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| This US election result is a terrific argument for monarchy This US election result is a terrific argument for monarchy | |
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| Last week the New York Times, of all places, ran an opinion piece in defence of hereditary monarchy. Under the title, Consider a Monarchy, America, Nikolai Tolstoy argued that, unlike elected heads of state, monarchies offer stability, continuity and a focus for national togetherness. Quoting the historian Edward Gibbon, Tolstoy wrote: “The advantage of monarchy is that the institution ‘extinguishes the hopes of faction’ by rising above the toxic partisanship of competing parties and vying elected officials.” As thousands march on Trump Tower chanting “Not my president”, you can rather see his point. | Last week the New York Times, of all places, ran an opinion piece in defence of hereditary monarchy. Under the title, Consider a Monarchy, America, Nikolai Tolstoy argued that, unlike elected heads of state, monarchies offer stability, continuity and a focus for national togetherness. Quoting the historian Edward Gibbon, Tolstoy wrote: “The advantage of monarchy is that the institution ‘extinguishes the hopes of faction’ by rising above the toxic partisanship of competing parties and vying elected officials.” As thousands march on Trump Tower chanting “Not my president”, you can rather see his point. |
| Watching The Crown on Netflix as a distraction from the nightmare of the American election, a similar thought struck me: that there may be considerable advantage in having something beyond the ballot box to appeal to, something transcendent around which to unite, when the immanent is so hopelessly fraught and divided. | Watching The Crown on Netflix as a distraction from the nightmare of the American election, a similar thought struck me: that there may be considerable advantage in having something beyond the ballot box to appeal to, something transcendent around which to unite, when the immanent is so hopelessly fraught and divided. |
| And I reference the transcendent advisedly because, as The Crown’s depiction of Elizabeth II’s coronation makes perfectly clear, the coronation is a theological transaction. The Queen was anointed in an abbey and not appointed in a government building. And anointing has been the manner of conferring divine office at least since Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed King Solomon in ancient Israel. In other words, we don’t just live in a constitutional monarchy in the United Kingdom, we live in a constitutional theocracy too. | And I reference the transcendent advisedly because, as The Crown’s depiction of Elizabeth II’s coronation makes perfectly clear, the coronation is a theological transaction. The Queen was anointed in an abbey and not appointed in a government building. And anointing has been the manner of conferring divine office at least since Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed King Solomon in ancient Israel. In other words, we don’t just live in a constitutional monarchy in the United Kingdom, we live in a constitutional theocracy too. |
| Don’t get me wrong: I want our monarchy to have zero executive authority. But the idea of retaining something like the crown around which to unify, something that stands apart from democratic contestation, has rarely seemed so compelling. Canada’s citizenship and immigration website crashed within hours of Trump’s victory. “Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand,” suggested US supreme court justice Ruth Ginsburg, only half-jokingly. And the New Zealand immigration website has experienced an 80% increase of traffic from the US. Not that thousands of good republicans have finally decided to return to the royal bosom. But it’s no coincidence that these places have the Queen as their head of state, the still small voice of calm at the centre of the constitution. | Don’t get me wrong: I want our monarchy to have zero executive authority. But the idea of retaining something like the crown around which to unify, something that stands apart from democratic contestation, has rarely seemed so compelling. Canada’s citizenship and immigration website crashed within hours of Trump’s victory. “Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand,” suggested US supreme court justice Ruth Ginsburg, only half-jokingly. And the New Zealand immigration website has experienced an 80% increase of traffic from the US. Not that thousands of good republicans have finally decided to return to the royal bosom. But it’s no coincidence that these places have the Queen as their head of state, the still small voice of calm at the centre of the constitution. |
| Quite understandably, many Canadians and New Zealanders don’t want a foreign queen as their head of state either. But it is a testament to the political value of monarchy that even in such proudly independent countries they have still found it impossible to dream up a more acceptable alternative. And in both places progressive politics flourishes. Similarly in Britain, the idea of an elected head of state has been frequently scotched with just two words: President Blair. | Quite understandably, many Canadians and New Zealanders don’t want a foreign queen as their head of state either. But it is a testament to the political value of monarchy that even in such proudly independent countries they have still found it impossible to dream up a more acceptable alternative. And in both places progressive politics flourishes. Similarly in Britain, the idea of an elected head of state has been frequently scotched with just two words: President Blair. |
| Stephen Daldry, who directed The Crown, is no fawning courtier. And his politics are clearly on the left – he and I both worked in the now destroyed “Jungle” camp in Calais, he with a theatre that he helped to establish, I with St Michael’s church, which the French have now bulldozed. We had a discussion once that they performed similar roles – both being places to come together. When Daldry produced the opening ceremony of the London Olympics, he was again telling a compelling story about our national togetherness. And it’s the same thing again with The Crown. | Stephen Daldry, who directed The Crown, is no fawning courtier. And his politics are clearly on the left – he and I both worked in the now destroyed “Jungle” camp in Calais, he with a theatre that he helped to establish, I with St Michael’s church, which the French have now bulldozed. We had a discussion once that they performed similar roles – both being places to come together. When Daldry produced the opening ceremony of the London Olympics, he was again telling a compelling story about our national togetherness. And it’s the same thing again with The Crown. |
| My own church congregation, for example, is as diverse as it gets: in age, in social background, in ethnicity. Outside of church, they probably have very little in common – not politics, not the food they eat, not their choice of entertainment. But they will sing God Save the Queen with gusto, and none more so than those who have emigrated from former commonwealth countries where the Queen represents a fixed point of national solidarity. When she is prayed for on Sundays, it is with a sense of genuine affection that could never – perhaps should never – be directed towards an elected official. And before you say it, no: the royals represent no threat to progressive reform. Indeed it’s arguable that without George VI’s steady non-panicky presence Attlee’s introduction of radical ideas like the NHS and the welfare state, would have been hugely more difficult to achieve. | My own church congregation, for example, is as diverse as it gets: in age, in social background, in ethnicity. Outside of church, they probably have very little in common – not politics, not the food they eat, not their choice of entertainment. But they will sing God Save the Queen with gusto, and none more so than those who have emigrated from former commonwealth countries where the Queen represents a fixed point of national solidarity. When she is prayed for on Sundays, it is with a sense of genuine affection that could never – perhaps should never – be directed towards an elected official. And before you say it, no: the royals represent no threat to progressive reform. Indeed it’s arguable that without George VI’s steady non-panicky presence Attlee’s introduction of radical ideas like the NHS and the welfare state, would have been hugely more difficult to achieve. |
| In an age where the money god has now become incarnate in the person of this man Trump, we should thank our lucky stars that our head of state worships at a very different altar. | In an age where the money god has now become incarnate in the person of this man Trump, we should thank our lucky stars that our head of state worships at a very different altar. |