Liquid Gold
Well-Known Member
May bank holiday moving to June with an additional day for the platinum jubilee!
The royals moving from car crashes to days off to distract us.
The royals moving from car crashes to days off to distract us.
4 Day Weekend (5 Viewers)
- Thread starter Liquid Gold
- Start date
Evo1883
Well-Known Member
Think it would have happened anyway tbh
eastwoodsdustman
Well-Known Member
Might well get both!
Liquid Gold
Well-Known Member
Me 99% of the time -
Abolish the monarchy, it's outdated and we should be a republic
Me when we get an extra bank holiday because of the royals -
Abolish the monarchy, it's outdated and we should be a republic
Me when we get an extra bank holiday because of the royals -
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
Platinum jubilee? What's that?
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Me 99% of the time -
Abolish the monarchy, it's outdated and we should be a republic
Me when we get an extra bank holiday because of the royals -
Yeah but we’ve still got the lowest amount of bank holidays.
List of countries by number of public holidays - Wikipedia
We could make the day we get rid of them a holiday, everyone’s a winner.
Sky_Blue_Daz
Well-Known Member
A colleague suggested we should have a bank holiday to support the nhs , I said that’s nonsense at least half of us would need to work
Sbarcher
Well-Known Member
Not sure if people are aware but my wife has been given an extra days holiday this year from our NHS Trust with the suggestion it could be taken on their birthday. I don’t know if this is for the whole NHS but a great gesture.
Terry Gibson's perm
Well-Known Member
Mine hasn’t mentioned it I will ask her in the morning.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
Yep, great way to say thank you - give everyone else a day off while they have to work! If it was in the summer probably make it worse if people sat drinking all day.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
Yeah but we’ve still got the lowest amount of bank holidays.
List of countries by number of public holidays - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
We could make the day we get rid of them a holiday, everyone’s a winner.
It prob will be when it eventually happens. Whatever the outcome of something it'll be celebrated as a victory cos history is written by the winners. Like Bonfire night - we'd still have that even if they'd succeeded because it'd have been seen as a great victory against monarchy/Protestantism.
Problem with the human psyche - it assumes everything is a step forward in the march of progress and is the best possible outcome.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Not a fan of a republic then?
Terry Gibson's perm
Well-Known Member
she hasn’t been given one.
Sky_Blue_Daz
Well-Known Member
My wife works at uhcw she’s not got one either
David O'Day
Well-Known Member
My Cousins who are nurses haven't got an extra day of either
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
I'm not saying everything is a step back, just that not everything is a step forward. Sometimes you have to do things wrong to get them right. We became a republic shortly in the 1600's but it was shit and we brought back the monarchy. Doesn't mean the republic was a wrong idea, just they had the wrong people in charge of it - the puritans.
As for a republic. I'm all for it eventually. I think the queen has done a remarkable job, amazingly just by keeping her mouth shut. I can't see Charles being able to do so.
Thing with the republic is it's almost certainly going to end up with a President and that's just an extension of what we've got now but more dangerously giving a single individual a lot of power. It wouldn't be independent and you'd get one affiliated to a political party. So why bother with it at all? Look at the US. Presidents are either R or D, so where's the independence and balance check between the legislative and executive, which is what the position is supposed to do? Trump's impeachment trial had nothing to do with evidence, just who he represented. If he'd been a Democrat the R's would've voted to impeach, most D's wouldn't. In fact you could say that about his entire Presidency and indeed most of them for a very long time.
As we also see with Trump and the affiliation, you can get people voting for totally unsuitable candidates just due to party and they can do almost as they please with the argument they have a mandate to do by being voted in. The queen doesn't have one and so can't in reality, even though constitutionally she can. She's almost just a figurehead or mascot, and I'd rather that than an individual who does. You eventually end up with someone like Putin.
Sbarcher
Well-Known Member
Must be only Oxford University Hospital Trust then.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Where’s the balance now? The Queen isn’t apolitical.
I get the issues with the President but surely we can draft whatever constitutional arrangement we want? I’m not sure it means we have to keep the current arrangement.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
Of course the Queen won't be apolitical, but she knows better than to voice her opinion or try and interfere.
We could put in an arrangement that any President had to be independent of a political party, but we all know that won't happen. If anything it'd be more dangerous cos you'd have a clearly biased incumbent (of either political persuasion) being bankrolled or led by a party but being able to claim their actions as 'independent'. It'd give those parties the chance to push their agenda without being directly linked to it. Or worse, they'd be financed by rich individuals, companies or unions and we'd have an individual with lots of executive power given they were voted in beholden to a small group of wealthy people. That's inevitable.
Given those options I'd take a monarch who, in reality, had little influence on policy.
