What should a modern monarchy look like?
Gordon Brown's been talking to Buckingham Palace about giving women equal rights to the throne and scrapping the ban on heirs marrying Roman Catholics.
You can read more about the plans on the BBC News website: PM and Palace 'discussed reform'
But does this go far enough? The King or Queen would still be head of the Church of England, so couldn't be Catholic.
Should the monarchy be secular, not specifically related to a religion or to a religious body? Or is it just fine as it is?
Call 0500 909 693 to have your say on the Phone-In between 9 and 10am, or you can post a comment here on the blog.
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Comments
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I can honestly say that I couldn't care less about this issue. It seems so irrelevant. The sooner we get religion out of the government of this country the better. Now if we were discussing whether the monarch could enter into a same-sex "mariage" - THAT would be interesting!
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As usual, the typical British fudge.We want to eliminate descrimination but we don't want a Roman Catholic monarch on the throne in his or her own right.How do you reconcile those two contrasting aspirations? It isn't what the British establishment wishes to achieve that concerns me, it's the continuing insult to people's intelligence and the 'couldn't care less' attitude that goes hand in hand with it.Actually, its not the monarchy that runs Britain it's an anachronistic establishment that hasn't yet in the 21st century come to terms with the fact that historical occurences from centuries ago ought not to be allowed to dictate how we run our society today. The bitterness and hatred towards Roman Catholics in Britain today resulting from the selfishness and immorality of a 16th century Tudor monarch says all that needs to be said about the decency and common sense of the British establishment. The queen is a very nice woman and is a tremendous ambassador for this country. Thank God for her. At least she brings decency and dignity to her role which is far more than can be attributed to most members of parliament and I hope and fully expect that when she dies her death will achieve as many pages of coverage in The Sun as Jane Goody's did, though I forecast it will be a close run race. However, surely someone as decent as the queen sees the divisiveness of basing traditions on flawed politics from centuries ago.
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Eradicating the monarchy would mean having to choose a President. What a waste of time and money. The monarchy as it is does Britain proud but it should morph into a secular institution. The Queen cannot continue as head of the church. Why? Religious extremism is growing in Britain and government cannot address this problem unless it is wholly secular. Until religion is a wholly private pastime in Britain, we can't slate the flawed concept of religious government which we need to do in order to suffocate the growth of religious extremism.
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A bit late in the day for this now , but probably not surprising. Remember this is the family that changed their 'REAL' German name from Saxe - Coburg to Windsor with the onset of the 1st world War.
We have had so much problems with sectarianism , with the Queen being seen as the protestant icon by so many bigots , when all this could have been tempered decades ago by a change in the rights to the monarchy.
Before the Stuarts were thrown off the throne and the Germans invited to take over , the Stuarts actually had a tolerance to 'all faiths' long before the present day Prince Charles came up with the idea.
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I support the royal family but you are doing them a disservice by allowing the rude david starkey to defend them. I don't know who this guy is but Nicky Campbell was quite cowardly in letting him insult those ringing in.
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1. The Monarchy will gradually become a secular instituation after having been changed by Charles into the monarchy of "all the faiths".
2. All human moral codes and laws were actually written by human beings, although they may claim that they were written by some supernatural force. They were developed by human societies as they evolved.
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I agree stongly with any attempt to rid our society of religious and gender discrimination. However the intervention by Gordon Brown can not be seen as a step towards equality, its more condusive with the type of minor adustments and concessions which are designed gain consensus for prolonging the monarchy.
Therefore we are once again on the verge of being distracted from the real issue, that of the dissolution of the monarchy.
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I,m sick of airtime being given to priests, ministers, rabbis etc, they bleat on and on about having the moral high ground because of thier religous beliefs which are based on mythical fairytales! why don,t five live invite the odd satanist on because if god exists then so should satan , or maybe someone who believes in fairys! in my humble opinion they are all nutters.
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Re #4
A propos royal name changes, can anyone explain why Princes William and Harry are known by the surname Wales, not Windsor?
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The monarchy is an archaic fairy tale that we should get rid of now. Why on earth do we find any relevance in an institution which can only be filled by breeding not appointing a successor? I believe the monarchy is an impediment to Britain being a fully functioning modern state and has perpetuated a culture that is socially backward and economically debilitating. The by-products of monarchy - an overly strong government and a weak Parliament, hereditary power through the Lords, the lack of a constitution and a Bill of Rights, the self-deluding array of pomp and circumstance encourage this backward view instead of a foward thinking determination and self belief in ourselves as a truly Great Britain.
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Comment no. 4: The Stuarts were NOT 'thrown off the throne'. Their line died out with the death of Queen Anne in 1714.
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For someone who in the past has made some interesting TV documentaries about constitutional matters, Dr David Starkey was blatantly patronising to callers throughout his time on the phone in!
He told some caller to 'shut up' because of ignorance due to not translating some old medieval Messiah reading. Maybe the likes of popular tabloid newspapers could give us the lead in undertaking such a project; yet if we were all full time academics like Dr Starkey with all the time in the world no doubt many working people would do!
It was also noticeable how Dr Starkey did a 'runner' altogether once he came under pressure from more 'republican inclined' callers! Whether or not this was at his own volition or at the request of your producers it does seem strange that a person of his authority on Monarchy was only on air for a short time throughout an hour long discussion!
Dr Starkey was right however in saying that this whole issue over whether a Catholic should be allowed to succeed to the throne is a very useful diversionary tactic by the government from real economic issues particularly when even if the law was changed it wouldn't have to be applied for years due to the current line of succession.
After all with more bank bail outs, increasing unemployment, home repossessions and MP's second home scandals etc many UK households woke up today hearing that this 'succession' issue was suddenly top of the news agenda.
Eventually however, your editors altered the whole theme of the discussion to embrace the issue of modernising the Monarchy itself!
The reality is that the Monarchy cannot be reformed or modernised because the whole institution exists behind anachronisms so to modernise it is as absurd as trying to modernise history!
What really lies behind all this modernising the Monarchy agenda is that our rulers fear increasing resentment amongst the masses towards class and priviledge as the effects of the economic recession kicks in. The occasional whipping up this modernising agenda is therefore aimed at pacifying mass attention away from Royalty!
For some archaic reason our democracy only allows national referendums on constitutional issues. Therefore its significant that with all the frequent right wing howls for a referendum on Europe etc there's never been any desire for a referendum on whether the Monarchy should exist or not. The likes of Dr Starkey can go on about opinion polls amongst a small layer of the public showing 70-90% in favour of its retention but since when was a government elected on an opinion poll!
This whole distracting issue could be killed with one stone by having a national referendum over the future of the Monarchy but of course this won't happen as the chattering classes will fear the result!
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Bassreflections:
I don't know if the Queen is a nice person because I haven't met her. Have you? Presumably you would have mentioned it in your piece if you had.
You write 'she (the Queen) brings decency and dignity to her role which is far more that can be attributed to most MP's'!
Well we the electorate put the MP's into the House of Commons Sir or Madam so really its up to the likes of you and I to establish decency and dignity to their role.
No disrepect but I suggest you merely reflect apathy and disempowerment over the current constitutional system per se!
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