Crowning Thoughts

This is a vitally important article by Peter Hitchens on the false basis for the bombing of Syria.

By contrast, of course he knows that a monarchy without a monarch is a daft idea. Moreover, the monarchy does not in any way constrain either the power or the vanity of British politicians. Quite the reverse, in fact. As the Queen's Ministers, they behave however the like.

Hitchens refers to taking the salute of the Armed Forces, but Margaret Thatcher did exactly that at the victory parade after the Falklands War. He refers to pardoning criminals, but Michael Howard arranged Royal Pardons for his drug-dealing cousins in Swansea. And so on.

Claims about stability, or liberty, or relative freedom from political violence at home, are very bad jokes to the individuals, families and communities that, for example, suffered cracked skulls from mounted policemen, if they even really were policemen. Those assailants were acting with the complete impunity of the same Royal Prerogative that was recently used to try and shut down Parliament for five weeks without its consent.

People like Jeremy Corbyn have always wanted to abolish the monarchy, but they have always thought that there were more important things to do. The threat to the monarchy was always going to come from the Right, but I had assumed that it would be from the New Right, with whose ideology it is wholly incompatible.

As it is, though, it looks as if that threat might come from the Old Right, which as Hitchens sets out has cottoned on that most monarchs have never been and will never be like the present one. The monarchy, and this must include the Queen herself, has done absolutely nothing to protect the things that traditional conservatives hold dear.

As to the Commonwealth Realms, who in Britain even knows very much about Canada or Australia, much less about Saint Lucia or the Solomon Islands? Who in Canada even knows very much about Australia, or vice versa? Who in Saint Lucia even knows very much about the Solomon Islands, or vice versa? How much good did coming from Commonwealth Realms do most of the victims of the Windrush scandal?

And as to Defending the Faith (and the present title was conferred on Henry VIII by Parliament in 1544; it is not the one given to him by Pope Leo X but revoked by Paul III), how successfully have Christianity in general and Protestantism in particular been defended in the countries where that title is in use, namely the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand? Or in any other monarchy, come to that?

Contrast the number of people who go so far as to pay a tax to belong to an Evangelical Church of Germany that is still headquartered in Hanover, with the number of people who ever so much as darken the door of the Church of England, or the Church of Scotland, or the Church of Denmark, or the Church of Sweden, or the Church of Norway, or the Dutch Reformed Church. Germany and Britain are very, very alike. One retains a near-total ban on Sunday trading, and a near-total ban on abortion after the first trimester. The other retains a monarchy.

There is no evidence that the monarchy contributes anything to tourism, and Hitchens points out that from that point of view it "has engulfed London in a mile-deep wave of tat for decades". But the tourists would of course come, anyway. It would be the cheap, plastic Queens and Prince Charleses that would go.

But Hitchens's proposal that "some harmless white-haired senior civil servant towards the end of his or her career" take on the role does not ring true, either. Such people are now younger than he is, and their views are nowhere near his own. He does not ordinarily regard them as "harmless" in the least.

No, Hitchens is talking himself out of saying what he really feels that he now needs to say. And on this one, aren't we all?