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| By all means keep the Queen, but can we have our land back? | By all means keep the Queen, but can we have our land back? |
| (30 days later) | |
| A new royal baby, like any other piece of news about the royals, brings up the old republicanism v monarchism argument. This is as it should be, because having a royal family in 2019 is deeply weird, and whenever they rise to the front of the public consciousness it’s always worth asking: what on earth we are doing keeping this embarrassing feudal anachronism around? Even monarchists tend to have the good sense not to rely on medieval notions that aristocrats are somehow meaningfully superior, so their arguments tend to cycle through variations on “but they bring in tourism”, or “people like them”. | A new royal baby, like any other piece of news about the royals, brings up the old republicanism v monarchism argument. This is as it should be, because having a royal family in 2019 is deeply weird, and whenever they rise to the front of the public consciousness it’s always worth asking: what on earth we are doing keeping this embarrassing feudal anachronism around? Even monarchists tend to have the good sense not to rely on medieval notions that aristocrats are somehow meaningfully superior, so their arguments tend to cycle through variations on “but they bring in tourism”, or “people like them”. |
| Ultimately, though, monarchism knows it doesn’t really need a good argument. As the latest round of breathless, virtually content-free gossip dominating the news cycle shows, plenty of people in this country just want to be weird obsessives about other people’s children, and they don’t want anyone to interfere with their hobby. | Ultimately, though, monarchism knows it doesn’t really need a good argument. As the latest round of breathless, virtually content-free gossip dominating the news cycle shows, plenty of people in this country just want to be weird obsessives about other people’s children, and they don’t want anyone to interfere with their hobby. |
| The big issue with having this argument when the attention is on a major royal is that it tends to focus on the institution of monarchy itself and its inherent ridiculousness. This has the effect of overlooking the major systemic problem that the ceremonial side of aristocracy obscures – the vastly unequal and opaque system of land ownership that locks in wealth to a tiny fraction of the population. | The big issue with having this argument when the attention is on a major royal is that it tends to focus on the institution of monarchy itself and its inherent ridiculousness. This has the effect of overlooking the major systemic problem that the ceremonial side of aristocracy obscures – the vastly unequal and opaque system of land ownership that locks in wealth to a tiny fraction of the population. |
| As we saw earlier this year, thanks to research by the writer and campaigner Guy Shrubsole, half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population. His research estimates that, at the lower end, the aristocracy and gentry still own 30% of the land, and potentially as much as 47% remains in hereditary aristocratic estates. | As we saw earlier this year, thanks to research by the writer and campaigner Guy Shrubsole, half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population. His research estimates that, at the lower end, the aristocracy and gentry still own 30% of the land, and potentially as much as 47% remains in hereditary aristocratic estates. |
| I don’t personally understand why people get pleasure out of lining the streets to wave a flag for Prince Hubert or Princess Sandalwood or whoever, but I can live with that. I am much more concerned about how the present system entrenches inequality and robs us of democratic control over our land. | I don’t personally understand why people get pleasure out of lining the streets to wave a flag for Prince Hubert or Princess Sandalwood or whoever, but I can live with that. I am much more concerned about how the present system entrenches inequality and robs us of democratic control over our land. |
| I suggest a compromise – leave in place everything that people like about the monarchy – the ceremonies, the sparkly crowns, the princes and princesses, the flag waving and occasional public holiday – while enacting large-scale land reform. After all, there’s no particular reason to assume that tourists coming to the UK would decline if the Duke of Buccleuch no longer owned his vast estates in Northamptonshire. The pleasure people get from debating the name of the latest royal will be in no way diminished if the little sprog doesn’t stand to inherit a residual income from the Duchy of Cornwall. | I suggest a compromise – leave in place everything that people like about the monarchy – the ceremonies, the sparkly crowns, the princes and princesses, the flag waving and occasional public holiday – while enacting large-scale land reform. After all, there’s no particular reason to assume that tourists coming to the UK would decline if the Duke of Buccleuch no longer owned his vast estates in Northamptonshire. The pleasure people get from debating the name of the latest royal will be in no way diminished if the little sprog doesn’t stand to inherit a residual income from the Duchy of Cornwall. |
