In any modern liberal democracy there is not room for hereditary rule, but that does not imply that a British institution such as the Royal Family should be destroyed.
For one thing, the Monarchy provides the British public with a huge source of voyeuristic entertainment; and for better or for worse, there are always stories floating around in the British press about what the Royal Family has or hasn’t done.
Take for instance the tragic death of Princess Diana, or her young son Prince Harry. Through his rather questionable level of partying, and his recent Tour of Duty in Afghanistan, he has provided the media – and the public – with a wonderfully entertaining variety of stories, about which everybody seems to have a view.
They are also a British convention to rival even the double-decker bus, or old red phone boxes, and so to have the Royal Family dissolved, or never seeing the traditional Queen’s Speech at three o’clock on Christmas Day, would be almost as unthinkable to millions of middle-class Britons as never ever seeing another fish & chip shop, or never having another cup of tea in their life.
Inevitably there are those anti-monarchists who argue quite rightly that any form of hereditary political power is unacceptable, especially in a country such as Britain which prides itself on its fair law and liberality. The fact that the Royal Family is a relic of Britain’s old hereditary rule – which countries such as France removed for themselves way back in the nineteenth century – is undeniable, but this is the twenty-first century, and there are many other roles which the British Monarchy fulfils.
The Queen, being the Head of the Commonwealth, acts as a fantastic figurehead for Britain, and through her and her family’s ambassadorial work the country has very powerful and respected figures that can do a lot of good in the world. Of course, those against the Royal Family would point out that since they have no political powers, they cannot really have any political impact, and that these are precisely the matter that they should not be involved in.
Value of Aristocracy
Despite the cost of the Privy Purse – the multi-million pound tax pot which funds the Royal Family, which could well be better spent on the impoverished, especially during times of deep economic recession – they do bring in huge amounts of revenue from tourism. Ask any sightseer in London where he or she plans to visit and undoubtedly Windsor Palace will be on the list, if not at the top of the list.
So, regardless of their political worthlessness and their past as the hereditary rules of anything other than a liberal democracy, the Royal Family can have an important role to play in twenty-first century Britain, and one that should not be understated.
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