Unfortunately, the British don’t follow the same traditions as the Czechs, and the nobles will not be defenestrated (literally thrown out of the windows of government buildings).
Europe needs to revitalize some of these ancient traditions. Prince Andrew was apparently sharing state secrets with the famous pervert Jeffrey Epstein. That seems sufficiently treasonous for a beheading.
I feel like “pervert” isn’t a strong enough word for someone who trafficked and raped children.
“Famous child rapist” could be used as a descriptor for many people these days
Agree.
I could have called him a criminal child molester, human trafficker and rapist. I could even have called him a slaver.
But everyone across the globe already knows who he is and what he did. Oddly, he became much more famous by dying. To use a showbiz cliche, he needs no introduction, so I chose the personality trait that ultimately drove all of his crimes.
There’s no functional reason for them to have a monarch anyway. The Brits should have made Queen Elizabeth the last monarch and disbanded the rest of it after her death. The only argument I’ve ever heard as to why they keep it is for tourism, but they could just as easily turn the royal grounds into a tourist spot.
I’m actually surprised anybody in the United States would say this. Separating the head of state from the head of government is very important.
Donald Trump has made frequent use of his head of state powers to waste money on parades and the like to self aggrandize. Even more than that, he has attempted to use these powers (as did Presidents before him) to bolster his popularity.
I think, for instance, that it’s hard to imagine the most recent State of the Union speech being the same if it was read by a head of state as opposed to Trump. Here in Canada, our Throne Speech is delivered by the Governor General and in the U.K it’s delivered by King Charles.
Then again, they still have bunch of people they call lords, knights, dukes and earls, and that doesn’t bring in any tourist bucks. The Brits spend a shitload of money to maintain their phony-baloney monarchy, and they continue to honor their equally bogus nobility. Somebody in that country must think it’s a good idea.
Frankly, it’s difficult for Americans to relate to. Of course we love the titles. We have Prince, Queen Latifah, Duke Snider and Count Basie, and Benny Goodman was the King of Swing, but their children did not inherit their titles. When Benny Goodman was gone, Elvis became the King.
And on this side of the pond, Meghan Markle is still the same dipshit she always was.
Most of them were already removed from the House of Lords by the Tony Blair government in 1999.
Of course, the timing for this does seem like Keir Starmer is looking for some populist distraction.
I’m not sure what happened in the U.K since then. Here in Canada, the Liberal government under Justin Trudeau has turned the Canadian Senate, which had been a place to make patronage appointments, into a body of ‘broad based’ non partisan experts with the appointments being de facto chosen by members of an independent advisory board (I believe all recipients of the Order of Canada.)
It hasn’t received much review or praise from the media or from Canadians in general because people tend to only focus on things that aren’t going well, however, at the very least Canada has gone 10+ years without a scandal involving a Senator (google Mike Duffy if you’re interested.) And this independent Canadian Senate has produced some valuable work since 2015, though it would not be accurate to say that even the patronage dominated Senate did not produce some valuable work.
Personally, I think in these times of disinformation that an appointed independent body of broad based experts is even more important but so far Prime Minister Mark Carney has not made any appointments to the Senate.
The idea of an independent body of appointed experts to counter an elected body was given some thought in the United States for its Senate. And, although the framers went with appointments made by state legislatures to the Senate so as to give states a body with power to counter the House of Representatives, the expected expertise of the Senators and their ability to focus on work as opposed to reelection was a secondary consideration.
In Russia in 1917 given that their was a concern among lawmakers during this brief attempt at democracy over the readiness for democracy of the Russian citizens, an independent body of experts was also suggested to counter what would have been the popularly elected Duma. To end far afield, one of the cliches about Russia is the tragedy that its citizens have no history of democracy and so aren’t really interested in it. Anybody who reads about the debates, dicussions and democratic ideas in Russia in 1917 will come away with a completely different view.
The value of any board of experts hinges on the person who makes the appointments. Would such a group be worthwhile if Trump did the appointing? His “experts” would be any weird outliers that would swear loyalty to him.
Or paid him off.
I’m not sure with Presidential systems as opposed to Parliamentary systems, but in the United States there could be a seperately elected head of state.
As for had the framers decided on an appointed body of experts for the U.S Senate, it’s hard to say since they didn’t expect parties, but there are a couple of approaches where unanimity would have been required for appointments. Either the governor and state legislative leaders, or the leaders of the two parties, if after parties became the reality.
“Of course, the timing for this does seem like Keir Starmer is looking for some populist distraction.”
What?
It was a 2024 General Election Manifesto commitment for Stamer. The General Election that Labour won by a landslide.
It was delivering on promises made by Blair back in 1997.
You could argue the timing is delivering on promises made thirty years late.
I suppose, but it was a seat landslide not a vote landslide. It was an even smaller share of the vote than the Labour majority government win in 2005 and polling shows support for Labour at about half the vote they received in the 2024 election.
Also, while I realize that this legislation would have started before Labour lost a safe seat to the Greens in the recent by-election, Starmer’s leadership has been in question since around December if not before that.
Was Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s Reform U.K/Conservative Party inspired asylum legislation in the 2024 General Election Manifesto?
“Of course, the timing for this does seem like Keir Starmer is looking for some populist distraction.”
That was your comment.
The timing is driven because peers have spent the last nearly two years trying to block or frustrate the commitment made in the 2024 General Election manifesto. This is in contravention of the conventions set out in The Parliament Act 1911. That Act established the House of Commons as the primary legislative chamber and abolished the power of the House of Lords to reject legislation or amend it in a way unacceptable to the House of Commons.
If the peers had abided by the convention the hereditary peers would have been gone eighteen months ago. Nothing at all to do with “populist distraction”.
UK Governments are elected for a five year term, not just until their popularity declines as measured by opinion polls.
In UK General Elections the party which win the most seats gets to form the government or a coalition of parties if no single party wins a majority of seats.
That means 326 seats. Labour won 412 seats and got to form the government.
Vote share is irrelevant.
Winston Churchill is purported to be the UKs greatest ever Prime Minister.
Winston Churchill NEVER won the popular vote is a General Election.
He was appointed Prime Minister in 1940 following the resignation of Chamberlain. No public vote, no even a vote amongst Conservative Party members.
Churchill then contested the 1945 General Election and lost in a landslide to Labour.
Churchill then contested the 1950 General Election as leader of the opposition and lost again to Labour.
Churchill then contested the 1951 General Election as leader of the opposition and his party won the most seats in that election and Churchill became PM for the second time.
Labour won the most votes.
Churchill won FEWER votes than Labour but more seats.
In electoral terms Starmer had beaten Churchill already.
Starmer has contested one General Election and won. Churchill contested three General Elections and lost two.
Starrmer won his General Election measured in seats and in the popular vote. Something Churchill can never claim.
As for Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s proposed legislation being detailed in the manifesto. You can easily check whether it was or wasn’t. The manifesto is still available on-line. As I have outlined, if it was a manifesto issue, the House of Lords if they were to follow the convention set out in the 1911 Parliament act can look to amend and delay, but not block.
Two interesting facts about the UK House of Lords.
There are only two countries in the whole world that allow unelected clerics to sit in their legislation.
The United Kingdom being one and the other is Islamic Republic of Iran.
With 852 members the UK House of Lords is the second largest unelected legislative chamber in the whole world.
The largest unelected legislative chamber is the National People’s Congress of People’s Republic of China.
Doesn’t that make you proud?