Category: British Monarchy

The King's Architectural Vision Wins Out

9/29/2025

A few days ago the BBC published an article on the British
government's upcoming announcement of new towns to be
built to alleviate Britain's housing crisis. A large proportion
of the article goes into how the King's architectural vision has
greatly influenced how these new towns will be designed.

This is certainly a change from when the King was still just a
prince. His famous comment describing a proposed addition
to the National Gallery as a "monstrous carbuncle" was not
well received by the architectural community. His initiative
to build a town to showcase his ideas regarding community
planning was derided as a 'toy town', 'doomed experiment',
and a 'kitsch Disneyland'. However, Poundbury has been a
great success and this is largely due to the then-Prince
insisting on his vision despite opposition from within his own
team.

The civic planning of the 60s, 70s, and 80s was defined by car
centrism, brutalist architecture, a lack of community spaces,
and radical separation of how space was used. These ideas
destroyed many areas of Britain and other communities
around the world. One commenter recently quipped that
car infrastructure destroyed more of Halifax than the Halifax
Explosion ever did.

In taking on the thankless task of showing that communities
built to the human scale (walkable, mixed use, and nice to
look at) were not only possible but what people want, the
King has done a great service to the people of the UK.

Now, if only the planners in Canada's major cities could get a
similar wake-up call.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

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Prince William, Noblesse Oblige, and Ending Homelessness

6/30/2023

Earlier this week Prince William
announced his plan to end
homelessness in the United
Kingdom. The initiative is called
'Homewards' and takes inspiration
from a similar program in
Finland, which has nearly halved its
homeless numbers since 2010.
Under the Homewards program the homeless will be given a
place to stay before other issues such as drug use, joblessness,
or mental health issues are sorted out. Efforts will also be
made to identify those at risk before they become homeless in
order to offer assistance.

The project currently has 16 private sector partners across six
locations. Land from his private estate (Duchy of Cornwall)
will be used to build social housing. The job ahead is immense
with an estimated 300,000 people in the UK dealing with
homelessness. A number that is expected to rise with rising
inflation and energy costs.

Prince William credits the influence of his mother, Princess
Diana, for him taking on this cause. She felt the then 11-year
old Prince William should be exposed to how those of much
humbler means were forced to live and the experience seems
to have stuck with him. This is not Prince William's first
initiative to raise awareness of homelessness in the UK but
it is the first with the greatly expanded resources and soft
power that come with being the Prince of Wales at his
disposal.

As with any attempt at doing good these days there are
detractors. Most of this uninformed criticism focuses on
Prince William's relative wealth (much the same as people
who complained about His Majesty flying in private jets while
trying to negotiate carbon reduction). I think this misses the
point.

Once upon a time elites honoured the principle of noblesse
oblige even if they did not always live up to it. And it is far
better for elites to view themselves as having an obligation to
help their fellow citizens than for elites to view their fellow
citizens has a hinderance to their interests. The latter view has
infected the elites in the USA for many years and has created an increasing number of monsterous examples who I will not
discuss here. A country's elite should look to better the lives of the less fortunate and in this regard Prince William is setting
a wonderful example.

Of course some also argue that reducing homelessness should
be a government responsibility and royal action in this area
limited what government can do. Bull crap. Again referring
back to Charles, when he was still the Prince of Wales; he got
the wheels rolling on climate action long before governments
were onboard with it. Rather than squeeze out the Members
of Parliament and governments of the day I think it provided
both inspiration and admonishment to the political elite who
are ever-eager not to get too far ahead of popular opinion. By
making ending homelessness a royal issue it implicitly raises
the question of what the government is planning to do to fight
it. Now this initiative could fail or it could take longer to
accomplish than people thought it would (which many
wrongly count as failure) but at the end of the day Prince
William is willing to do something about homelessness and
that is to be applauded.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

Coronation Cost Too Much? Its A Steal At Double The Price.

5/7/2023

The King's coronation this past
Saturday went off without a
hitch and frankly was a beautiful
affair. It is hard to believe that
the British were once held to be
rather bad at pulling off such
highly orchestrated events. And,
as with all things these days it
seems, someone is worried that
too much money is being spent.

