• 🇬🇧󠁿 🇸🇪 🇿🇦 🇮🇪 🇬🇭 🇩🇪 🇪🇺
    European & African
    Drug Discussion

    Welcome Guest!
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules
  • EADD Moderators: Pissed_and_messed | Shinji Ikari

Let the taxpayer buy the Queen a new yacht says Tory

Mr Smokes Blunts. said:
What we are essentially arguing over is the £1 million or so it costs us to finance the Queen's immediate relatives (that's from your own source). That seems a rather petty issue to go changing laws over, changing currency, changing state structure, changing our stamps, changing our national anthem etc. over. Don't you think?
Click to expand...

No, I don't think that's what we're arguing about at all. I think we're arguing about whether or not we continue with this outdated system entitling one family exclusive access to enormous wealth, huge swathes of land, buildings of architectural and historical significance and ten billion pounds' worth of extremely important (not to mention valuable) art.

Mailmonkey said:
But she never uses these powers.

Why didn't she rubberstamp the wishes of the people during the Iraq war?
Click to expand...

There was even some excitable talk in certain quarters (and I don't mean teh internetz) that this was a possibility. I was going out with a well-connected foreign policy wonk at the time and even she was speculating that this might happen. SO unlikely in retrospect that the throbbing warcock was going to be brushed aside by a little old lady but had it happened it would have been a literally majestic moment.
 
Mailmonkey said:
But she never uses these powers.

Why didn't she rubberstamp the wishes of the people during the Iraq war?
Click to expand...

She doesn't have to, the fact they are there is a moderating factor in and of themselves. The trouble is that such a thing would totally undermine parliament (and by extension, supposedly the people), so it is a play once card. This makes it useful for extreme situations that could arise (and certainly could have arisen in the past), like totalitarianism, or something that would affect the people very aversely. It is not really a card worth playing over the Iraq war. It's just not the way you manage to rule a country for 60 years. I guess it is just there to protect against the total corruption of parliament? I feel that in this world, and especially in the last century in Europe, this has been a useful safeguard.
 
In my eyes our relentless drive to war WAS totalitarianism, and not even from within this country. There is no doubt in my mind that when it came to the crunch the queen done flunked on us there.
 
Steady on, you probably wouldn't have many anti-war marches under a totalitarian regime. Hyperbole doesn't achieve anything but polarising the debate further.
 
Mr Smokes Blunts. said:
She doesn't have to, the fact they are there is a moderating factor in and of themselves. The trouble is that such a thing would totally undermine parliament (and by extension, supposedly the people), so it is a play once card. This makes it useful for extreme situations that could arise (and certainly could have arisen in the past), like totalitarianism, or something that would affect the people very aversely. It is not really a card worth playing over the Iraq war. It's just not the way you manage to rule a country for 60 years. I guess it is just there to protect against the total corruption of parliament? I feel that in this world, and especially in the last century in Europe, this has been a useful safeguard.
Click to expand...

This is quite a good point to be fair.
 
Nice one. Okay, totalitarianism is taking it too far, but that to my mind was a point at which our government and other agencies were being bent to the will of another state and the vast majority of the people were dead the hell against it. ie A good point for queeny to flex that particular power if she was anything more than a figurehead.
 
Last edited:
jancrow said:
No, I don't think that's what we're arguing about at all. I think we're arguing about whether or not we continue with this outdated system entitling one family exclusive access to enormous wealth, huge swathes of land, buildings of architectural and historical significance and ten billion pounds' worth of extremely important (not to mention valuable) art.
Click to expand...

I must not have my finger on the pulse then:

jancrow said:
Look, as you say yourself in the next paragraph I have no desire to install a president. I'm not even rabidly anti-queen despite my first post, although it probably wouldn't take very much at all to push me that way. I mainly object to the Harrys and the Kents and the Edwards of that world.... And their goddamn WAGs. Maybe I even feel a little as though the qunt should be allowed to live out her declining years as a gesture of kindness and that we should take things from there. Ie no succession, off you go the lot of you and get jobs. You seem to share some views with the Conservatives and I can't understand for the life of me why they and you support well-paid jobs for life for people whose worth has not been proved either way.
Click to expand...

But we'll go along with you saying that we should get rid of it for meritocratic reasons. I don't really have an argument against this, as I have said already. I just don't think we will become that much more meritocratic, and I think the Queen does a good job at a good price. As for the art, her land, and her buildings, I think she will end up keeping it if we got rid of her. But we've been over this already as well, and you ducked out of that argument somewhat by saying that you weren't one of the pitch fork crowd who want to take everything from the Royal Family any way.

jancrow said:
Nice one. Okay, totalitarianism is taking it too far, but that to my mind was a point at which our government and other agencies were being bent to the will of another state and the vast majority of the people were dead the hell against it. ie A good point for queeny to flex that particular power if she was anything more than a figurehead.
Click to expand...

Well for her to do that, she would have had to come to the conclusion that her taking total power of the country was less totalitarian than what the government were doing. You are acting like the whole country was hand wringing, going mental, and vehemently against the war, and this wasn't the case. This wasn't the case. Yes 2 million people marched, but 2 million people going for a little walk is hardly all it should take for the Queen to play her trump card.
 
Last edited:
I really don't see those quotes as being mutually exclusive- I also still don't see myself as being one of the pitchfork crowd, thanks, and I also don't see where I ducked out of anything.

And bringing the Iraq war into it sends us off down a whole different track - Tbh you've put a bit of spin on what I said there which was that the vast majority of the country was against the war, and I stand by that. It wasn't anything like as emotive as how it came back to me just then.
 
jancrow said:
I think we're arguing about whether or not we continue with this outdated system....
Click to expand...

Stop there.

That's all that matters. The argument of wealth, distribution or whether a president would be a better head of state... doesn't matter. However, the idea that in modern day democratic Britian we can have an unelected head of state is just plain nonsense to me. I've got nothing against the Queen but once she leaves the throne then we should put an end to this 1800's bollocks once and for all.

For what it's worth thought I don't think the Monarchy have brought this on themselves. I bet the Queen is cringing at Gove's suggestion they build a boat for her during economic recession MK2, 24 hours after another boat sinks. Talk about out of touch Michael. Need to try harder if you're going to reach your goal of being knighted, prick.
 
Mr Smokes Blunts. said:
Do I really have to quote you saying that I can stop defending Tory policy because they've dropped it now? Or the part where you said that I what I was writing was shit? You threw the first ad hom, and from there the gloves are off.
Click to expand...

A) You were defending what you thought may become Tory policy. You're right-wing. None of this was written as a negative sleight on your opinion, those two things happen to be facts.

B) You wrote unverifiable shit about Royal envy. It was shit. You admitted the laziness of your research yourself.

None of this was therefore 'ad-hom'.

But you still 'took the gloves off'. I didn't. You're still here ffs. ;)
 
Last edited:
I don't want to comment as I'm not British and I don't want to sound offensive, but that's the one thing the French got right, off with their heads!

If you're so concerned about tourism revenue you can always sell replicas of their stuffed heads in all those shops in Oxford Street I know I would have bought one for my grandma.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top