Flawed Diamond

So here in Britain we celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II this weekend, which is also a bank holiday. The irony is most of the populace are more interested in the extra days off instead of pondering the royal family and their alleged importance.

The media cover it relentlessly as the Queen shuffles from one public engagement to another and it's called 'public service'. I like to think I'm a patriot albeit in my own way but I cannot venerate a Queen that I no longer identify with. 

All this fuss by the middle and upper class to pay homage to someone that brings some extra money in via tourism. A woman that likes to race horses, watch Polo matches and does all the things the upper class revel in, has she really got anything in common with the average man in the street? Is she really representative of the total populace of this country?

The monarchy isn't really needed any more. People could argue that the royal family bring much money into the nation via tourism which states plainly to me she is more tourist attraction than any real use. She may visit places, she may cut ribbons and perform ceremonies and for that she gets paid far too much.

We need to wake up and smell the coffee, realise that the monarchy is a relic of the past and we no longer need it. As a nation we still have much to offer without them, hundreds of places of interest and beauty and we should look at promoting these over nostalgia of an empire, an empire that has long gone.

Other European monarchies are more low key, Scandinavian ones and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and that is the direction we should head. We won't though of course because we are too indoctrinated and wrapped in all of this nonsense to see beyond it. 

Am I filled with a sense of pride this weekend as the nation reveres the monarchy? No, not at all, I will remember the people who did and still do make this nation what it was and sometimes still is. They are the workers, the artists, the builders, the poets, the engineers, the scientists, the authors and countless others that have influenced and inspired me - none of them royalty.