I’ll level with you, America; the Royal Family does something weird to the people of the UK, and it’s pretty embarrassing. Even typically right-minded individuals seem to get swept away in events such as the hysteria surrounding the conception and birth of another Royal baby, and people are alarmingly willing to spend a whole day dedicated to celebrating an old woman not having died yet, more commonly known as the Queen’s Jubilee.
I’d wager that there is nothing you could do that would invoke the ire of more people in the UK than if you were to out yourself as a critic of the Royal Family. Even racists would find themselves garnering more vocal support. Here we are, in a progressive Western society in the year 2015, and otherwise sane people will leap to the defense of a monarchy that they have no say over and who are funded by the public’s money.
80% of Britain approves of the Royal Family. To me, that’s an incomprehensibly high figure considering what the monarchy stands for. There have been thousands of people vocally opposing our government, slating their “the rich get richer, the poor get poorer” ethos, and while I count myself among those who have a great deal of disdain for the UK’s Conservatives, at least they’re democratically elected. Then you’ve got the Royal Family, who are met with almost universal adoration despite being rich off the back of public funding and not actually doing anything of much importance. The British can hate David Cameron all we want, but many of us elected to put him in the position he’s in, which is more than what can be said for the Queen.
Cheer up, Elizabeth; we paid for that tree.
I understand that our Royal Family is also loved in many other countries, and that the US in particular appears to have a fondness for them. This always inevitably leads to pro-monarchy individuals raising the same point; that the Royal Family brings in a great deal of money for the country each year through tourism. To that I say: “okay, but it also makes us look fucking stupid.” No matter the amount of money generated by the Royal Family, its very existence is a stubborn, inflamed zit on our pasty British complexion, reminding us that while many in our country have to rely on food banks and work three or four jobs in order to not starve and provide for their family, there’s a family of big-toothed scroungers that are just handed money (and lots of it) earned by other people by virtue of them simply being born.
Also, it’s questionable just how much money they rake in anyway. Anti-monarchy group the Republic values the public cost of the Royal Family at around £200 million, which includes renovations made to their homes, security and their “wages” for their lucrative careers in “standing around and being posh.” The British tourism agency values the amount that the Royal Family brings in to the country in the form of tourism at around £500 million, but that figure is mostly attributed to the visiting of castles and other such day trips, meaning it’s not exactly correct to suggest that our current monarchy is what’s driving in those numbers, but rather our country’s rich history.
We let this happen.
I don’t feel much pride in being British. The notion of being proud of being born and raised in a specific country is a foreign concept to me, given that it’s something we literally have no control over. I’m proud of other aspects of my life, but I did absolutely nothing to contribute to me spending my formative years in England; I was pushed out of my mother’s womb and this is the country in which that event took place. There was nothing on my part that I did to ensure that I would be born British. Yet when people talk of how they take pride in being British, the Royal Family is consistently high on the list of reasons why it’s so good to hail from this nation. How does that work? How could anyone possibly take pride in the existence of an undemocratic authority lording over us, whom we pay for with tax money that could otherwise be spent on, y’know, helping out those starving, impoverished people I mentioned before?
If the mere concept of the Royal Family wasn’t ludicrous enough, then the media circus that surrounds their day-to-day activities tips it into batshit insane territory. If you folks in the US thought we got a bit weird about events such as the birth of the Royal baby and the Royal Wedding from across the Atlantic, then you should try living here. There’s 24-hour rolling news coverage of this garbage, vox pops featuring members of the public discussing how much they adore these people who they’ve never met, and actual news reporters whose sole job is to be “royal correspondents.” Being in the UK during one of these familial events is a fucking nightmare. You can’t start up a conversation without someone asking you your thoughts on whatever it is the Royals are celebrating – be it a birth, a marriage or someone not having died yet – and if you don’t respond with anything other than “I think it’s really sweet and I wish them all the best for the future,” that person will probably never bother speaking to you again.
This photo of the Queen sitting on a golden throne wearing a golden crown was taken whilst she was giving a speech about the UK’s budget management and austerity measures. I am not kidding.
A Royal celebration basically sees the pro-monarchy portion of the UK (which, as previously mentioned, is an awful lot of people) standing within their own echo chamber, bellowing unanimous praise for these people and fawning over their every move. “Doesn’t Kate Middleton look lovely?” they ask, and if you don’t know that it’s a rhetorical question and respond with “Actually, I don’t give a shit about what she looks like because I’ve never met that woman in my life,” you should prepare to be bludgeoned over the head with a commemorative tea pot.
So I know what you’re thinking; with there being so many factors that should contribute to the UK despising the Royal Family and everything they stand for, why does the majority of Britain love ’em so much? Well, the honest answer is that I have no idea. I do not understand how any sensible individual could fall hopelessly in love with a family they’ve never met. I don’t get how the Royal Family are beloved and their usage of public funding is widely accepted when our nation’s poor are vilified if they opt to make use of our benefits system. I don’t know why people were glued to their TV screens when Kate Middleton was giving birth to her baby, a gurgling newborn that was immediately granted more power than 95% of the country. It doesn’t make any sense.
But perhaps that’s exactly why people like the Royal Family. It’s so ludicrous that other progressive societies look at it and say “Wow, Britain is a really weird place,” despite the gentrification of the country and its steady Americanisation dampening its unique spirit. When all our coffee shops are being turned into Starbucks and all our pubs into Wetherspoon’s, perhaps the last bastion of hope for the continuation of our inherent English eccentricity is a little old woman wearing a silly hat.
Or perhaps we’re all just very dim.
Photos: Getty Images
