A Royal Roasting.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is chipping away at the inherited privilege of Britain's aristocracy. Some think this may well be a prelude to reducing the power of the monarchy

The issue of the monarchy's future is debated hotly in Britain today. Much of the headshaking is a result of the antics of members of the Royal Family - marital infidelity, divorce, and the fact that Queen Elizabeth II seems to be completely out of touch with the British people. Her apparently cold reaction to Princess Diana's death in 1997 is frequently cited as an example of how the Queen is isolated from the masses. The monarchy is doing what it can to reform itself but it is still too stuffy, too hung up on protocol, and unwilling to give up its privileges in an age of equal rights for all.

While 1992 had been marked as a special one in royal circles, a celebration of the Queen's 40th anniversary on the throne, it was also a year of misfortune. Princess Anne (the Princess Royal) was divorced. The Duke of York (Prince Andrew) separated from his wife, the former Sarah Ferguson. The fairy-tale marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales (Charles and Diana) also collapsed. And, Windsor Castle, a favourite royal residence, was damaged extensively in a fire.

The collapse of three royal marriages was in itself a sign that things are changing. Modern princes and princesses now want more from life than duty and appearances. They want to be happy in their personal relationships, just like the rest of us do.

No one exemplified the new reality more than the late Princess Diana. An individualist trapped in outdated surroundings, she was seen by the public as a refreshing change from the formal, stuffy royals, stuck on tradition. The crowds loved her common touch. They identified with her weaknesses, her failed marriage to Prince Charles, her troublesome eating disorders (anorexia and bulimia). The outpouring of grief and affection after she was killed in a Paris car crash in August 1997 made it clear that her casual style appealed to the public enormously.

But, in the process of reaching out to commoners she raised the hackles of the royals. Princess Diana had great difficulty dealing with the aloof royals and their stubborn adherence to traditions. However, she helped lead the way for them to practise a more relaxed, informal approach to their subjects.

Diana is largely credited with making the royal family realize that they have to change with the times. They need to bridge the gap between their privileged lives and the lives of ordinary people.

Diana was greatly admired, not just for her own vulnerability, but also because she reached out to people in tragic situations. She physically embraced victims of AIDS, drug abuse, and poverty, for example. This at a time when the Queen's officials always instructed anyone meeting her that they must not under any circumstance touch Her Majesty except in a handshake.

Some say the Royal Family won't have a future at all if it doesn't do something about improving its image, and joining the rest of the world in the 21st century.

For starters, many Brits have asked why, as one of the ten richest people in the world, the Queen should still draw a multimillion dollar salary from the public purse? Though much of her wealth is in fixed assets such as land, jewels, and art, estimates of the Queen's worth range from a few hundred million dollars to $6.5 billion (U.S.).

Until 1993, the royals didn't pay income taxes but, public pressure has changed that. The Queen announced not only that she intended to start paying income taxes but that her children and her sister, Princess Margaret, would no longer live off the public purse. Instead, they started to pay their way out of royal income.

Some people question the purpose of the monarchy at all, and whether it has any place in a democracy given its history of inherited wealth and privilege. In an editorial in 1994, The Economist magazine, expressed its view that "the monarchy's time has passed; that the only powerful argument against abolition is that it is not worth the trouble; and that there is an even stronger case for reforming other parts of the constitution, which anyway cannot be done without addressing, and hence altering, the monarchy's role."

The editorial points out that even the Queen's husband, Prince Philip, told The Daily Telegraph that a republic was "a perfectly reasonable alternative" to a constitutional monarchy. He agreed that the monarchy should survive only as long as people wanted it.

But, most of the people, it seems, do want it. An opinion poll in 1994 showed that 70% to 75% of British people favoured keeping the monarchy, although only between 35% and 50% thought Britain would still have it in 50 years. But by 1997, after Diana's death, 82% of Britons polled said they wanted the monarchy to continue if Diana's son, Prince William, were to be the next monarch. (Prince Charles, next in line to the throne, has since become somewhat more popular.)

Globe and Mail writer Michael Valpy, for one, loves the monarchy. In 1997, he wrote that, to him, it is "a safeguard of freedom and protector of democracy. It hasn't mattered to me who sits on the throne or is heir to the throne so long as the institution is served, and the people who personify the institution perform their constitutional duties in a dignified, useful, and appropriate way."

Supporters say Britain's royals just went through a bad patch, and that any negative perception of them is a result of media overindulgence. But, even defenders of the monarchy agree that it needs to become more modern and relevant.

