#NotMyKing
Today, a man who is a year old than my dad is going to put on a hat and sit on a chair. Somehow, in doing so, he’ll cost taxpayers over £100 million. This, at a time when apparently there are more food banks than McDonald’s outlets in the UK. Food banks which are being accessed by key workers such as nurses who are striking for better pay.
I think what sticks in the throat a little is that there is no legal requirement for a coronation. As a recent series of podcasts from The Guardian showed, there’s a real public/private murkiness to royal family’s assets. They can, and probably should, have paid for it themselves.
Meanwhile, because the UK’s answer to everything is more surveillance and authoritarianism, the government has fast-tracked anti-protest legislation. This is in addition to existing powers. Lest we forget, a barrister was threatened with arrest for holding up a blank piece of paper during the ‘official mourning period’. The police officer involved claimed that he might have offended someone if he had written “Not My King” on it.
This, ladies and gentlemen, and people who identify differently, is the UK in which I, and some of you, reside. Monarchy is an anachronism. Most other European countries got rid of theirs around a century ago. It’s time to ‘retire’ ours, too.
Poster by Katherine Anteney. Photo by Sequin World.
Also, just a quick note on the usual response I get when expressing any kind of opposition to the royals: the “but they’re good for tourism!” response. Not only are royal-adjacent locations not in the top ten places that tourists visit, but, more importantly, why should tourism have *any* relevance to who is our current head of state?
#NotMyKing either. Agreed.
I’m not a huge fan of the royals but have felt bound to point out that they contributed about four times the cost of the coronation to the treasury from the profits of wind farms on Crown land earlier this year. And I do think that is only right – Crown land should be benefitting all citizens of the UK – but it also made me think about what would happen to Crown land if there was no longer a crown, and how quickly our government would sell it off for a quick buck. Again, not particularly a royalist, but I’m cautious about what would fill that vacuum. President Boris haunts my nightmares.