Verbal

All the people who very directly benefit from the Duchys are very much alive. In any case, as a country, WE are directly affected by the closure of vast tracts of our own land and its handing over to the 'Windsors' (a name which QE2 views with sufficient distaste as to restore the German part of their surname to Royals not in the direct line of accession).

Why? Besides, you misunderstand how the Duchys were created if you think that restoring common and coastal lands is 'nationalisation'. 'Nationalistion' of a peculiarlarly elitist kind was what happened in the first place!

No, they really don't. Their theft of public land to form the Duchys is the source of their wealth. Return that land to the public (managed, say, by the National Trust), throw open the palaces and castles (ditto), and display their privately stored art collections (including QE2's - she's amassed the finest collection of Leonardos in private hands as a result of the earnings from the Duchys). FAR more money will be made be discontinued royals than can ever be made with them. QE2 is close to the end of her days. I personally can't stand the woman but that's just my opinion. Her replacement is jug ears. Care to give your impassioned defence of him?

True enough, but the cost of the yacht is not the same issue as the cost of the 'Windsors'. The reason for objecting to the cost of the yacht is that the royals are a god-awful waste of space.

Nope. It's about living in a grown-up, well developed liberal democracy where we do not fawn over the ludicrous antics of a self-selected, and by definition, inbred bunch of ingrates, who continue to represent all that's worst about the aristocracy. If - and it wouldn't be true, but if - a properly written constitution was constructed and the consequence of more democracy and openness and greater expense were more expensive, it would still be far, far preferable to the pathetic situation we have now. One of the consequences of a political system with royals at the apex is a disillusionment with politics and politicians that is bad for democracy. Either we believe in the latter or we don't. and if we do, the royals have to booted out on their inbred arses.

What does this mean? How does it add to the debate? Do you have a refutation in mind? Are you 12? Off you f uck, Alpine. You really are useless.

As I say, all will seem like a cloudless sky when QE2 is gone, jug ears is in, and the monarchy suddenly seems as hopelessly anachronistic as it is. You're factually wrong, of course, about the 'merely ceremonial' - or did you miss the recent scandal about Blair, Brown and Cameron having to get jug ears' nod (?!) for certain key bits of legislation. If all politicians are, as you say, 'slimy', then why bother with democracy at all? Just bring back Mussolini - at least the trains will run on time... In any case, having a PM's election constitutionally separated from the general election may well, as it has in other countries, diminish the 'slime' factor. Directly elected heads tend to act in the national interest rather than mere party affiliation - their electoral success almost always depends upon it. And if that's true, then once again, it's good for democracy. As for royalty 'financially justifying itself' - that's historically wildly inaccurate. 'Royalty' was all but bankrupt before the theft of public (mostly common and coastal) land parcelled up into the Duchys.

It's not a good point at all, because it ignores, or is unaware of, the underlying constitutional principles. However the relationship between them is defined, there are three branches of government: the executive, the legislature and the administration. In the United States and in many other mature democracies, the relationship is defined by 'separation' and 'balance'. So in the US, for example, the President is the head of the executive branch and the House and Senate speakers are the heads of the legislature. In the UK, by contrast, we fuzz up the relationship between the executive and the legislature in such a way as to produce what is an elected - and sometimes unelected - dictatorship. The Prime Minister is de facto head of the executive and the legislature, and party discipline ensures that one of the principles of the UK's unwritten constitution, parliamentary sovereignty, is thoroughly undermined by this. (And this is especially true when we have PMs who ascend to their position after a party putsch - as with Callaghan, Major, Brown, etc). A properly written constitution, with a clearly defined separation of powers may lead to something like a directly elected Prime Minister, a separate general election for MPs, and a properly reformed House of Lords. Two of the consequences of this would be greater democracy and greater accountability. Not a bad price to pay for packing the 'Windsors' off to Mme Guillotine.

Just a word of warning to Danish and anyone else thinking of putting names to this, it would be quite a serious libel to misidentify someone. Of course it's just TSW, but it's been known to happen.