Above politics, the monarchy is a reassuring presence. But Time Magazine quoted one British Labour Party adviser as saying, "They have to look like they are involved in the life of the society. You have to speak like you come from the same planet."

A 1998 report, Modernizing the Monarchy, by Demos, a British think-tank, called for radical reforms that would take away the Queen's political and church powers and use a referendum at times of succession. The public would first be asked to approve the heir (currently Prince Charles), and, if they didn't, another vote would be held on the next in line (Prince Charles' son Prince William). The report recommended that the monarch's remaining political powers, including the royal assent to legislation, should be removed. The right to dissolve Parliament and appoint prime ministers would pass to the Speaker of the House of Commons. The report also called for the removal of the monarch's position as the head of the Church of England, and that the church should not be the state's official religion in a country with many religions.

The government made it clear that it had nothing to do with the report, which it said did not reflect the government's views.

Britain's Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, sees the monarchy as having an important role as a symbol of continuity and stability in British life. But maintaining that role doesn't necessarily mean hanging on to archaic customs. And, it may mean being more accountable.

By March 1998, the Royal Family announced its plans to hold annual meetings outlining the broad range of works carried out by family members in annual reports. The annual meetings would be attended by elected representatives of the public, public groups, voluntary groups, and trade and professional bodies. The report would be a glossy publication available at newsstands, explaining what the royals did throughout the year, what they earned, and what they spent. The public-relations consultant who recommended the plan, also suggested that outdated rituals such as bowing and curtseying, and speaking only when spoken to had to go.

The need for change was confirmed after a private poll was conducted at the request of the Royal Family a few months earlier. It was reported that the poll found them to be: not understanding, wasteful, poor value for money, out of touch, lacking compassion, remote, badly advised, and not genuine. On the plus side, they were also seen as trustworthy, an integral part of British society, and respected and professional in executing their duties.

In an attempt to lighten up, the Queen started visiting such ordinary places as supermarkets, and McDonald's. The Queen is smiling more, and she's continuing to stream-line "the Firm," as her father King George VI jokingly referred to the Royal Family. Not only has she trimmed the list of relatives receiving public funds, she got rid of the Royal Yacht Britannia and set up a Way Ahead group to help tailor the monarchy into the next century.

Starting in 1998, photographers could take pictures of her at work several times a week, and a palace website is full of information on the royals.

The Queen also agreed to do away with primogeniture, the succession to the throne of the monarch's eldest son in favour of an older daughter; known as the law of the sword, primogeniture was rooted in the feudal idea that a sovereign had to lead the army, an unthinkable job for a woman until modern times.

Clearly, the Royal Family is speeding up its agenda for change.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. In an article in the Globe and Mail in September 1997, James Laxer, a professor of political science at Toronto's York University, wrote that it is firmer British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who, with her free-enterprise mentality, is largely responsible for the crumbling British monarchy.

Explain why a free market mould have a negative effect on the influence of the monarchy, and report on Mrs. Thatcher's relationship with the Royal Family. Discuss how much you think she contributed to a change in attitude toward the royals and their place in modern society.

2. In January 1999, the National Post noted that the British House of Lords includes 18 Canadian peers. One example the newspaper cites is Fred Perceval, born in 1914. He inherited the title of 11th Earl of Egmont in 1939 and married Geraldin Moody of Calgary. In the late 1950s, they moved to southern Alberta to start ranching because they mere tired of being hounded by the press, and the Earl continues to work the ranch now. Another, according to the National Post, is Lord Caulfield, the 14th Viscount Charlemont, "who lives in a modest condominium in Toronto." Find out who the others are and what their lives have been like.

3. When asked about his family's wealth, the Earl of Onslow, a hereditary peer, said "We're as poor as church mice. "Despite the family castle in Scotland, which he says is more of a burden than anything he has worked for his living as a journalist, conservative MP, and oil-company director. Discuss whether or not the image of nobility as being wealthy is a myth in modern times.

FACT FILE

The British House of Lords includes only 16 female hereditary peers, and only one member is of an ethnic minority.

Famous life peers include former prime minister Margaret Thatcher and composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber.

Whereas Canadian Senators are paid a salary, British peers are not.

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Britain is giving the pink slip to its hereditary lords and ladies. In June 1998, the Labour government announced its plans to end the right of the British aristocracy to govern by birth.

As Lord Richard, the Labour Government Leader in the House of Lords put it: "In a modern parliament, there really should be no reserved seats booked generations ago for a privileged few."