Maybe we need to look at the vast landholdings and property of the royals and start reclaiming it for a start, but for me a President just creates a whole new load of problems no matter how you try to package it.
Why not just do away with the monarchy and not replace it with anything? Why give any individual that much power, elected or not? Just have a parliament with a PM.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
The monarchy definitely has influence on policy. I’d agree I don’t see the need for some supreme leader. Get the House of Lords right for balance to the populists in the Commons and leave it as it is.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
That's just taken a day off and moved it to half term aaarrrgggghhhh
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
I have no time for the monarchy and I'm not a royalist, (fucking mad that people who moan about the Europe don't realise it's just a vehicle to preserve European aristocracy, look at the line of succession), however, I think there are far more important things we need to sort out in this country - government accountability, (no matter who the incumbents) for starters.
I agree about the lords.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
Agree about the Lords. As I've said before that should be the PV elected chamber to go with the constituency based Commons.
Liquid Gold
Well-Known Member
I'd flip it, the lower house should be more representative of the country as a whole and then the upper house have representatives of each area. That way you can reduce the number in the commons to something sensible then have the lords constituencies larger too but they are able to block legislation if it doesn't fit with a majority of regional concerns.
If the lower house was by constituency and the upper proportional I think you'd still end up with a load of stuff getting waived though.
jimmyhillsfanclub
Well-Known Member
Bank holiday comes six times a year
Days of enjoyment to which everyone cheers
Bank holiday comes with six-pack of beer
Then it's back to work A-G-A-I-N
Days of enjoyment to which everyone cheers
Bank holiday comes with six-pack of beer
Then it's back to work A-G-A-I-N
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
So this is why, just like FPTP, it’ll never be reformed (reformists can’t agree on what reform should be). But I disagree.
I want something that’s designed to capture expertise and interests from across the country both geographically, socially, and economically. Maybe have representatives for wider areas elected, but I’d also want expertise in law, science, religion, trades, finance, etc in there with some structure to ensure it’s not all along party lines. I wouldn’t want to recreate the worst of the Commons.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
Whichever way round it is it's the principle of both being elected but by differing means. I just feel replacing the Lords would be less of a problem (but still a big one) than saying you're changing both or swapping them over it's going to be greeted with a lot more resistance cos people don't like change.
I disagree about the 'new Lords' getting stuff waved through - PR is very rarely going to produce a majority so can block stuff. Worry is you'd be getting stuff blocked just for party lines, as is the fear with hung parliaments.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
I agree about expertise etc, but we try and do that now and fail. you get PCC etc or Mayors and you just get people voting on party lines. If they have to be independent it's unlikely they actually will be and it just means parties will have control but not accountability.
In white papers we get experts to do them, but if the govt disagrees they just ignore them.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Thats why I wouldn’t make them elected positions. Or rather I’d have them appointed by certain bodies and they can choose to ballot their members or decide another way. That’s where I fall down on the detail though.
Liquid Gold
Well-Known Member
To be honest I'd rip the whole thing up, move them out of Westminster and turn that into a museum. Stick them in Milton Keynes or Kettering or something and completely change the makeup of it.
Appreciate like 10 people would go for it though
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
Oh I'm with you entirely on the moving them thing.
One of my ideas is for parliament to travel, like the Olympics sort-of, and the most economically depressed areas are given preference. Use it as a regeneration tool. One parliament would see more spending in an area than probably over a lifetime cos they aren't going to want to stay in a hovel.
Maybe a concern like the Olympics of stuff being built that then struggles to find a use afterwards but if you have buildings that can easily be adapted into flats and apartments, plus the improved homes that'd probably be built for the ministers etc it'd potentially have longer term effects.
Admit the cost would be prohibitive but the thought process would go beyond London and the SE. Plus it's a bit more feasible now with broadband etc allowing people all around the country to be in contact with each other at any time. At this moment in time you'd be looking at England, then Scotland, Wales and NI for the UK parliament to try and appease the union, but no idea how long that's going to last.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
I get about them being elected by bodies. Trouble with that is you get people very much just in that bubble and can't see beyond it. So finance people wouldn't be able to see beyond economic impact, environmental wouldn't be able to see beyond that, health and social care, education, arts etc would only see their things etc. Which if they were all given equal footing it might be workable, but they wouldn't be. Economics and business would be given massive preference and so we could go back to a situation whereby all that's being considered is how much money it makes and all the rest being marginalised.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Yeah but that’s true of everyone. That’s why you need the balance. Sure if the Tories set it up it would be all “business leaders” (their mate from school). But if done properly with trade Union reps and teachers and all the lovely cuddly left wing people too, but some good all rounders somehow and a smattering of political appointees I think it could work.