Prospect this month asks what British people want from the monarchy. The overwhelming answer, in our national poll, and from our writers, is that it should continue. As Simon Jenkins puts it, you wouldn’t invent it, but Britain can still be glad it’s there. Edwina Currie calls the Queen a “good egg”; Eric Hobsbawm pronounces the monarchy “useful”; many share Anthony Seldon’s optimism about the marriage of William and Kate.
I’m glad the goodwill exists. It’s part of the deep good humour of British life. But I don’t, myself, share the views that lead to it. I’m a regretful republican; while enjoying the charm, stability, and sense of history the Crown brings, I’m with Will Self in thinking the monarchy infantilises Britain. If you have, at the top, a prize awarded by virtue of birth, it undermines claims to build a modern, mobile society. By waving aloft the trappings of an old, grand country, we also pretend new constraints are not there. Our navy’s ships are proudly named HMS; never mind that we have few left, and that the recent retirement of the Ark Royal aircraft carrier makes it harder to send forces to the Libyan coast.
Our poll also shows only a slim majority believing that the Queen should stay head of the Church of England. It is, as Andrew Adonis says, beyond belief that Australia and Canada still choose to keep the Queen as head of state. Nor, despite the honourable desire of royal family members to take on useful tasks, did it ever seem appropriate to send Prince Andrew as trade envoy to the Gulf. The Arab uprisings have made it even less attractive to dispatch one of our royals to explore deals with, say, the Saudi monarchy—whose forces have moved against protesters in Bahrain—while our elected government urges Arabs to risk their lives for the right to elect their own leaders.
On that note, a word of praise for Naoto Kan, Japan’s prime minister. A former finance minister, he had, before the earthquake, shown the best grasp for years of how to release Japan from two decades of economic paralysis, but was harried by a fractious coalition. He deserves more support; he may now get it. The coverage of the tsunami has also reminded me how much I dislike the phrase “coming to terms with” disaster. It’s a euphemism; it implies you can negotiate with reality, and set the terms on which you accept it. You can’t.
The crisis at Japan’s crippled nuclear reactors has inevitably raised questions about safety—and secrecy—within the industry. Our report argues that the costs of nuclear power are still high but that we will need it to combat climate change, a view I share. But the threat of weapons proliferation across Iran and the Arab world demands attention. So does the level of openness—in Japan, not least.
I’m all for popularising science (and I agree with James Watson’s lament about President Obama’s lack of knowledge). But Stephen Collins, our cartoonist, rightly takes aim at Brian Cox on the BBC, who’s apparently set on drowning science in sultriness in his astronomy series, murmuring “trillions and trillions” in his close-ups to the camera. Enough, Brian.
In this month's Prospect
March 23, 2011
