I started writing this on holiday, shortly after the sad death of Queen Elizabeth II. In characteristically poor timing, we chose to be far too close to Balmoral a matter of just a few days following her death. It’s misplaced competitive grief central here, as a visit to Ballater confirmed.

Most people who know me know my views on the British Royal Family. For those that don’t: I’m strongly anti-monarchist, in case that last paragraph left any doubt. Having a head of state that is picked purely on the basis of birth into a family where some distant ancestor was the most bloodthirsty is lunacy, and that’s before we mention that the head of the CoE has no place being anywhere near Government.

That doesn’t take away that an old woman has died, and she should be important to her family and friends. Why she should be important to me is less obvious; She meant very little to me, and the spectacle of thousands of people who obviously feel some sort of connection is beyond me. The over-exposure on TV and the sheer madness exhibited by some has made my opinions stronger. I wish no harm to the Royal family, I just think their time has passed.

Surely it’s time the monarchy was gone, at least in its current form? It’s an anachronism, it reinforces the class system, and the two main arguments I know of for retaining it seem unpersuasive:

1) The monarch acts as a backstop to prevent politicians doing exactly what the fuck they want

This has been shown to be bollocks. The idiot Johnson lied to HM, and did what he wanted anyway, with seemingly no consequences.

2) The Royal Family bring in shitloads of tourist £££

This is a bit more opaque- it’s hard to quantify– but it’s worth noting that The Palace of Versailles is one of the world’s top tourist attractions despite the French seeing off their monarchy quite some time ago.

The best answer to this I have heard is roughly as follows:

Generally, most strong monarchists tend towards Conservatives, and generally Conservatives support the free market. So then, if the Royal Family make so much money, we incorporate “House of Windsor PLC”. All tourism revenue for Royal residences goes to that company, they pay for their own protection, and the Civil List is abolished. Their private property remains theirs, Crown property becomes state-owned, with HoW PLC leasing it from the state. We elect a head of state, and the Royals get left out of it. Vile Marxist traitors like myself no longer fund the Windsors, true patriot lickspittles get to enjoy the Royal family, and we all get to see if they really do make money. We decouple the Church of England from Government (in a country that largely no longer sees itself as CoE), and the head of state is no longer automatically a hereditary billionaire. Then we might actually start to approach a democracy.