[Adam]

I just think of them as a sort of living history project. They've fuck all relevance to modern Britain, but they're a link to the nations past. A bit like a sort of National Trust property, although one that has a tendency to get drunk, abuse foreigners and dress up in Nazi gear from time to time.

[tc-obo]

And, to be fair, you can't really imagine someone like Prince Phil being around in a presidential system. Or Charlie and his obsession with organic farming, at that.

[bluebellnutter]

Roll up, roll up! Camilla goes for a paddle on a very British holiday

Camilla remains the other woman who was relentless in her pursuit of Prince Charles causing Princess Diana to take the route to disaster.
Diana named Camilla the "rottweiler"..her innocent masquerade portrayed at the beach won't erase the fact that ultimately she did cause the Princess no end of grief as well as a marriage of heartbreak!

- Cetura, Chomedy Laval, 30/6/2008 3:13

*Backs away slowly*

Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles should have been inside. She is better off not seen and not heard.

- Anon., UK, 30/6/2008 8:12

I have no idea who this person is, but I bet they're an Express reader

[Mr Mordon]

Camilla remains the other woman who was relentless in her pursuit of Prince Charles causing Princess Diana to take the route to disaster.
Diana named Camilla the "rottweiler"..her innocent masquerade portrayed at the beach won't erase the fact that ultimately she did cause the Princess no end of grief as well as a marriage of heartbreak!

- Cetura, Chomedy Laval, 30/6/2008 3:13


*Backs away slowly*

Something about that name and location suggests i could be a pisstake

[JamesFarrier]

Fuck me, they'll roast her even if she dared do so much as a fart.

[Rah-Rah Rupert]

Camilla remains the other woman who was relentless in her pursuit of Prince Charles causing Princess Diana to take the route to disaster.
Diana named Camilla the "rottweiler"..her innocent masquerade portrayed at the beach won't erase the fact that ultimately she did cause the Princess no end of grief as well as a marriage of heartbreak!

- Cetura, Chomedy Laval, 30/6/2008 3:13


*Backs away slowly*

Something about that name and location suggests i could be a pisstake

Cetura is a biblical name and Chomedey Laval is in Quebec. Considering she spelled the name of her own town wrong I assume that she's really thick.

[Rob]

Our little Royal family is the Head of State in about 16 countries, from Antigua to Papua New Guinea, which is pretty good if you ask me.

Does that mean that in theory, she can overule the decisions made by democratically elected governments in those 16 countries? Sounds rather dictatorial to me. I know she doesn't run around closing down parliament and dismissing elected ministers, but she and other monarchs retains the power to do so. It is only 33 years since the elected Australian prime minister and his government was sacked in the name of the queen (who is sovereign Down Under, too) in a constitutional crisis referred to as The Dismissal. Here, Britain’s Royal Prerogative permits the executive – the cabinet or even just the prime minister – to take action without the backing of parliament, much less by consulting the people. The British monarch has the right to dissolve parliament and to choose any parliamentarian to set up a ruling cabinet. The fact that one unelected person is invested with such extraordinary powers is a massive snub to the idea and practice of popular democracy.

I agree with you that the current monarch, Elizabeth 2 is a wonderful asset to the nation. She's a fantastic spokesman, diplomat, representative (at least ceremonially, thankfully not politically) and she's the kind of nice old lady that you would love to have as your granny. My problem is with the hereditary system which is integral to monarchy. When the queen dies, she will be succeeded by Prince Charles - not on merit, not on ability, certainly not on popular consent - but purely because he is his mother's son and the slobbering dauphin will become the head of state, head of the armed forces and head of the church. When Charles becomes king there will be a big rise in republican sentiment i'm sure. Having a nice, old lady as your ceremonial ruler is ok, but that changes when the crown is on the head of a grumpy, irrational, opinionated, regressive, ugly, middle aged man with no taste in women and an unhealthy obsession with talking to plants. And there is no guarentee one day we may get a real nasty bitch/bastard - another Mary, another King John, purely because of hereditary principle.

