Some views on the monarchy
I think it is one of the very few constitutional institutions in Britain which is working very well and is extremely seldom criticised. We live in a world where there is a great deal of criticism of the party system, the law courts, the electoral system, parliament, particularly parliament, and the civil service, but the monarchy on the whole is not criticised much, and not criticised because it is doing an extremely good job. Therefore I do not see any obvious or imminent danger to it — indeed I imagine it will continue to flourish. — Lord Blake It's something which is purely decoration and a bore. It gives enormous pleasure, which is something to be said in its favour. If it stopped I should imagine that the supply had exceeded the demand, but I can't see any likelihood of that. I think on the whole that it is an amenity. Whether politically it ought to exist is another matter. — Quentin Bell I don't really have any opinions about the monarchy. I just wish they weren't so plain. I suppose I don't mind subsidising them really but I think we deserve a better show for the money. I'd quite like them if they were Borgias or something — at least they'd be entertaining — but as they are just
Hanoverians and horsy to boot, I find them a bit of a pain really. I wish they were grander, they're not grand enough — apart from the fact they're all small. They're minute. — Germaine Greer I am entirely in favour of it. I feel that if it doesn't continue then that is the end of the country. This feeling has got nothing to do with the intellect, with the front half of my mind, it has everything to do with rnY deepest instincts. It is neither sentimental, it is a statement of fact that once we don t have a monarchy there won't be a Great Britain, let me say to be more accurate there won't be an England. That's most impor" tant. Once the monarchy goes, Englan.ci goes. It looks rather as if that is all there Is going to be left. — John Braine One meeting with the Queen has turned Me from a_ believer in the necessity of the monarchy into an ardent monarchist. In an) future that I can foresee, I should think the surest way of having blood flowing in the streets of Great Britain would be an attempt to abolish the monarchy. — Kingsley Anus I think the monarchy is a very great institution and I think it will survive not onIY for the United Kingdom but also for at least some of the other countries where it is sovereign, and above all I hope in its relationship with the Commonwealth. Btit3 condition of its survival is that it should be properly criticised and that it should not become in any sense a substitute for 3 religion. There is a certain tendency at the moment, which I think is dangerous an unhealthy, for it to become a sort of cult all a substitute for religion, and for it not tobe subject to the same kind of critical attention that every other institution receives in our free country. —John Grigg I used to be a mild republican and had great hopes that Charles and his cherry-b1'1 drinking days would be an indication 0, relapse into Hanoverian characteristics an In would bring the monarchy down but now think, as I get older, that it is probablY °rid the whole a good thing rather than a ba thing. Although we have a rather boring Royal family it's probably the hest sort tri have. I must say that I haven't found 1TlY5eit being moved by the Jubilee in any waY' hasn't disturbed me in the least, apart froin all this horrible red, white and blue stuff it's a frightfully vulgar combination ° colours — George Gale Some years ago I ran into much obloqilY saying that excessive adulation of 010 person of the monarch was liable tr endanger the useful institution monarchy. How drastically things have ri°,,t, changed for the better in this resPe'd largely as a result of the discrimination ON good sense of the Queen herself, as mg of seen by comparing the media's handling „e the present Jubilee with their. performanh.:"th in 1935 when King George the O celebrated his Jubilee. It's only a Pir,t)j perhaps, that tenure should be for life a'in confined to one family since I can't tie feeling that Mrs Thatcher would make , better Queen than Prime Minister Malcolm Muggeridge
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