The final cost won't be known for some time but unofficial
estimates put it at $125 million on the high end. Now, it
would be rather trite to call that a rounding error in a country
with a yearly GDP of 3 trillion dollars, so I won't. Instead, I
want to do a small comparison with republics. Specifically, I
want to take a look at inauguration costs (all sums given in
US Dollars).

United States of America

The USA is to republics what the UK is to monarchies; the
arch-typical example everyone seems to compare themselves to. In the US there is a presidential inauguration every four
years. The price varies (but rises with inflation) and private
donations cover some of the costs but taxpayers in the US are
usually on the hook for about $100 million.

France + Germany

The French in inauguration is a bit of an all day affair. There
is the constitutionally required parts followed by various
events around Paris. The Germans have much more low-key
inaugurations.

What both France and Germany have in common is the
difficulty in finding cost breakdowns. The French example
probably reaches the $100 million threshold while the
German example probably doesn't.

Ireland

Again, a full costing does not seem to be available but they did
spend $110,000 on catering for the 2018 inauguration. Its a
bit iffy if Ireland reaches the $100 million threshold. The
main determiner is staffing costs for security and clean-up
which might push it up a bit. An educated guess would be
$500,000 all told.

Time Between Events

Coronations don't happen at set intervals and can vary
between a few years and many decades. Usually a long reign
means a short interval will follow. If you averaged it out you'd probably come out with something close to one coronation
every 20 years. I'm going to say once every ten years for the
sake of the argument I'm making.

Presidential terms vary but for the examples I've used its; US
four years, France five years, Germany five years, and Ireland
seven years. The result being that the US and France spend
twice as much on inaugurations than the UK spends on
coronations. Ireland probably spends more if a 20 year
average interval is used and Germany might have spent more
on inaugurations during the Queen's reign.

More Bang Per Buck

All of which is to say that the King's coronation is not out of
line with what other countries spend on ceremonial transfers
of power and may be on the less expensive side due to longer
intervals on average compared to republics. There is also the
point to be made that since the coronation covers many
different realms its a bargain for all involved. I don't think a
Canadian republic would long avoid having its own, perhaps
modest, inauguration event. The result being the introduction
of a cost it doesn't currently have. Plus, the coronation was
a far more spectacular event than any inauguration. People
need to learn to stop being penny wise, pound foolish.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

How King Charles III Can Keep His Voice During His Reign

10/27/2022

Earlier this month former British
Prime Minister Liz Truss managed,
during her very short time in office,
to advise His Majesty not to attend
the environmental gathering known
as COP27. By convention the king has
a duty to follow the advice of his
prime minister even if pretty much
everyone knows he doesn't want to.
Even now, with a brand new prime
minister in place, His Majesty is not
likely to attend. There is still a bit of debate over how much
this was a joint decision but for the sake of this article lets
assume King Charles III would want to attend COP27 to bring
further attention to increasingly worrisome environmental
issues. How could he do so?

The unimaginative might suggest he simply ignore his prime
minister's advice. He is not likely to do this. Not only would it
damage a working relationship that will (presumably) last
more than a couple months, it would feed into the perception
that he intends to 'meddle' in government affairs. Both factors
would reduce the monarch's considerable soft power which is
worth avoiding.

As it happens there is a way for His Majesty to continue to
carry out most, if not all, of his previous work and it is by
learning from an incident that took place in Canada in 1973.
At the time Canada was hosting a meeting of Commonwealth
leaders. British prime minister Edward Heath, for whatever
reason, advised the Queen not to attend. The Commonwealth
was to the Queen what the environment is to the King. The
Queen was able to attend the meeting because she received an
invitation to attend as the Queen of Canada by Pierre Trudeau
(hey! History is starting to rhyme a little). This works as while
the monarch can be advised not to do something in their
capacity as monarch of that country, they can't be barred from
acting as monarch of another country. With this we have a
blue print for King Charles III regaining his voice.

