For today's edition, La Stampa ran a follow-up on the Danish queen's abdication and asked me to write a piece about whether Europe's monarchies should be abolished. Of course they should, I said...
Totally agree with abolishing the British monarchy. Your point about its political impotence allowing rogue PMs like Johnson, Truss, Sunak to ride roughshod over British constitutional norms is spot on. As a baby boomer brought up on an endless stream of 'royalty reinforcement' via fawning news coverage and cosplay pageantry I now find the Windsors utterly contemptible in their selective expropriation of the country's assets. What has become particularly apparent these past few years of venal misgovernment is a rising public antipathy toward the monarchy. People have woken up to how utterly complicit the royals have been in allowing the politicians to get away with suppressing freedoms and letting the country run to seed. A much bigger segment of the public no longer accepts uncritically the idea that the monarchy is 'worth' keeping and is due our deference. On the contrary one senses a deep undercurrent of republican sentiment in the UK that I have never felt in the past 60 years. King Charles should ask himself whether the public are awed by - or rather feeling trolled by - his constant posing for portrait photos draped in all the glitter and gewgaws of a state office past its sell by date.
Totally agree with abolishing the British monarchy. Your point about its political impotence allowing rogue PMs like Johnson, Truss, Sunak to ride roughshod over British constitutional norms is spot on. As a baby boomer brought up on an endless stream of 'royalty reinforcement' via fawning news coverage and cosplay pageantry I now find the Windsors utterly contemptible in their selective expropriation of the country's assets. What has become particularly apparent these past few years of venal misgovernment is a rising public antipathy toward the monarchy. People have woken up to how utterly complicit the royals have been in allowing the politicians to get away with suppressing freedoms and letting the country run to seed. A much bigger segment of the public no longer accepts uncritically the idea that the monarchy is 'worth' keeping and is due our deference. On the contrary one senses a deep undercurrent of republican sentiment in the UK that I have never felt in the past 60 years. King Charles should ask himself whether the public are awed by - or rather feeling trolled by - his constant posing for portrait photos draped in all the glitter and gewgaws of a state office past its sell by date.
If you abolish the monarchy who or what will you put in its place?
David Attenborough won't be around for ever.