Saying they are a tourist attraction is a red herring. The worst thing imaginable is feudalistic hereditary principle cowith celebrity culture. It's like going to North Korea to see statues of Kim il Sung. Think briefly of the national anthem - no mention of the country, it's people, it's culture, it's achievments, it's values - just 'all praise the glorious leader'. Why invoke the power of an imaginary deity to bail out these unelected spongers?

People's main argument against republicanism is 'oh i don't want a politician, i don't want president blair etc'. But at least you get to fucking choose! Why do will still cling on to the idea that greatness follows bloodline. Some of the greatest figures in political history have come from humble backgrounds- Jeffersson, Lincoln, Aneurin Bevan to name a handful.

Another argument is that it costs the same to put up a president in a palace etc as a monarch. This I wholly agree with. I find it very interesting how France famously and violently annihilated it's monarchy for being decadent, distant and ostentatious. Yet the official residence of the Frenchg President is still the Palace of Versailles - the very symbol of pre-revolutionary monarchical opulence, decadence and distance. I'm not saying demolish Versailles or Windsor Castle (purely for their aesthetic quality). Just give the president a more modest, appropriate office for an elected representative.

Nepal very recently deposed it's monarchy and established itself as a republic in what was in my mind, one of the greatest days for democracy since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It shows what democracy is all about - having influence over the decisions that affect their lives. But how can a nations people (let alone a proxy-empire of 16 nations) have any real sense of constitutional power when one, unelected person retains the power to dismiss their representatives, declare war and summon and dismiss parliament on a whim?

[Mr Mordon]

Camilla remains the other woman who was relentless in her pursuit of Prince Charles causing Princess Diana to take the route to disaster.
Diana named Camilla the "rottweiler"..her innocent masquerade portrayed at the beach won't erase the fact that ultimately she did cause the Princess no end of grief as well as a marriage of heartbreak!

- Cetura, Chomedy Laval, 30/6/2008 3:13


*Backs away slowly*

Something about that name and location suggests i could be a pisstake

Cetura is a biblical name and Chomedey Laval is in Quebec. Considering she spelled the name of her own town wrong I assume that she's really thick.

I was reading it as a 'funny' way of spelling comedy, stand corrected

[Admirable Chrichton]

You just know that these "Diana fans" have lots of wierd candles and crystals hanging in thier bathrooms. Its just one of those hunches.

Nepal very recently deposed it's monarchy and established itself as a republic

Which probably wasn't too tricky as the crown prince took care of the other half with his shotgun.

[Rob]

Yeh that'll be prince harry in a few years time

[Captain Klutz]

The royalists are in a lather again over a proposal to abolish the Parliamentary oath of allegiance to the queen (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... Queen.html). The passion of the rants is quite remarkable, lots of references to treason

Sack every one of these Treasonous commoners.

Her Royal Highness and successors are the Head of State. End of debate.

- NDT, Brisbane, Australia, 8/8/2008 3:52

putting people in the Tower or worse

One word covers those proposing such a move 'Traitors' and as such should at the very least arrested and taken to the Tower.
If they can't swear allegiance to the Crown, they cannot be trusted with the Country!

So then, name those involved in the plans to overthrow our Monarch, let's be having them.

- Mike, Northumberland - England, 8/8/2008 7:07

(our monarch? Fuck off. I didn't vote for her.)

This I would consider to be at the very least Treason, All twenty two MP's who are demanding this should be stripped of their office, Kicked out onto the street and forced to walk the streets with placards around their scrawny necks declaring their guilt.

This smacks of the EU And the shifty way its operates.................

- D J Kirkby, Newport/Wales, 8/8/2008 7:27

and repeated references to the EU for some reason (apparently it's only one short step from getting rid of the oath to becoming part of an EU totalitarian superstate)

To be replaced with an oath of allegiance to the EU I expect.
Lets examine the Lisbon Constitution once again, that one must be in there somewhere.

