Insensitivity of Queen’s Speech prompts backlash against the monarchy
Insensitive: The Queen recorded her message in the White Drawing Room of Buckingham Palace. If she’d had any nous, she would have gone to a food bank or homeless centre.
In her Christmas message, the Queen spoke about poverty – a message that was utterly undermined by the opulence of the surroundings in which she delivered her speech.
Rather than expressing solidarity with those of her subjects who are currently suffering extreme poverty, the monarch of the fifth-richest country in the world – who enjoys enormous personal wealth – seemed to be rubbing their noses in it.
I understand we are supposed to forget our differences this Christmas…….. pic.twitter.com/hj0EGrn4Xn
— Pauline Lane (@Antonineone1) December 25, 2018
She seems to have joined Emmanuel Macron in this ill-advised behaviour, and look how well the French people have responded to his antics – they spent weeks rising up in protest against him.
101 on how not to give a speech to your impoverished citizens on ‘overlooking the differences’. pic.twitter.com/bbqmgXmsbf
— Nicola James (@NAJ562) December 26, 2018
Perhaps the fault lies in poor advice but the Queen didn’t have to accept it.
The fact that she did means she holds ultimate responsibility for the backlash from the public, including tweets like these:
https://twitter.com/Tech_FTW/status/1077681202570629121
https://twitter.com/JacketPotato97/status/1077686402509361152
The sarcasm makes a perfectly valid point. A person as rich as she is has no grounds on which to lecture the poorest in the country about respecting people whose lives are different or putting aside our differences in the national interest (which is a Tory slogan if ever there was one) – the Mirror‘s Kevin Maguire tweeted, “Privileged wealthy hereditary monarch bunged £76m a year, sitting in front of a golden piano in the palace she’s billing taxpayers £369m to tart up, kills satire by lecturing the nation to pull together.”
Some pointed out that Her Majesty doesn’t practise what she’s preaching:
The queen, who insists Kate & Camilla curtsy to her, says we should treat all people with respect.
— Mr Ethical (@nw_nicholas) December 25, 2018
The brickbats just keep coming. Much criticism concentrated on the golden piano behind the Queen:
The Queen talking about self sacrifice in front of a massive golden piano there pic.twitter.com/pHUQ0zTkeE
— James Felton (@JimMFelton) December 25, 2018
The Erard grand piano was bought by Queen Victoria in 1856. She and Prince Albert installed grand pianos in the private apartments of all their residences, where they would play arrangements of overtures and symphonies and sing together.
The current Queen shows no sign of any such leanings, so one might be justified in asking why she needs to hoard such a valuable item, while taking tax money that could be used on programmes to help those in poverty and using it to make her palace pretty. Is that really the decision of a responsible leader?
And is it any surprise, therefore, that her speech has led to renewed calls for the abolition of the monarchy?
Mark Adkins makes good points on this:
The problem with having #TheQueen as head of state is not just that she is unelected. It is the whole class system she represents that puts ‘breeding’ above all else. This world view helps justify racism, snobbery and the demonisation of the poor. A Republic is long overdue!
— Marv (@MutantMarv) December 25, 2018
Amazingly, in the face of the astonishing insensitivity displayed in this year’s Christmas message, there are still people who disagree.
But I bet they’ll all laugh at the following response, as much as I did:
https://twitter.com/UKDemockery/status/1077886635726045184
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Yet she has had enough email letters of her subjects asking her to speak out against these devils who use denial of benefits to cull the stock yet to have a president yuk whole end up like the yanks bought by companys
Perhaps we should vote for Rees Mog as an alternative, or even Boris?
There will be a world wide celebration upon her death and it will be recognized yearly – but the bitch refuses to die already.
As a republican, I think you’re disgusting.
There will be millions along the parade route, most to just confirm that she has died.
Laura Ludwick, your message seems mean. She, your queen, is now just an elderly woman who has no idea how her speech would sound in such lavish surroundings. Please don’t wish anyone death.
She lives in a palace the stuff is decades or centuries old, where did you expect her to broadcast from nelson Mandela tower in Peckham ?
And for starters introductory music from Kings College choristers singing With gusto ( and descant ) not a carol but lordy lordy God Save the Queen. We’ve been singing far too long “long to reign over us” God almighty you can stop saving her now. Enough is enough.
She’s the queen because in the distant past her ancestors threatened our ancestors and killed some in order to take over. Today they call something similar the mafia.
What sort of an individual could or would ‘queen’ it like this over a hopelessly divided, tin-pot ‘realm’, dreadfully impoverished ‘subjects’, the sick and disabled trampled underfoot to pay off the government deficit whilst doubling the national debt, the jobless queuing for rationed food at ‘banks’ and the dead and dying littering the streets and shop doorways for want of basic need.
Someone perhaps with an extreme, right-wing, conservative mentality, with severely limited empathy who could be manipulated somehow by someone, somewhere into believing sincerely in their fully controlled and manipulated position of power, authority and influence directed from their obscenely, opulent grace and favour ‘palace’ in their make-belief ‘kingdom’ clinging on for grim death to the last crumbling vestiges of the ruins of long imagined, fading, autocratic ’empire’ living in eternal dread of the spectre of approaching ‘socialism’!
