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A Republican Britain ?. Forget it

All in one week Windsor Castle burned and Queen Elizabeth agreed to pay income tax as well as to fund' all members of her family except her husband and her mother. In her frankest personal speech she talked of her "annus horribilis." She and the royal family had endured months of attack —much of which, argues Gemini News Service's editor, could have been avoided with a little foresight.

Derek Ingram writes from London
However much hubbub may surround Queen Elizabeth in the 40th year of her reign, one thing Is certain: Britain is not about to turn into a republic, nor is it likely to do so in the foreseeable future.
Such a move is inconceivable. No British prime minister would dream of putting this kind of proposition to parliament and of dragging the country through what would for certain be.years of bitter constitutional debate. In any case, public support for such a change would be minimal.
The utter failure of those who have been wallowing In apparently endless denigration of the monarchy and of individual members of the royal family do not seem ever to sit down and pause for a moment to consider what is the point of It all. What is their objective?
The practical realities of the situation are ignored. Instead, the British press has just driven on obsessively to undermine an institution which on the whole the world rather admires and which there is no question of being able to replace.
Yet it has not been quite the mindless exercise it first appeared. The press had a point and were rightly reflecting public unease. Something had gone horribly wrong with the monarchy in the last few years.
One thing was simple to put right and inexplicably was not: the handling of royal public relations. At one time Buckingham Palace showed great skill, in this field. Somewhere down the years it lost touch with the changed world.
The people around the
Queen seem to have cocooned her in another age. When the question began to be asked why she should not be paying Income tax like everyone else how was it that the matter was not nipped in the bud by a swift decision that she was
willing to do so?
Why did Government and Palace have to wait months to work out the details before announcing the news? Acceptance of the principle would have been enough to satisfy public opinion on this
point.
It is odd that the Queen, who has often been seen to act shrewdly in her long reign, should not herself have recognised that to quell the criticism was just as urgent as putting out the flames that.
with uncanny symbolism, licked the walls of Windsor Castle.
Her decision to pay tax has now been marred by giving it the appearance of having ken made grudgingly as a result of pressure. It was not as if the monarch historically had never paid tax. Queen Victoria paid tax and so did her successors until the Queen's father, George VI, made an exemption deal with the government in 1937.
This was just after the abdication of his brother Edward VIII tn the days when government and Crown were trying to consolidate the monarchy after it had been shaken to the foundations by the King’s love affair.
These were also times when late Victorian deference to the monarch was still the norm. For several decades no one ever questioned or criticised the acts of the King. People came to forget that criticism of the royal family or stories of scandal were in fact nothing new.
In the days of George IV and for much of Victorias reign the royal family was ridiculed and bawdily cartooned more crudely than any
tabloid newspaper does today.
The period of deference lingered on long into Elizabeth's reign. It should never have been allowed to continue, as it has done in many quarters, feeding on itself up to this day.
The mystique of the monarchy Is a nice, fairy talc idea, wonderfully glorified by Shakespeare, but that cannot work in 1992.
Major change is now obviously on the way. but the Queen faces a dilemma. The pomp and circumstance and ritual of hundreds' of years that surrounded the monarchy cannot easily be discarded. For one thing, people rather like It.
For another, it is expected by visitors who come in their droves to Britain specifically to witness It. Because of the imperial history it has become the invaluable trade mark of Britain.
The Queen of the Netherlands may ride about on a bicycle, but she does not carry around with her the sort of global history that Queen Elizabeth does. The change is going to be extremely difficult to orchestrate.
As for any chance of Britain becoming a republic, forget it. A president and the residences would cost just as much money to maintain. Making the choice would simply create division In the country. And if elderly politicians were to be candidates Britain might end up with somebody like Lady Thatcher. Who would want that?
DEREK INGRAM is Editor of Gemini News Service.