And, when Prime Minister Tony Blair introduced legislation in the House of Commons ending hereditary voting rights in January 1999, he said: "For too long, hereditary peers with no democratic legitimacy, whose role is based on birth and not merit, have been able to play a role in passing laws affecting everyone in Britain."

The move stripped 759 hereditary peers, some with titles dating back to the Middle Ages, of their right to sit and vote in the House of Lords. The House of Lords is the upper chamber of the British Parliament. It can revise legislation coming from the House of Commons, and serves as the country's final Court of Appeal. The upper chamber also has 485 life peers who receive their titles as a reward for service of some kind but who can't pass their titles on to their children. In addition, there are 28 law lords (the country's top 12 judges which the government is also considering removing), and 26 archbishops and bishops, for a total of 1,298.

The government decided to make the change gradually though. First came the legislation removing the right to a seat in the House of Lords which Britain's dukes, earls, barons, viscounts, and marquises have had since the 14th century. The second step involves setting up a transitional House of Lords that includes life peers and about 100 hereditary peers who will be allowed to stay on while a royal commission works on proposals for the permanent future shape of a reformed House of Lords. The commission is expected to have its report ready by 31 December 1999. The government also announced plans to review life peerages, which were created in 1958.

Possible replacements for departing nobles are European Union MPs, leaders of other religions, representatives from the regions, and more life peers.

The Conservative Party isn't crazy about these changes because most hereditary peers vote Conservative, which gives the party an automatic majority in the House of Lords. But, the public is all for it.

The results of one survey showed that 32% of those questioned wanted to reform the House of Lords, and 27% wanted to abolish it. Another 35% thought it should be kept as it is. On the question of how Lords should be chosen, 52% said they should be elected; 21% said they should be picked by an independent consultative body; 13% said the prime minister should appoint them; and 10% said the party leaders should appoint them.

The government would like to have a House of Lords with a combination of appointed and elected members. If it ends up with some elected members, Canada's Senate would be the only upper chamber in a Western democracy that is fully appointed.

RELATED ARTICLE: GUARDING AGAINST EXCESSES

The British magazine The Economist is all in favour of updating the monarchy, and points out that the Royal Family has "been keenly aware for decades that their continued role depends on popular support."

But, the magazine draws the line at the suggestion that the monarchy, if it is to continue to exist, should be stripped of its remaining constitutional powers, leaving it as a purely symbolic figure. It points out that the monarch already is 99% a symbol, and that "the remaining 1% is constitutionally vital. As head of state, the monarch holds reserve powers to reject laws, to dissolve Parliament, or to reject requests for dissolution, and to appoint prime ministers in the event of a hung Parliament."

The magazine argues that someone has to hold these powers, "to control parliamentary excesses, and to arbitrate in the event that Parliament is itself unable to come to a decision." And who, it questions, is better to do it than a non-partisan monarch?

Without this "vague (and) unexercised reserve power ... people may reasonably ask what is now the point of the monarchy."

RELATED ARTICLE: THE ROYAL TAB

In 1993, it was estimated that British taxpayers paid about $144 million (60 million pounds) a year to maintain the monarchy. Most of the money was for official travel on behalf of the state by royal train, yacht, and private jet, and for the upkeep of palaces that are officially owned by the country, not by the Queen herself.

Six royal palaces - Buckingham, Windsor, Holyrood House, St. James's, Hampton Court, and Kensington - come under the jurisdiction of the state, whereas the estates of Balmoral and Sandringham are classed as the Queen's private homes.

About $24 million of the total costs of the monarchy is covered by the Civil List, an annual state subsidy intended to meet the personal cost to members of the Royal Family of their official role within the monarchy. The List figure was reduced in 1993 when the Queen cut the number of her relatives receiving the subsidy. It had been for most of her immediate family, but now includes only the Queen, Prince Philip, and the Queen Mother.

But, on the other side of the ledger, the royals raise a lot of money too. From an annual income of more than $6 million, Prince Charles contributes as much as $2 million a year to such charities as St. Lukes Hospice, and the Devon Wildlife Trust; the Prince's Trust, which was established in 1976, is Britain's largest charitable network.

According to a Charities Aid Foundation booklet, there are 20 members of the Royal Family involved with about 1,000 organizations raising a total of more than $2 billion a year. Charity balls alone can raise between $150 a ticket with Princess Anne (the Queen's daughter) in attendance and $400 a ticket if the Queen herself is there. These were 1992 figures published by Tatler magazine in its Handbook to the Season.

Website

The Royal Family - http://www.royal.gov.uk