Almost as much of a unifying force as the monarchy itself, being the National Anthem, one of two National Anthems, or the Royal Anthem of at least six sovereign states and of their various respective dependencies.
Those states are the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica and Tuvalu. Yes, that does say Australia. Where the Returned Services League, which is very much like the Royal British Legion, will no longer be singing that country's Royal Anthem at ANZAC Day events. Apparently, this has come after "consultation". Of whom, exactly? The Royal Australian Navy? The Royal Australian Air Force?
Anti-monarchists, wherever they may be, tend to claim that their position is more democratic. But not when it comes to the other side's ten-point victory in Australia, it isn't.
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If Mr Lindsay means the 1999 referendum about whether Australia should become a republic, I'm not sure that this referendum supports this case. On that occasion, only two options were offered to the electorate: (a) keeping the present monarchical arrangements, (b) having a non-executive president appointed or elected by parliamentarians.
ReplyDeleteIn every opinion poll of which I am aware both before and after 1999, easily the most publicly popular notion was that of a president directly elected by the populace. But this option was specifically ruled out in 1999, so most republicans voted faute de mieux for (a) simply because they hated (b) so much. This is hardly a ringing endorsement of monarchism, let alone a "ten-point" monarchical victory. In fact it resembled a Bourbon-Jacobin alliance against Girondins.
It should be noted that Cardinal Pell, the nearest thing in modern Australia to a genuine right-winger (not, admittedly, that this is very near), is passionately republican and always has been.
His Eminence might be "right-wing", but I am not.
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