First meeting between Prime Minister Trudeau and His Majesty

Now, I could suggest that Justin Trudeau invite the King and
this would make a certain amount of sense. Justin Trudeau
has come under criticism for making very little progress on
his climate plan. Having a champion of climate reform
present distracts from this narrative and is the type of
ceremonial action the prime minister is good at. That said,
Trudeau hasn't been overly kind to the monarchy during his
time in office. Are there any other candidates? Well, yes,
actually. Papua New Guinea recently stated they wished to
deepen ties with the Royal Family. And climate change will
hit Papua New Guinea, and other equatorial nations with
particular severity. The King and his Papua New Guinean
realm could make common cause at COP27. And there is no
reason the King couldn't ask around the rest of the
Commonwealth for partners on other issues. King Charles III
is head of 15 countries. Perhaps he should make better use of
this fact.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

Prince Charles, His Detractors, and the Future of the Monarchy

5/17/2022

Prince Charles

Prince Charles has been sometimes
criticised for the way he expresses his views
on matters of personal interest to him such
as environmental affairs. However, a
monarch being involved in political affairs
is hardly something that would doom a
constitutional monarchy. Charles’s image is
really bound-up with the drama of his two
marriages rather than his personality.

The politician from across the Commonwealth who has really
trash talked Charles the most, is perhaps Maxime Bernier, at
least in recent times. Bernier in his days as a cabinet minister
never revealed any republican sentiment but as the
momentum of his right-wing populist movement has grown,
he has become more vocal over the issue. At this point,
Maxime is unlikely to return to Ottawa anyway even if the
PPC vote does increase by a large margin, but, this still could
put pressure on the Tories.

The monarchy in Canada has actually proven to be a pretty
resilient thing however controversial it may be. This might be
attributed to the Monarchist League of Canada having been
able to stay focused on presenting the argument for monarchy
in a non-partisan way and working to maintain a degree of
influence, to the extent of perhaps having the chairman sit
next to the leader of the opposition at a state dinner, or having
the deputy prime minister attend one of their events.

But the biggest threat to the monarchy in Canada is the
perception of Prince Charles being political. However, the
monarchy’s European counterparts show that this does not
need to be so. The other monarchies in Europe appear to
generally be suffering less controversy than that of the House
of Windsor despite being perceived as being more political. It
is also important to remember that whilst the financing of the
monarchy in the UK is part of the debate, Canada does not
send a single penny to Buckingham Palace. It would be
difficult for any politician like Bernier to use “taxpayers
money” as ammunition against it.

It feels pretty unrealistic that there will be any real appetite to
skip Charles, even if we had the option. It is important to
remember that constitutional monarchy can be refereed by
the public fairly easily. The royal houses have proved to be
highly sensitive to public opinion. In the UK this was
famously the case with Edward VIII’s controversial choice of
wife but more recently in Spain when their king was
humiliated into abdication by his own scandals. Spain appears
to be the only other European monarchy to be suffering the
same level of crisis in public image as the UK has. Despite
what tabloids like to shake up in the English speaking world,
such a “royal crisis” appears to be bigger in Spain than it is in
the UK, to the extent that quite a few mainstream Spanish
politicians have actually advocated a republic in contrast to
the very small number of British republicans in Westminster
and even smaller number of them who actually have tried to
campaign for a republic. Charles doesn’t face the same
pressure as Juan Carlos did.

People have at times raised an eyebrow over Prince Charles
(and his sons) acting ‘woke’. But Dutch royalty has been able
to work pretty well with ‘wokeness’, advocating LGBT,
immigration, environmental affairs, and other such things
related to social justice. This does frustrate some
conservatives but not to the extent of fanning republican
sentiment. The widespread support for the royalty continues
to be preserved.

Prince Charles speaking at COP21

With the more recent generation of royals, marrying
commoners has become increasingly natural. The Nordic
royals have been doing this for some time now but even in the
very conservative Japan it’s now been accepted. Charles’ wife
Camilla has not used the title “Princess of Wales” but this
reflects the sensitivity related to Diana. There shouldn’t be
any similar reason why Camila won’t be Queen consort.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s behaviour is hardly doing
the monarchy any favours but their antics do not appear to be
damaging Charles specifically.

