« February 2011 | | April 2011 »
The Dalai Lama has denounced monarchy, saying that “The rule by spiritual leaders, the rule of kings or rajahs is now outdated”.
The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists announced that he was giving up the political power that has been attached to his position for centuries. He said he not want to be like the deposed Egyptian president Mubarak who was ousted by the democratic uprising in his country.
Persuading legislator-for-life that they should lose their feudal privileges was a “hard process” according to Thomas Galbraith, who also goes by “Lord Strathclyde” and is Leader of the House of Lords. This admission that even when it comes to ending feudal privilege, the privileged call the shots, is a reminder of how far Britain has to go before it achieves fully democratic government and a democratic culture. The Conservative legislator said he had now found “common ground” that would allow a reform bill to be proposed in the next two months.
At best It will be 2015 before the so-called Lords are replaced by Senators. Even then twenty per cent may still not be chosen by the people if Galbraith has his way. According to the legislator-for-life, who inherited his his peerage, there is “a good case to retain an unelected element.” In an interview with the Financial Times he seemed to express a particular desire to allow business people to bypass the will of the people to become legislators.
Galbraith commented that the government would be doing something “no government has been able to do for the last 100 years”.
In fact it is at least 350 years since British democrats first saw the need to cleanse Britain of its legislators-for-life. It was during the English Revolution that Richard Overton told MPs in A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens that "You only are chosen by the people and therefore in you only is the power of binding the whole nation by making, altering or abolishing of laws. You have therefore prejudiced us in acting so as if you could not make a law without both the royal assent of the king (so you are pleased to express yourselves) and the assent of the Lords".
The “prejudicing” of the British people may be coming to and end. But many of the feudal legislators are expected to continue to resist democratic government. In 2007 a majority of 361 of them spat in the face of the British people by blocking legislation that would have required at least some legislators in the second chamber to be chosen by the people. They may do it again.
The Financial Times newspaper has shown implicit support for the British monarchy. In an editorial advising Andrew Windsor, who is both a “prince” and a “duke” in the country's official class hierarchy, to resign as Britain's trade ambassador the FT warned that the increasing criticism that he has received “threatens to embarrass the royal family”.
The financial newspaper quotes, seemingly with approval, Walter Bagehot's belief that the feudal institution should be “reverenced”. It suggested that Mr. Windsor's behaviour was undermining reverence for the Windsor clan.
Tristam Hunt, a Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent, has advised William Windsor on how to avoid losing the unjust feudal privilege of becoming hereditary head of state. In an article in The Institute of Public Policy Research tank's quarterly journal he advises the second in line for Britain's highest public office that the needs to think creatively if he is to prevent a democratic head of state taking his place.
The article says that Mr. Windsor should support changes that would allow female members of the Windsor clan to have an equal share in its feudal privileges. The so called “prince” should also widen his clique of courtiers by appointing interns. If the clan is to keep the millions of pounds that it takes annually from the British people they should be less extravagent, the legislator advises.