An alternative view on England's World Cup exit

[PurpleCanary 5,558]

[quote user="Monty13"]Come on Purple, I don''t know much in depth about what happened in 1975, but my awareness of it is that the government was unable to function, in deadlock over spending, (much like the US yearly!) and the Governor General (yes as the queens representative) dismissed the PM, then parliament when the spending bill was passed and then ordered a democratic election.

However the Australian Governor General was at the time, and has been since, an Australian and they are appointed by the Australian PM.

The fact that the opposition were then elected with a majority seems to suggest what happened, while a crisis of constitutional setup, resulted in the change demanded by the majority of the electorate. There was a very upset Labour Party and it''s members obviously, but they lost the following democratic election and the crisis was arguably their fault.

Hardly an act of despotism and you would imagine if it had upset the majority of the populace of Australia so much she would no longer be their head of state.

Because where do those powers then reside? with the Prime Minister, does he sack himself? can he take the country to war without a majority in government? With the queen de facto holding these powers they will never likely be used unless the majority of parliament and the people want them to.

As you say the Royals should be politically neutral and any elected representative that held these powers is unlikely to be.[/quote]As I understand it the UK monarch is asked to approve a choice, and can reject it, although that is unlikely to happen But the G-G is the representative of the monarch, who is the head of state. I know what happened in that Whitlam era. and there was political stalemate, but the G-G - urged on by the Opposition - intervened before Whitlam had a chance to implement his plan to end the impasse.You are right that Fraser won a big majority in the election, but it was still a case of the Queen, as head of state through her representtaive, getting involved in politics and making a highly controversial and effectively partisan decision. That most Australians were and are monarchists doesn''t justify what happened!PS. I note you have very wisely not tried to argue that I am wrong about Prince Charles...[;)]

[Monty13 2,232]

Hmm...I would disagree Purple, that it happened and that most Australians were and are monarchists does justify what happened. Democracy is not the rightful and effective employment of all political decision. Sometimes when there is an impasse it takes one person''s decision to change matters, if the majority support that decision, thats great!

Rightly or wrongly we are not a full Democracy, we are a constitutional Monarchy. It is a system that has evolved and worked effectively for many years, I see no need to replace the devil we know (in some peoples opinion!) with the devil we don''t.

If anything it is the highly democratic part of our system that has and continues to be woefully wasteful, if not ineffective!

Lol no, Prince Charles wrongly or rightly has some very strong views.

[mrs miggins 0]

"I have seen people who have received honours and the amount it means to them and their families is clear to see."

Its an honour because they are being recognised for their charitable contribution to society, not because the queen is giving them the honour, for most its an added bonus i''m sure.

"To see you dismiss it so readily out of hand as meaningless as you don''t approve of the system is disrespectful."

I am not dismissing it, you can say I am dismissing the Royle family, but I am not dismissing the charitable people who have done wonderful things in the world as they should still be recognised (personally i think there should be more awareness of the good deeds people do), I think if you were to take away their knighthood for no reason, it would be incredibly unfair/unjust.

"I feel strongly that things should be changed because they are broken or there is a better option, not because some people dislike it. I''m not too bothered about the royal family, but i find it strange when people are vehemently opposed for very little reason other than their own opinion."

I wasn''t really too sure what my response is to this as i''ve already said it in previous posts in the thread, but (like I said before) Britain has much bigger issues than voting for whether or not there should still be a monarchy For the second part of the statement, i''m not too sure what you mean when you say that you "find it strange when people are vehemently opposed for very little reason other than their own opinion." If you wouldn''t mind explaining this as I don''t really understand what you mean (which is probably my fault, i''m most likely not reading it right).

"What the latest poll shows is 3/4 people see absolutely no reason to make change, not a strong support for them."

Here I think you''re right and wrong in a way as a lot of people (like you say) aren''t too fussed and say that theres no reason to make a change, but there are also many people who are hugely supportive of the royle family (my late grandmother for instance) which also make the 3/4. The other 1/4 care enough to say they are a waste of space as well as consisting of people who aren''t really fussed and therefore don''t see the point in them. All I meant from that statistic is that the majority (unlike me) still want to have the monarchy and many people cared enough to have their say on this issue. It is also an issue which has been brought up many times throughout the years at work for example so just because people don''t care about the royal family in your life, doesn''t mean so in mine.

"i''m from a working class family and I would argue A) nowadays the class system is muddied a lot more than any would care to admit B) the royal family has little to no impact on the "working class" in fact it is there that you often find the strongest support and goodwill for Royalty."

You first point I would agree that the class system is more ''muddled'' than it was before, but that doesn''t really have anything to do with what my statement was (imo). Your next point (B) All I would say is, have you been to a council estate in the last 5, 10, 15 years? (By looking on the TV you''ll see ''the big community'' coming together to join in celebrating the royle wedding for example, and there''s truth in that...to a certain extent, but thats doesn''t represent all of the working class, not one bit).