Many heirs to the thrones have faced skepticism during their
early royal careers both before and after ascending to the
throne. But the best news for Prince Charles is that his public
image has improved no doubt as a result of his own efforts to
downplay his more controversial interests . People are already
forgetting about the bizarre portrayals of him of the past and
are starting to view him as a benign figurehead. A few in the
UK have proposed becoming a copycat Republic of Ireland
but Charles alone does more public engagements than the
Irish President despite Charles not being the Head of State.
He is just that committed.

With Prince Charles filling in for the Queen more than ever
due to concerns over her health, for example stepping in for
the Queen at the recent state opening of Parliament, some
people have felt the need to stir up debate over his position
but, it seems this has been received very favourably by the
British public. The British public likes what they are seeing
and respect for Charles is growing at the right time.

Loyally Yours,
Lord Ludichris

Meme Monday #9

3/22/2021

There are some poll results that get funnier the longer you
look at them and consider the scenarios that could play out. A
recent YouGov poll carried out in the UK is one such example.
The idea of republicans actually getting rid of the monarchy
only for the people to then elect Prince William is funny to
me. And then there is the fourth place finish of 'Me' as the
person those surveyed would like chosen. Finally, Nigel
Farage and Jeremy Corbyn make a match made in hell at 2%
of support each.

But seriously, there is some interesting information to be had.
For starters there is no unifying choice among respondents.
Even the Queen, who enjoys widespread support has uneven
support when voting is brought into the picture. There is also
an obvious disconnect between who people want and who
would actually get to vote for. David Attenborough has had
plenty of opportunity to run for public office, takes public
positions on issues, and is obviously popular but has never
stood for election. Which leaves Boris Johnson as the most
credible candidate on this list to be president of a British
republic.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

Brexit: A Case Study on why Messing with the Royal Prerogative is a Bad Idea

5/1/2019

Royal Prerogative refers to the powers Her Majesty wields,
either of her own accord or under advice from her ministers.
They are vast and somewhat poorly understood. They are also
rarely used unilaterally. Even so, their mere existence has at
times led to calls for them to be taken away or modified in
some way.

In Canada the most obvious examples of powers that some
want limits placed on would be the power to prorogue
parliament, dissolve parliament, and call by-elections. As it
happens Britain has modified some of these powers so it
might be instructive to look at what results it has produced.

Britain: Prolonging Brexit Agony

Westminster is known as the Mother of all
Parliaments. It is what our parliament and
many others base their structure on. This
can sometimes obscure the fact that the
British Parliament didn't stop evolving in the meantime. The
Westminster Parliament our own sought to emulate is very
different these days. One of the ways it has become different
only went into effect in 2011. The Canadian Crown may
dissolve Parliament (usually on the advice of the prime
minister). The British Crown has lost this ability. In technical
terms those powers were put into abeyance. James Bowden
over at the Parliamentum blog has an in-depth look at the
Fixed-term Parliament Act (the legislation that now governs
when parliament is dissolved in Britain).

The act was passed so that prime ministers could no longer
time elections in their favour. Now, this strikes me as a bit of
a solution in search of a problem. After all, their is good
evidence that voters punish politicians who blatantly try to
game the system in this way. Which is something the British
Prime Minister ought to have kept in mind back in 2017 when
she used the act (and a willing opposition) to get an early
election called and returned to parliament politically
weakened.

You might expect this to mean the government would have a
short life. Normally, you would be right but the most
immediate effect of the Fixed-term Parliament Act has been
to make it harder for governments to be defeated. It is no
longer the case that merely losing a vote is seen as a matter of
confidence, it has to be explicitly stated in a separate motion.
Which means MPs can vote against a bill while later voting to
keep the government alive. And even if a confidence motion
does succeed parliament still has 14 days to find a new prime
minister and avoid an early election.

This has had some pretty nasty effects on good governance.
The British Conservatives have been able to remain in
government while engaged in a civil war within their own
party. With both the Conservative and Labour Parties
statistically tied since the end of 2017 the Conservatives
want to avoid an election if possible. It has gotten so bad the
Queen has started to have to gently remind MPs to do
their job.