| We could certainly keep all the various queens and princes and dukes and whatnot in place if we wanted to – just make them into real jobs with a wage and a requirement to show up to do some actual work. At present the swaths of aristocrats we have occupying our historical stately homes are more of an impediment than a boon to tourism. We could turn that around by telling them to lead some tours themselves and take selfies with American tourists who’d be just tickled to meet a real-life baron. Imagine the interest once all the old private art collections are opened to the public, and an actual viscount can tell you how his great-great-grandad won that Rembrandt in a game of cards. For once, the tourism argument might even have some weight to it. | We could certainly keep all the various queens and princes and dukes and whatnot in place if we wanted to – just make them into real jobs with a wage and a requirement to show up to do some actual work. At present the swaths of aristocrats we have occupying our historical stately homes are more of an impediment than a boon to tourism. We could turn that around by telling them to lead some tours themselves and take selfies with American tourists who’d be just tickled to meet a real-life baron. Imagine the interest once all the old private art collections are opened to the public, and an actual viscount can tell you how his great-great-grandad won that Rembrandt in a game of cards. For once, the tourism argument might even have some weight to it. |
| Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population | Half of England is owned by less than 1% of the population |
| How we go about this is open for debate. I’m personally in favour of sending the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, round to change the locks while they’re out on a skiing holiday, but others might well favour a more conservative tactic, such as large-scale inheritance and wealth taxes. We don’t need to impoverish anyone, they can keep hold of a couple of hundred grand to be going on with and get a nice pension. And, let’s face it, many are likely to stash as much money as they can in the Cayman Islands before we tax it all off them – nobody’s going to go hungry here. | How we go about this is open for debate. I’m personally in favour of sending the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, round to change the locks while they’re out on a skiing holiday, but others might well favour a more conservative tactic, such as large-scale inheritance and wealth taxes. We don’t need to impoverish anyone, they can keep hold of a couple of hundred grand to be going on with and get a nice pension. And, let’s face it, many are likely to stash as much money as they can in the Cayman Islands before we tax it all off them – nobody’s going to go hungry here. |
| Personally I think this is a very reasonable compromise. The only reason I can think this wouldn’t be convincing is if all the arguments over tourism and civic happiness were just a smokescreen, deployed to obfuscate the fact that royal defenders are in fact in favour of keeping the nation’s land in the hands of a tiny population of aristocrats. So I put this invitation to monarchists everywhere. Do you just want to be able to celebrate the birth of a new prince or princess and wave a flag for the Queen? Or do you really want to defend a deeply unequal system of entrenched inherited wealth? As weird as I find it, I’d compromise on letting you keep the monarchy as long as we got the land back. Would you? | Personally I think this is a very reasonable compromise. The only reason I can think this wouldn’t be convincing is if all the arguments over tourism and civic happiness were just a smokescreen, deployed to obfuscate the fact that royal defenders are in fact in favour of keeping the nation’s land in the hands of a tiny population of aristocrats. So I put this invitation to monarchists everywhere. Do you just want to be able to celebrate the birth of a new prince or princess and wave a flag for the Queen? Or do you really want to defend a deeply unequal system of entrenched inherited wealth? As weird as I find it, I’d compromise on letting you keep the monarchy as long as we got the land back. Would you? |
| • Phil McDuff writes on economics and social policy | • Phil McDuff writes on economics and social policy |
| Land rights | Land rights |
| Opinion | Opinion |
| Monarchy | Monarchy |
| Aristocracy | Aristocracy |
| Republicanism | Republicanism |
| Archie Mountbatten-Windsor | Archie Mountbatten-Windsor |
| Land ownership | |
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