Marc Pacitti has just written a very thought provoking piece on this website, giving a republican perspective on the birth of the royal baby. In the first instance there are some things that he writes about which are I think certainly of merit.
He is for instance right to identify the friction between royalty and celebrity and the problems that this has caused – the 1990s being its best example. Royalty’s identification as celebrity produces problems in its ability to perform its constitutional role; but the media hopefully is learning lessons from the horrors of its behaviour in recent years.
He is also right to identify the complexities associated with the Head of State sharing responsibilities as Head of the Church of England in our twenty first century secular society. We cannot expect an eighty six year old Queen – who is in all regards – a devout Christian to change this function radically anytime soon, but Prince Charles’s plans to be Defender of Faith as well as Defender of the Faith should certainly go some way to healing these issues.
But Marc’s piece does not, in all its significant length, identify what is arguably the basis for Monarchy’s survival – that it has to evolve, change and modernize. In order to survive the Monarchy has to move with the times – it is not a museum piece; it has to reflect the society at which it is at the head. As far back as Queen Victoria and Prince Albert the Monarchy has done this, through to George V’s use of radio and creation of the Windsor brand to Prince Philip’s 1960s modernizing programme and most recently the bringing forward of the new generation.
Marc quotes Christopher Hitchens in his piece, fortunately not associating himself with the belated writer’s aggressiveness and obsession to be right and throw compassion and pragmatism out of the window in the process. I have no intention of writing here to Hitchens’s (or Pacitti’s, for that matter!) depths but let me just put forward a few of the reasons, which I seem to share with a great number of people, for why what this royal baby represents works and is so special.
First, the monarchy is relevant – it performs that vital task of bringing our contemporary life together with our historical past. Monarchy provides a symbol of national unity around which we can all, regardless of our background gather. You only had to stand on The Mall on the evening of the Diamond Jubilee concert to experience that awesome sensation in practice.
Second, of course Marc is right to recognize the drawbacks of heredity – there are many. It is certainly the case that heredity cannot guarantee us that Prince George will, all going well, turn out to be a suitable King. In an age when we (quite rightly) care a lot less about royal etiquette and educate sovereigns much better, these risks are eliminated a lot less though. Heredity has less drawbacks than other methods of producing a Head of State. An elective monarchy for example would produce a scramble for social distinction and simply enlarge our awful culture of party politics. Who would want David Cameron or Tony Blair as a monarch? Who would show them the same kinds of affection we show the monarchy as it is? An elective monarchy would lose the monarchy’s central benefit – its reconciling character.
Of course, the greatest charge that many produce against the monarchy is its cost. But this can in practice come to no fruition. Even if one disregards the hugely significant levels of money the monarchy brings to this country’s economy through tourism, the Monarchy still runs at a significant profit. No longer do minor members of the royal family receive money from the state and nor, in a way, does the Queen because of the method of surrendering the Crown Estates’ profits to the treasury. If you were to put a number on it, which is difficult to do, then it would probably cost around 52p per head, which is far less than Heads of State in other countries. There is certainly a case for a republic and there is a case for a proper monarchy, but nobody wants a mean monarchy – where would the fun be in that?
In a final recall to Marc I have to tell him that I am not alone in my thoughts here – the numbers show that most of us support, and feel great affection for the monarchy. Probably, on principle, many objections can be leveled against it. Many of them are certainly fair – though I hope I have been able to respond to a few of them here, albeit briefly.
Put that aside, there are times when things work and are special for reasons which we cannot explain. The monarchy is an example of that and we would be very stupid indeed to let something as unique as it go. The birth of Prince George only reinforces the importance of the monarchy as an institution. We only have to look at what happened last time we got rid of a King to convince ourselves of the merits of having one. Why look in the crystal ball when you can read the book?
Marc describes the monarchy towards the end of his piece as “an interesting and decaying relic on the international stage”. Perhaps that is true, but there’s one thing that is for sure, there are certainly worse things to be called. Maybe we should take it as a compliment?