This means that MPs never face a reckoning for how they
vote in Parliament. Had the previous method still been in
effect Britain would likely by now have gone through an
election and a new parliament would have been sworn in. This
would have had two positive effects;
1. It would calm demands for a second referendum since
there is little chance the election campaign wouldn't become
an unofficial referendum on Brexit.
2. Having just fought an election the various factions in
Parliament would be in no condition to fight another one.
This is part of the reason why new governments are given a
bit of leeway in setting the agenda.

Would this have prevented the Brexit votes from reaching the
heights of absurdity that they have now? It is a definite
maybe. At the very least it would avoid the deadlock I often
decry in the American system. An important safety valve has
been removed from the British state and one would hope it is
restored promptly.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

That Time Economists Apologized to the Queen for the 2008 Financial Crisis

3/1/2019

In November of 2008 Her Majesty was
visiting the London School of Economics.
The financial crisis was well underway and
the Queen took the opportunity to pose
a question about the scale of the disaster
that everyone had been thinking; "If these
things were so large, how come everyone
missed them?" It was a fair question that
deserved a proper response.

And on July 22, 2009, the Queen received one. A group of
experts had gathered on the 17th to hammer out an answer to
the Queen's question. The list of participants was actually very
impressive:
Professor Tim Besley, FBA, London School of Economics
Professor Christopher Bliss, FBA, University of Oxford
Professor Vernon Bogdanor, FBA, University of Oxford
Sir Samuel Brittan, Financial Times
Sir Alan Budd
Dr. Jenny Corbett, University of Oxford
Professor Andrew Gamble, FBA, University of Cambridge
Sir John Gieve, Harvard Kennedy School
Professor C. Goodhart, FBA, London School of Economics
Dr David Halpern, Institute for Government
Professor José Harris, FBA, University of Oxford
Mr. R. Harrison, Economic Adviser to the Shadow Chancellor
Professor Peter Hennessy, FBA, University of London
Professor Geoffrey Hosking, FBA, University College London
Dr. Thomas Huertas, Financial Services Authority
Mr. William Keegan, The Observer
Mr. Stephen King, HSBC
Professor Michael Lipton, FBA, University of Sussex
Rt. Hon. John McFall, MP, Commons Treasury Committee
Sir Nicholas Macpherson, HM Treasury
Mr. Bill Martin, University of Cambridge
Mr. David Miles, Bank of England
Sir Gus O’Donnell, Secretary of the Cabinet
Mr. Jim O’Neill, Goldman Sachs
Sir James Sassoon
Rt. Hon. Clare Short, MP
Mr. Paul Tucker, Bank of England
Dr. Sushil Wadhwani, Wadhwani Asset Management LLP
Professor Ken Wallis, FBA, University of Warwick
Sir Douglas Wass
Mr. James Watson, Dept. for Business, Innovation & Skills
Mr. M. Weale, Nat. Institute of Economic & Social Research
Professor Shujie Yao, University of Nottingham

Having gathered and had a wide-ranging discussion Professor
Tim Besley and Professor Peter Hennessy summarized the
discussion into a three page letter and submitted it to the
Queen. The letter is quite interesting. Or at least as interesting
as economics can be. The letter is part explanation, part Mea
culpa for their part in being unable to see the economic
disaster unfolding.

The letter promised that a future meeting would look at what
could be done to prevent Her Majesty from ever having to ask
her question again. And in December the promised meeting
took place and a second letter was delivered to the Queen.
In summarizing the discussion the group proposed a course of action which I have quoted below:

"So, we end with a modest proposal. If you, Your Majesty, were to ask for a
monthly economic and financial horizon-scanning summary from, say, the Cabinet
Office, it could hardly be refused. It might take a form comparable to the Joint
Intelligence Committee’s ‘Red Book’, which you received each week from 1952 until
2008 when it was abandoned. And, if this were to happen, the spirit of your LSE
question would suffuse still more those of your Crown servants tasked to defend,
preserve and enhance the economic well-being of your country."

I'm actually curious if the Queen has opted to do this. It is
possible as the financial crisis did lead the Queen to start
becoming more involved. For instance it led to Mervyn King
being the first Bank of England governor being invited to
the palace for a chat with the Queen.