- Richard, Mersin 10, Turkey, 8/8/2008 6:27


I hope it doesn't happen...more corosion of our Britishness....we are all going to be ruled by the EU.

- Jacqueline, uk, 8/8/2008 6:39

My favourites are always the ones where they manage to squeeze in as many of their hates as possible just to be safe

Wake up my fellow British people and smell the coffee. This is a sustained effort to force Britain into the EU. Abolish the monarchy, destroy British traditions, hand over powers to Brussels bit by bit, make our new £20 notes look like Euro money (the others will follow soon enough I am sure), allow our currency to be devalued so it is almost the same as the Euro, have crazy EU laws override British law...etc etc. We have already surrendered imperial measures in favour of rip off metric units (liters instead of gallons). The reason they have diluted what it means to be British down to a wishy washy liberal 'tolerance of others' rubbish is so we are more open to EU statehood. Ask yourselves why they allow uncontrolled mass immigration from the EU and the rest of the world? With a more diverse population, there is less unity and patriotism, allowing them to get away with their schemes to end our democracy and sovereignty. Stop voting Labour and Lib Dem and wake up please!

- John Raybould, Zebulon, USA, 8/8/2008 3:28

But this is the best:

Slowly but surely these traitorous men are unpicking the constitution and the things that bind Britain together as a nation. Do they know what they are doing? Like the Roman Empire a Nation is an idea. Men for centuries have fought for that idea. No one asked them to do this like we never asked these MP's to authorise us the become a part of a corrupt super state called The EU where according to the auditors 95% of its budget is unnacouinted for/missing. Because that is what this is about, the dismemberment of Britain so that it can be taken over and our foriegn reserves handed into an EU bank. But 22 MOP's are nothing if the over 650 ignore their nonsense. Why dismember what has proven to be the best idea in Centuries when while all others collapsed out nation prevailed against all odds?

- Jas, Alders UK, 8/8/2008 5:28

Did this guy just randomly pull a selection of words out of a dictionary?

[bluebellnutter]

Slowly but surely these traitorous men are unpicking the constitution and the things that bind Britain together as a nation. Do they know what they are doing? Like the Roman Empire a Nation is an idea. Men for centuries have fought for that idea. No one asked them to do this like we never asked these MP's to authorise us the become a part of a corrupt super state called The EU where according to the auditors 95% of its budget is unnacouinted for/missing. Because that is what this is about, the dismemberment of Britain so that it can be taken over and our foriegn reserves handed into an EU bank. But 22 MOP's are nothing if the over 650 ignore their nonsense. Why dismember what has proven to be the best idea in Centuries when while all others collapsed out nation prevailed against all odds?

- Jas, Alders UK, 8/8/2008 5:28

Yeah! Bloody mops, probably wielded by Eastern European immigrant cleaners...

[Citizen Cain]

Tell me, is there a new definition of treason I am unaware of?

Because while a few hundred years ago it was in fact illegal to agitiate for a republic under the Felony Treason Act, the House of Lords ruled that:

"part of section 3 of the 1848 Act which appears to criminalise the advocacy of republicanism is a relic of a bygone age and does not fit into the fabric of our modern legal system. The idea that section 3 could survive scrutiny under the Human Rights Act is unreal."

Besides, the case could be made that Parliament is the sovereign in the UK, as most of the previous powers of the monarchy were transferred there. And Parliament represents the people, at least in theory. I'm guessing this is another case of wanting to bring Feudalism back.

[Captain Klutz]

Tell me, is there a new definition of treason I am unaware of?

It's funny that it's treasonable to wish to remove an oath of allegiance but not treasonable to publish photos of members of the royal family staggering out of night clubs, or articles that speculate about their sex lives.

[frolix22]

Let's not forget that the Mail crowd are the ones constantly screeching about how McBroon is "unelected".

Apparently, commanding a majority of MPs in a House of Commons elected under British electoral law gives you no legitimacy whatsoever but questioning an anachronistic oath to a woman born with a silver spoon up her royal backside is treason.

They are absolutely bonkers, the lot of them.