Bring on the Republic – an elected Head of State instead of a billionaire dynasty with no special talent or ability.
Even if the Queen gave all her wealth away it would not in the end make any difference to the position of the poor. It is the system that is wrong and we are cynically encouraged to be xenophobic otherwise there would be no one to fight capitalist wars. We need a classless, stateless and borderless world and for that we really do have to work together.
You’re right about the system being wrong.
‘We need a classless, stateless and borderless world and for that we really do have to work together.’ You said it ❤
well folks that’s the way it has always been the ruling class the extreme wealthy and elite enjoy their by the labors of others and that will never change until the king of kings and lord of lords returns. HALLELUJAH
Why are people getting so wound up about this. She’s the QUEEN. Yeah she’s speaking about differences whilst she’s in her palace but she is the queen and the ruler of our country. People should have some respect for our monarchy since we’re incredibly lucky to have them in the first place
Well I didn’t vote for her.
reptilian parasite
First, the Queen earns profits from the land she owns, same as any other landllord or landlady.
Second, she pays millions in tax to the treasury, same as any other land owner.
Except for the new millionaire class, the Government and their rich friends, who use every trick, cheat and loophole they can to pay nothing.
The Government then misuses this revenue to the benefit of foreign governments and corporations, in a way in which the most needy get nothing.
Third, the Government has destroyed the tenets of the Magna Carta and syphoned away all the power and authority away from the Crown, to the point that there is little or nothing that the Queen can now do to stop them.
So why is she colluding with them by broadcasting a message intended to tranquillise us, insensitively undermined in the way I’ve described? You’re not making your point very well.
I saw the Queen’s speech from over here in Trumpland and did not see insensitivity. If it about her surroundings, does she not make her ChristMas speech from the same room very year? Exactly what power does the Queen have other than that which she exercises?
She doesn’t have a normal life and didn’t expect to be Queen. Fine, criticise her but how many of those who are critical have actually done anything to help the poor and homeless, or are they just hypocrites, too?
No, she doesn’t make her speech from the same room each year.
Yes, she did expect to be queen.
As for her critics, don’t judge people you don’t know.
Do you not think that had she made her speech from a foodbank or homeless centre,as you suggest, she would have been branded by some as being hypocritical? Sadly there are too many, especially that Maguire chap, who seems to have little idea how the sovereign grant operates
No, I don’t. It would have demonstrated an appreciation of what other people are going through.
@Zippi – initially the radio and early televised broadcasts were made live from Sandringham, where the monarch traditiionally spends Christmas. Since recording them these have been from Buckingham Palace but not always the same room.. You are right that she did not expect to be queen, she was 12 or 13 when Edward VIII abdicated and even then she might have expected her father to have much longer than he did.
@Sivier – presumably, by the same yardstick MPs posing at foodbanks were demonstrating their appreciation, too, and in no way hypocritical..
After the time Edward VIII abdicated, and until the death of her father, she had every reason to expect to be Queen; please don’t split hairs.
Point taken about splitting hairs although I still hold my opinion on that but i see you have not responded to the question of hypocracy
Great Britain is not the 5th richest country in the world, now it is, in fact, 6th biggest economy.The list of the richest countries in the world comprises of countries like Norway, etc..You shouldn’t automatically accept and take for granted what they tell you on the main stream news channels, the same applies to the queen’s speech ..
Are you sure? https://www.visualcapitalist.com/chart-the-10-wealthiest-countries-in-the-world/
To Zippi – you didn’t make it clear whether you are a US citizen in Trumpland, or not. If you are US citizen, here is some info. The Queen of the UK owns vast amounts of land in the US, mainly mines. These mines churn out Billions of dollars profit each year. Land swaps are done on a regular basis to include land with the expensive ore, for small parcels of land at a pretty location, but of no other value. i.e. a couple of acres by a river, providing a parking lot and a short walk for the public, who then have to pay to maintain this asset or pay a fee to enter. Kicking the UK monarchy out didn’t happen, it was a con. Most Americans have fallen for the con. Try ‘Rio Tinto’ and all the other names they use to keep it quiet. She is the major shareholder. The company was set up for her. The British tax payers even pay the salary of the guy who advises her about company decisions.
The queen doesn’t live a normal life, as you say. She sponges off the poor tax payers of the UK to fund her palaces, clothing allowance, travel round the world and security. All the rest she owns outright and most of the public don’t appear to know. She owns 1/6 of the land on Earth. I can’t even begin to imagine how much she and her family are worth.
The queen owns only Sandringham and Balmoral…the remaining properties – eg Windsor and land belong to the Monarchy (Crown estates); she cannot sell them.. Income from these estates totals around thrre hundred million per year which goes to the Treasury..In return there is a sovereigns grant which is 15% of that income and which covers the running of the household, official travel, hosting official visits etc. Her personal expenditure comes from her own private finances.
The sooner she shuffles off this mortal coil the better.
Who wrote the speech was it May