In the end a simple question from the Queen led a group of
people to thoroughly examine the causes of the greatest
economic disaster of our time and perhaps taught some
economists the value of seeing the big picture.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

Threatening Tweet sent by Turgid Twits

2/1/2018

A student organization at the University of Liverpool is in a
bit of hot water over a tweet it made on January 29th (since
deleted). The University of Liverpool Labour Students
seemed to advocate in the tweet that Queen Elizabeth II be
beheaded:

They have since apologized and stated the tweet was 'tongue-
in-cheek'. Now, this is not the first time in recent memory that
an organization/person connected to the Labour Party has
said some stupid thing and then justified it by claiming it was
all a joke.

But let us take them at their word that this was a joke rather
than a serious proposal. What kind of people joke about the
execution of another person, let alone their head of state?
Especially, when actual beheadings are becoming much more
common with the rise of ISIS. But civility is declining
everywheres it seems. The president of the Philippines has
joked about rape multiple times and in one notable
instance about eating someone.

It is concerning when these 'jokes' are made because it shines
a light on what the person thinks are acceptable norms in
society. On the flip side it makes light of a terrible period in
English history. Had there been no outcry that tweet would
still be up and they would be fine with it.

To the credit of many Labour Party members on campus they
quickly distanced themselves from the comments made by
their student leadership. For my part I sent a quick email to
the Vice-Chancellor expressing my concerns about this
incident. This is important as the actions of a few students
reflects poorly on the University of Liverpool as a whole.

UPDATE: The Vice-Chancellor has replied to my email. The
full text of this reply is at the bottom of this post.

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

Dear [Name Redacted]

The Vice-Chancellor thanks you for your email.

Colleagues from the Liverpool Guild of Students have spoken to the society about
this inappropriate post and, as you will have seen, this was taken down and an
apology posted. We are now working with the Guild of Students to speak to student
societies about their use of social media.

Regards
Lindsey
Executive PA to the Vice-Chancellor

What if a Child Inherited the Throne of Canada?

6/25/2017

The good news is that, barring an absolute disaster, it is not
likely to happen. The bad news is that due to the negligence of
a certain prime minister Canada doesn't really have a plan to
deal with the situation either.

The roots of the problem go back to Canada's evolution as a
country. During the colonial period and later during Canada's
time as a self-governing dominion the question of regency was
effectively a question of British law. However, prior to 1937
Britain approached the issue on an ad hoc basis with laws
being passed when needed and for specific situations.

In 1937 a more permanent law was enacted in Britain which
remains in place to this day. This being seven years after the
Statute of Westminster it did not automatically apply to
Canada. Hindsight being 20-20 Canada ought to have acted
then. Alas, Prime Minister Mackenzie King was not known for
being overly proactive.

During World War Two the issue gained new urgency with the
German invasion of Denmark which cut Iceland off from its
lawful sovereign. Fearing that the Germans might actually
invade Britain and cut Canada off from its monarch it was
agreed action should be taken. At this point a regency act
might have been agreed to but, for reasons that escape me,
Mackenzie King still didn't see the need.

Instead, the Letters Patent, 1947 were issued. While the
letters patent provided for the governor general to exercise
the monarchs authority under exceptional circumstances it
did not provide for a regency scenario. And this is as far as the
law has gone on this issue.

The result is that legal experts are not sure how a regency
would be arranged in Canada if one were needed.

How Might We Fix This?

With some difficulty. As this most definitely touches upon the
'Office of the Crown' all of the provinces would have to agree
to the proposed act. An almost guaranteed opportunity for
mischief. But lets put that aside for now.

The British regency act is solid and would probably work
for Canada too as the regent (being a member of the Royal
Family) would be known to Canadians. But, no matter how
smoothly the regency goes republicans would likely use it as
an opportunity to cause trouble.

Another option would be to specify that no individual enters
the line of succession until they reach the age of majority. On
a certain level it sidesteps the issue of regency rather nicely.
However, negating a royal's hereditary rights on the simple
basis of age doesn't sit entirely well with me either. Even if it
would benefit the realm to avoid a regency.

As it stands the need for a regency law is low and is likely to
remain low. But if a future prime minister decides he wants to
open the constitution for other reasons maybe sneak a
regency provision in at the same time. Ok?

Loyally Yours,
A Kisaragi Colour

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