The US government is also on record as saying that the Israelis hold stocks of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. Heaven only knows how they could possibly use them in the cupboard-space that is the Mediterranean Middle East.

I like that. But I'm sure most Royalists are barely skin-deep, and are hung up on a mummy-fixation. As soon as QE2 is gone, jug-ears is on point - and the clamour to get rid of the meddling oaf will be deafening.

To be a fully integrated part of a grown up, non-mother-fixated democratic society, rather than an overly inbred clan from Saxony corralling vast tracts of what was once public lands to themselves in the form of the Duchys.

I agree. The 'nothing will ever change' brigade sound even odder when they emanate from the very region where change is rife.

You give the strong impression of not having a clue what you're talking about. Let's start at the beginning. List the 'republican views' that you feel are 'rooted in envy' - then let's have a proper discussion about those ideas.

That can't be right. He's going to QPR.

Just so long as those rose stems have poisoned tips...

I don't think you'll find that all the backtracking was as a consequence of Saintsweb! Besides, your cynicism about public debate - the 'public' 'moans'; while our rulers and betters judiciously consider - is sadly rather typical of the 'We'll give you what's good for you' arrogance of classical Toryism.

Yes, let's wait until our lords and masters have come to their considered, smoking-room opinion about what's best for us peasants, rather than be part of the debate, after Gove had listed public funding as his 'chief option' for handing over a yacht to the Saxe-etcs as a fawning 'gift' from our grateful, forelock-tugging selves. Don't you think that the public reaction to Gove being such a pompous, patronising dickhead over this was part of what made them conclude: 'We'd better not do that'? Besides, isn't that what democracy is supposed to be about?

Dear Dimwit, please see, among others, posts 37, 41, 146, 174, 181.

Read their surname again, and then, very slowly, ask yourself that question again to see how hopelessly ill-informed it really is.

Laissez-faire is the name of a political philosophy that advocates an individual's freedom from state limitations, and is historically anti-Royalist for that reason. I always find it odd that swivel-eyed right-wingers (not you, of course) are so staunchly royalist when their supposed core beliefs should lead them to be exactly the opposite. So on this, the right and left should unite: free us from those putrid 'Sachsen-Coburg und Gothas' (to give them their German names in German).

I wonder why that question comes up. Royalists are fond of saying QE2 has no power. Actually of course, the recent scandal over the government's going and kneeling before Charles to get his approval over all kinds of legislation gives the lie to that. So an alternative to what? To a bunch of usurpers who, so embarrassed by their German-ness during the first world war, invented a silly surname, nicked from the castle they'd 'inherited'? Constitutional reform has been held up far too long by pathetic kow-towing to these dumbasses. As a consequence, we already have a dangerous merging of the executive and the legislature, rather than a clear separation of powers (the liberal constitutional ideal). Reform that reintroduces that separation is good for democracy, and if democracy is so intimately intertwined with neo-liberal economics, as the swivel-eyes on here insist, then if they're right we'll all be better off and, they too, should be anti-Royalist. At the moment, we have an unelected figurehead, and, often, an unelected Prime Minister (as happened with Brown - but he's by no means the exception. Major took over from Thatcher before he won the General Election in 1992, and Calaghan before him, etc, etc). We have these little coups and no one bats an eyelid - or very few anyway. It's time to constitutionally grow up, drop the mother-fixation with QE2, ditch the monarchy, write the damned constitution down and be the mid-sized liberal democracy we can be.

Once QE2 is gone, and the succession delivers Charles to reign over us, the royal mask will well and truly slip, and the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas (to give them their proper surname; 'Windsor is just a made-up name) will go back to being as rankly unpopular as they were this time last century.

As the article says: The truth is rather different. There is far more genetic variation within racial groups (around 85%) than there is between racial groups (just 15%). Indeed, surface appearance is often a highly misleading way of assessing the genetic distance between populations. And this is especially true of black Africans, among whom there is FAR greater genetic variation (hence the 'Out of Africa' theory) than between a black African and a white Norwegian.