• Queen welcomes President Trump to palace
    79 replies, posted
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48491722 https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/225943/5b857b9b-5007-4eff-a58d-8033d72666ee/image.png The Marine One helicopter landed in the grounds of Buckingham Palace https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/225943/a3548084-32f5-4ba9-a46c-c24d74107dad/image.png Mr Trump was greeted from the helicopter by Prince Charles https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1135453891326238721
God, he has no tact. He's so blazé with how he speaks it's incredibly irritating.
Well, when nobody holds you accountable for anything you do, no sense in stopping. Just embarrassing, there are middle school kids with more common sense and social skills.
I feel very sorry for the Royals who had to entertain this overbearing manchild.
I don't, they very easily could've not entertained his visit.
Not really. The Queen's policy of divorcing herself from politics would preclude that because it would be a political statement.
So much irony and stupidity in ~50 words it hurts my head. He complains that Sadiq Khan is focusing on him, then calls Khan nasty (in quote marks so it looks like he's not the first to say it) and immediately follows it up with "He is a stone cold loser". Then he talks shit about some unrelated guy because he's not at all unfocused and nasty himself. He also writes "President of the United States" in third person because he needs to high five himself, and tops off the rant by saying he'll be a great friend. Yet here we are giving him the royal treatment for some reason.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=845hAR9__3I&t=0s
Why the hell would you feel sorry for a royal? They choose to remain in their position of immorally gained wealth and power. They could fuck off any time they want and not have to put up with this shit and we'd not have to put up with their parasitic existence
In case you're wondering, the UK is having a fun time with him here. https://twitter.com/Lost_Droids/status/1135438730561576962?s=20 https://twitter.com/zubairzakir/status/1135484328002183168?s=20 https://twitter.com/MonarchyUK/status/1134798218410287104?s=20 https://twitter.com/Lost_Droids/status/1135474520842801154?s=20
Do you think they have wi-fi in the palace or will he need to use mobile data to shit on the UK?
I doubt Liz will give him the password. I wanted to make this thread under the title "Utter Bastard Bothers Brits - Trump To Shit In Buckingham Palace" but I remembered the editorial rule and got bored.
he's gonna watch cnn and fox, one of which will praise him regardless of what he does
Honestly, although I dislike Trump, I harbour absolutely no sympathy for the queen whatsoever in this situation. Tough life being a billionaire paid by the state, huh?
The Queen and royal family bring in more money than they spend, they are generally members of the military themselves and actively participate and the queen is the curator of the largest private historical collection in the world to which is very frequently put on display around the commonwealth. And that's not mentioning all the charitable stuff they do. Because of their position they are actually put under a lot more scrutiny and have a Lott more commitments than your usual billionaire. But I digress, we should be mocking trump.
Weren't they almost bankrupt a few years back?
Having an unelected Head of State is good. No democratic legitimacy ensures they can't encroach upon democratic procedure, while also ensuring that the elected head of government isn't able to have too much executive power. They also serve as good diplomats, as in the current case with meeting Trump, rather than us committing elected officials to all diplomatic work.
To be honest having a queen as an unofficial "mascot" is probably a good move because they make the country look slightly better as representing the country instead of their horribly shitty politicians. US could use something like that.
Actually, no: https://youtu.be/yiE2DLqJB8U
Monarchy is ridiculous. Why should elected officials, people who earned enough respect to be voted for have to bow to unelected officials? Why should I bow to Prince George? Elected officials are accountable to the people, and not to themselves.
That last part doesn't make any sense, the Queen literally doesn't have any power remaining whatsoever. Maybe it's written in law somewhere that theoretically she still has political power in some respect but pragmatically she does not have any sway over british politics other than in a purely ceremonial manner. Also, every characteristic you describe the queen as having could be given to a government-created independent apolitical entity should british politicians choose to do so. It's not as if countries without a Queen as head of state are somehow at a disavantage for not having one. Like, seriously.
Royal Assent is still required for Bills to become Acts, so there is still a degree of constitutional oversight to ensure that any wholly objectionable legislation cannot be passed. It's largely hands-off, but it's still present. The Monarchy is exactly the institution you describe, the difference being that the Monarchy faces an existential threat if it attempts to encroach upon the democratic process. If there were a separate entity, you'd need to have appointments by someone - the House of Lords receives appointments from the government, which then requires the Lords Appointments Committee to provide oversight to ensure no bias is taking place, and even then it didn't stop the Labour government from flooding the Lords with Labour Peers after it had previously been filled with Tory peers. The Monarchy is a good system in its current iteration. It helps balance out the constitutional system by being above Government without wholly curtailing it, and also having an obligation to act as public servants whilst being politically neutral.
So essentially it's a system that's similar to the electoral college in that it's supposed to prevent populism from taking hold, and it's equally useless at that. The second the queen vetoes a bill, she violates her tacit pact and the government will move to destitute her. At least that's what most Brits here argue. Well, if the government no longer has to pay for the royal family's living costs, then either the money that's been saved will be reinvested in those estates (meaning their funding will increase) or it can be used for other purposes, like funding social security or healthcare. I'm not sure what you're arguing here, it's a net benefit either way. I don't think you can argue against the fact that a family living luxuriously on government dole isn't exactly a good look amidst extreme austerity policies and numerous citizens struggling to make ends meet.
I don't know where you got populism from. Tory government has been in power since 2015, pre-Referendum. They're very much free-market libertarian capitalists. Any populist rhetoric is just a veneer - evidence for that is visible when they launch on a manifesto to cut down migration; meanwhile, in reality, non-EU migration has risen. Hardly appealing to populist rhetoric there. Brexit is entirely a deregulatory venture for capitalist gain. Labour gains in the previous general election would say otherwise about populism as well, as would the rise of the Liberal Democrats in the EU elections. The Queen hasn't yet used her prerogative of Royal Assent to block legislation, no, but she has weekly meetings with the Prime Minister to discuss policy direction, so there is some involvement. I should add that the Monarch is involved in the appointment of Lords Temporal to the House of Lords, who provide important legislative scrutiny to legislation from the House of Commons. Royal family living cost expenses are no different to paying a expenses to an institution of elected or appointed officials, the difference being they're politically neutral by virtue of their tentative existence. Either way, you're going to be paying for someone and the properties. There is significant oversight over Royal budget and expenditure - 75% of the revenues from Crown estates go to the Treasury for the country. Their expenses are hardly comparable to football players or celebrities, so if you want to address issues of wealth inequality, it'd be better to have more comprehensive tax provisions for people who don't work for the state as the Monarchy does. The expenses of the Monarchy are also trivial whenever you consider what government expenditure on social security and healthcare actually is. The only way you'd actually make any money from dissolving the Monarchy is by also selling off Crown estates and their private holdings, at which point you lose cultural relics and environmental spaces. Austerity and poverty isn't a problem caused by the Monarchy, it's by failures of successive elected government. To say that getting rid of the Monarchy would help solve the problems of wealth inequality is trivialising the problem to the point of absurdity.
https://twitter.com/Newsweek/status/1135544171698298885
Well that's stupid. A person that's not a representative of the people, who wasn't voted in and didn't do anything to legitimize her power other than being born gets to make decisions regarding the direction of the country, in a "democracy"? I have no idea why you don't see any problem with that. How the heck is choosing who to appoint to decide law remotely "politically neutral"? Ironic considering brexitards give the EU shit for having "unelected officials" considering every EU representative was strictly the direct or indirect result of a vote. Can't say the same of the queen or her appointees. I don't think you understand the problem here. Football players aren't paid by the government. Their salary doesn't come from taxes. Meanwhile, the queen is getting paid by the government for exercising political power she didn't acquire democratically, and the rest of her family for doing nothing in particular. They also get to keep 25% of the revenues from lands that are the direct legacy of an undemocratic regime, most of which they probably wouldn't even own had they been born in a Republican nation. My beef isn't simply with the royals earning money that would've been better used to combat poverty, but with them earning money from the taxpayer for doing nothing but being born into their position, all the while the same people that fund their lavish lifestyle are having severe financial difficulties, and while the queen doesn't even use her undeserved power to correct that blatant injustice.
Personally I don't care for the monarchy in the slightest and I'd have no problem with a wholesale dissolution, but at the same time I concede that, realistically, there is no chance of them going anywhere this century. They are widely popular, inside and outside the country.
In my previous post I mentioned that the Lords Appointments Committee provides oversight for appointed Lords. Lords Temporal are usually former members of government, business leaders and industry experts, who provide important scrutiny to legislation. The appointments are suggested by the government, who are given oversight by the Committee, then formally appointed by the Queen. There are unelected officials in the EU, as in every government in the world. What's important is that democratic or non-partisan oversight is given, which is the case for both the UK Parliament and the EU institutions. Not all levels of government have to be wholly democratic. The Monarchy being paid by the government is better, given that they perform state duties, and their budget and expenditure is given oversight by independent review. that's more accountability than football players or any other extravagantly wealthy persons. If your argument against the Monarchy is from a standpoint in favour of republicanism, then I can't really say anything that will make you see why I think the Monarchy is a useful instrument. You have to understand that the Monarchy in the UK has seen significant change over the centuries, most notably with absolutism ending with the Stuarts being overthrown during the Glorious Revolution, and continual transferring of power to the Government and Parliament. We haven't had to have radical change as you've had in France under the Bourbons. They're not "earning money from the taxpayer for doing nothing", that's a wholly incorrect assertion. They do important work as state diplomats and national representatives, as well as their funding of charities and cultural institutions. That's on top of the preservation of the Crown estates that I mentioned earlier, which provide income for the state and serve as important spaces for the public.
I prefer a monarch to a president simply because they will almost always have more popular support than a president, since they aren’t voted in, and generally stay completely apolitical. On top of that, and this might seem weird to people who do not live in a country with a monarchy, continuing such a tradition is valuable to me (and to many others) for historical and national reasons. The Danish monarch is a direct - with a few hoops - line back to the literal birth of this country, more than thousand years ago. To me that’s quite special, and something worth preserving.
Although a constitutional monarchy like Norway’s or Belgium’s, or my country’s doesn’t really bother me, having a (in)directly elected president does not necessarily mean that that position is as powerful as the US presidency or the French presidency. Germany has a president that is elected by parliament. The fact that a lot of you reading this probably did not even known Germany has a president should be telling of his power. Austria has a presidency that is directly elected. It has powers a constitutional monarch would usually have theoretically, so also not very powerful.
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