[Monty13 2,232]

"find it strange when people are vehemently opposed for very little reason other than their own opinion." If you wouldn''t mind explaining this as I don''t really understand what you mean (which is probably my fault, i''m most likely not reading it right)

Thats ok. I mean you understand the economic argument, you understand there needs to be a head of state. But I don''t understand why you think there needs to be a change or what benefits it would bring?

There is lots of opinion from you about not liking them, thinking they are immoral and anachronistic...but this is just opinion, what are the cold hard facts of the argument that getting rid of the Monarchy provides any benefit? especially when the economic and foreign policy benefits are easy to understand. If i ever heard anyone talk through their reasoning in that regard I''d be more open to the idea.

It gets brought up where I work as well, but it never causes anywhere near anything I would consider a passionate debate, not like politics. It''s because they don''t really effect anything, seriously what in your life can you blame on Royalty? What do you blame on the Govt? Why is it a such a strong topic in your work and family? i''m genuinely intrigued. I also find it weird when the monarchy seem a target of perceived greed when they provide benefit to the country and work on our behalf at least.

Whereas for instance we watch footballers, to bring it into context, on obscene wages, pushing the price of watching football ever higher and directly negatively affecting the money we all have in our pockets for watching, and we seem fine with that. It too gets talked about a lot but no real protest or movement to stop it. Of course they have an economic benefit as well, but we suffer for it.

I don''t think the working class are represented by anything specific nowadays. Of all the classes, that in reality no longer exist in their previous format in the modern age, they are the most fragmented. I pay someone to cut my grass, I know i''m a lazy tw@t, but i figure it doesn''t cost me much, I don''t want to do it and I''m supporting a local business. I had a chat with him the other and he moved on to politics and it was surprising to me just how much him and his employee hated what they perceived as non-workers, benefit claimants and ....council estate residents. These were people living on probably not far off minimum wage working long hours and I could understand what they were saying even if i didn''t particularly agree with it all.

So it''s a tiny example, but I honestly don''t know what the "working class" is nowadays or what I''m meant to believe they want. So I can understand politicians confusion. Of course the working class isn''t universally full of pro royal worshipping people, but whenever you see Royal visits to places it is the working class, generally speaking, that make up the majority of the crowd.

[mrs miggins 0]

"Thats ok. I mean you understand the economic argument, you understand there needs to be a head of state. But I don''t understand why you think there needs to be a change or what benefits it would bring?"

Cheers for explaining, I see what you mean now. I haven''t said there needs to be a change and I haven''t said that there are any benefits to the country, i would like there to be no monarchy for the reasons discussed which point to a ''right or wrong'' (is it right we should still have a monarchy). Another reason why i dislike the royal family is how they live; i don''t think i''d actually have a problem with them if they didn''t automatically get manor/mansions all over the country whilst people who work hard on minimum wage get to buy a council flat. For what reason can a man attain such riches by simply being born, its like a single family winning the lottery every time another one is born, its unfair, i think its scandalous and the media (imo) has played a large part in stopping people thinking about the moral importance of the monarchy (unsurprising, it makes them money).

When talking about benefits, it depends what you mean, for example, I was in the pub the other day and saw a man sitting at the bar who dropped a £10 note. Now no-one else had spotted this except myself and I could''ve wanted til he was gone to pick it up, or pretend to tie my shoelace (you can tell i''ve been watching breaking bad) and pick it up, however I didn''t, i went up to the bloke and told him because its the moral thing to do (he bought me a pint with that money but besides the point). Although this example is not quite the same as the topic we''re discussing as I think everyone can realise the right thing to do is to not take the £10, this example shows how the benefits are sometimes not clearly present, sometime its about right and wrong (she talking about benefits). Yet, this debate of right and wrong is all about opinion, much like the capital punishment (life for a life) debate, however, I think as time goes on and people stop caring about newspapers (online) for example, the support for the monarchy will diminish as people start to wisen up to the moral implications of what they represent (imo).

"Of course the working class isn''t universally full of pro royal worshipping people, but whenever you see Royal visits to places it is the working class, generally speaking, that make up the majority of the crowd."

I basically just disagree with this as I think its too much of a sweeping statement, but of course everyone turns up to these types of thing.I obviously didn''t watch the royal wedding, (most of my friends and family did though), but I have seen clips of the crowd and interviews mostly by middle class ladies (unsurprisingly) however, i''m not going to say that the majority of the monarchies support comes from the lower middle class as I don''t truly know, (although suspect) just like I don''t think you do when you say its the working class, which personally I strongly doubt.

apologies for not posting sooner...busy day