Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

Yes a surprising result ,i thought it would have been a bit closer .I wonder if the result would have been different if there had been no wedding ?

Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

Not for me i would have still said Monarchy.

Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

I think the result pretty much mirrors what the nation as a whole feels about the issue.

Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

Quite right, what always happens in debates such as this is that the minority view always gets far more exposure than they are warranted. Whereas the silent majority are just that- silent.

Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

It's not really a simple question and the results are somewhat misleading.

I'm a republican, but i wouldn't just get rid of the British monarchy now. They're synonymous with British culture and history and in turn valuable to many others, even if they're not to me.

Change a number of things about the British monarchy? Almost certainly. Get rid of them completely? No. If i was building a nation from scratch, would it be a monarchism? No.

My decision isn't based on my personal feelings or politics, it's what i think is best for the country as a whole.

Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

Maybe it's time for that silence to be unsilenced :D



LONG LIVE THE QUEEN

Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

:clap: May i second that

Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

She doesn't rule. She reigns. There's a great big constitutional difference. ;)

Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

Maybe he's going to live until he is 100 as well..;)

Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

As I said earlier absolutely fine and delighted with the monarchy, however I do want to see some constitutional reform. Replace the house of lords with a house elected entirely by PR, increase the powers of the PM and make him directly elected to that job by the people rather than his own party, and I'm ecstatic.

Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

More money spent on more elections?Surely that's a waste of public resources?;)

Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

Sounds good to me!:)

Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

Surly that would make him president then not prime (first) minister. Rather then going all the way to having directly elected president/prime minister i personally would like to see the torys honor their election pledge of forcing a general election if/when the governing party changes its leader. This would go a long way to preventing the problem of having a PM with no public mandate (ala brown) without the expense of having a presidential election on top of the general commons election.

Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

Being directly elected doesn't make someone a president. Boris Johnson is directly elected, that just makes him the directly elected holder of the office he was elected to ... in this case Mayor of London.

A president has the top job - head of state and in some cases also head of government. Our monarch has the job of head of state and our prime minister is head of government. He/she would still be the prime minister of the government if he were directly elected by us rather than by current means.

However, there are certain complexities in directly electing the PM. The convention is that the Queen appoints as her PM, the one who is most likely to command a majority in Parliament. Turning that on its head would require a great deal of careful planning and law-making, and all we would end up with is a system where the Prime Minister is more likely than at present not to have a commons majority, and therefore less able to pass legislation and more likely to have the annual pantomime of struggling to get a budget approved.

Re: Monarchy or Republic?
 

Accountability and transparency are priceless :)