which continue through the American constitution & any actions influenced by that.

The trial and execution of King Charles established a precedent that underpins the international ability to prosecute murderous rulers and tyrants to this day.

The revisionist history of Royalist sympathisers is still taught in English schools and the importance of this period of English history to the world is mainly overlooked.

Presently the Scottish MPs in parliament continue to vote on English matters that no longer concern them... That is NOT devolution.

If we English don't start to be a bit more forthright and become educated and proud about our intellectual contribution to the world we will all be poorer for it.

[MDV]

Its not irrelevant that he's from Scotland - the UK is an artificial construct created to give England stability and Scotland access to all the trade routes that the English had such as the American and East Indies trade. 

That's historically true I'm sure, but I think England, Scotland and Wales are essentially artificial constructs.  It's one poxy little island, why divide it up into three tiny "countries" so we can all have silly little disputes and hate each other (even more than we apparently do already)?

By the same argument, a united Ireland makes sense too, but I'm not trying to get involved in any political complexities here...

Its one poxy little planet, why divide it up into a couple of hundred tiny countries so we can have silly little disputes with each other?

Daves right; all countries are artificial constructs.

[Elliot]

Yeah your right, your reasoning is so clear, stripping away all the rubbish detritus of history - lets have one world government - now that would stop all conflict, or at least we could then have one world police to stop the ethnic tensions that might emerge from those not clever enough to see that their feeling of community and identity  was in fact wrong headed poxy artificial reasoning  :lol: