Jubilee Street Party? Not me.

[ROG]

Senior race day---for the over sixties.?

We were going to have a street party then someone realised that"s it"s a main road, and at the last celebration the ambulances couldn"t cope with the casualties.!

[JoeC]

I posted this before (but PW didn't answer )

Why don't we randomly choose a newborn child and use the current royal system to bring them up in an agreed way to be our head of state? Eton, Uni, RAF, Charity work, etc. A few could be chosen with the first out of the hat (firstborn) taking precedent. The back-ups would be there in case of early death etc.

Their families and cousins etc can all be supported by the state too as they are now.

The beauty of this system is that we don't have to suffer an elected politician or someone who "wants" to be head of state.

After a generation or so everyone would have had a similar chance of becoming king/queen due to the birth lottery so the system is "fair".

The beauty of this is that those who like to defer to people because of a random accident of birth are kept happy, we keep the pomp and ceremony of a head of state, we get to control how the head of state is brought-up/indoctrinated and those who a republicans are kept happy too.

[Propwash]

I posted this before (but PW didn't answer )

Probably because I didn't think it merited one.

But since you persist:

Why don't we randomly choose a newborn child and use the current royal system to bring them up in an agreed way to be our head of state?

Because it is called kidnapping, and it is against the law.

PW

[Gerard Clarke]

Kidnapping is a noble tradition in the illustrious history of Monarchy, along with slaughter, rapine, and good plain thievery. You may recall that the job application form at Warwick the Kingmaker's used to include the questions: "Are you Edmund Mortimer? If not, have you got him?"

[Gerard Clarke]

Tom Paine:-

... Most wise men in their private sentiments have ever treated hereditary right with contempt; yet it is one of those evils which when once established is not easily removed: many submit from fear, others from superstition, and the more powerful part shares with the king the plunder of the rest.

This is supposing the present race of kings in the world to have had an honorable origin: whereas it is more than probable, that, could we take off the dark covering of antiquity and trace them to their first rise, we should find the first of them nothing better than the principal ruffian of some restless gang, whose savage manners of pre-eminence in subtilty obtained him the title of chief among plunderers; and who by increasing in power and extending his depredations, overawed the quiet and defenseless to purchase their safety by frequent contributions. Yet his electors could have no idea of giving hereditary right to his descendants, because such a perpetual exclusion of themselves was incompatible with the free and restrained principles they professed to live by. Wherefore, hereditary succession in the early ages of monarchy could not take place as a matter of claim, but as something casual or complemental; but as few or no records were extant in those days, the traditionary history stuff'd with fables, it was very easy, after the lapse of a few generations, to trump up some superstitious tale conveniently timed, Mahomet-like, to cram hereditary right down the throats of the vulgar. Perhaps the disorders which threatened, or seemed to threaten, on the decease of a leader and the choice of a new one (for elections among ruffians could not be very orderly) induced many at first to favour hereditary pretensions; by which means it happened, as it hath happened since, that what at first was submitted to as a convenience was afterwards claimed as a right.

England since the conquest hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones: yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honourable one. A French bastard landing with an armed Banditti and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original. It certainly hath no divinity in it. However it is needless to spend much time in exposing the folly of hereditary right; if there are any so weak as to believe it, let them promiscuously worship the Ass and the Lion, and welcome. I shall neither copy their humility, nor disturb their devotion.

http://www.ushistory.org/paine/commonsense/sense3.htm

[lobstaboy]

JoeC - how would your random selection scheme (full marks for thinking out of the box btw) keep republicans happy? You'd still have a monarchy, just a randomly selected one...

Martin

[Paul_Sengupta]

Why don't we randomly choose a newborn child and use the current royal system to bring them up in an agreed way to be our head of state? Eton, Uni, RAF, Charity work, etc. A few could be chosen with the first out of the hat (firstborn) taking precedent. The back-ups would be there in case of early death etc.

This would be an excellent idea, though the only problem is that the parents and family would also have to have been brought up this way from birth to bring up the child in the right conditions. And their parents before them. Etc.

The beauty of this system is that we don't have to suffer an elected politician or someone who "wants" to be head of state.

Yup. It would be nice if we could train all politicians from birth for the position, give them some experience of the upper echelons of the real world on the way and feed and house them in council houses (perhaps big ones) so they wouldn't have to fiddle their expenses to feather their own nests. Of course they'd have to work until death, so no retirement or pensions or anything to worry about. Do we have any politicians like that? Are some politicians trying to get them out and replace them with partisan retirees and industrialists?

After a generation or so everyone would have had a similar chance of becoming king/queen due to the birth lottery so the system is "fair".

Well, not quite, if you were to have to train the parents, grandparents, etc.

beauty of this is that those who like to defer to people because of a random accident of birth are kept happy, we keep the pomp and ceremony of a head of state, we get to control how the head of state is brought-up/indoctrinated and those who a republicans are kept happy too.

Not sure where the forelock tugging and things come in, I think those who think that way are probably over a hundred years out of touch.

[Colonel Panic]

Why don't we randomly choose a newborn child and use the current royal system to bring them up in an agreed way to be our head of state?

The Nepalese do something similar for a deity.

[Gerard Clarke]

Have you ever met a Royal, Paul? They seriously expect you to stand up, bow, and call them by posh titles, or by honorifics used in a deferential manner. Charles in particular appears genuinely to believe that he has been touched by the Hand of God, and is a special type of human being, elevated above mere mortals. These types move around in a cloud of flunkeys and bag carriers. The whole thing is rather undignified in a modern democracy.

Obama, Hollande and others of that ilk are attended by a degree of pomp and circumstance, because they symbolise in a meaningful way the power and standing of their respective States, and there is also the small matter that they have been elected. I have no problem with being polite and respectful when speaking to a shop assistant, a doctor, a Judge, or whatever, but respect for each of those is based on what they do and not on a status conferred by accidental cirumstance.

[Vince C]

Have you ever met a Royal, Paul? They seriously expect you to stand up, bow, and call them by posh titles,

Reminds me of a true tale a friend of mine tells. He worked on the ground for BA at Manchester in a senior position, and we were talking of the BOAC VC10 services that used to operate out of Manchester to New York and the Carribean, and to Canada. The captains on these could be real bartstewards of the old school.

A cheery yound dispatcher appeared on the flight deck at Man one morning.. "Papers to sign, Skip".

The left-hand seat one ignored him completely.

"Papers to be signed, Skip", he repeated. Still no response from the mighty one.

"Skipper, can you sign the papers, please?". When there was still no response, the First Officer turned to the Redcap and said "I think the cnut is waiting for you to call him Sir".

[Sharpie]

I see the royals as pets, pets of the people.
We feed them, play (the game) with them and if it were not for our deference the game would not be on.

[Bill McCarthy]

Written on the headstone of one of London's finest - boy Jack Travers Cornwell VC

It is not wealth or ancestry
But honourable conduct and a noble disposition
That maketh men great.

[Jim Jones]

The extra hols allows me to celebrate my personal Jubilee on the Monday with my extended family, most of whom work in retail and don't get weekends off.

Our current tame monarchy is the least worst system currently on offer. Never met one except the late Queen Mother briefly who seemed bemused to find a chap in a line of nurses. Poor thing, dreadful teeth and on odd smell is my abiding memory.

[Pete L]

You don't drink gin, do you.

[Sir Morley Steven]

Can't see the point of em but can't see the point of getting rid of em either. They're great for OK mag sales and making us plebs feel sane.
Plus Zara is well fit innit?