Missing the Jubilee point

It seems that attacking the British queen and the rest of her family is thought to be in the republican cause. That really is missing the point.

I'm a British republican because I believe that Britain would be a rather better place if we could be citizens of the republic rather than subjects of the crown. I would rather we rid ourselves of the class-ridden hierarchy of our governmental structure. We could be more dynamic, more unified and more forward looking if only we could dispense with practices and laws that have only tradition to commend them and work only to the advantage of the 'old nobility' and to the disadvantage of 'the people'. We are, as one American friend recently  described us, 'a relic'. It is, I believe, because our values are old and weary and we are befuddled by our past about our identity for the future. I believe that republicanism offers us renewal, the removal from government of the oppressive layer of aristocracy, the abolition of the absurd and cumbersome notions of monarchy in our constitution, and the release of the energies of the people providing genuine equality of opportunity for all.

But really this has very little to do with the personality of Elizabeth Windsor, nor a great deal to do with  the fact that she has been doing the job she does quite famously for 60 years. Personally I don't find her Jubilee a big event, but obviously a lot of people do and I don't see any need at all to begrudge the people a lot of fun for the sake of the Republican cause. By all accounts,  Elizabeth Windsor seems to have done the job of queen pretty well for 60 years, and I really find it very hard to blame the queen personally for the fact that the British constitution grants her the ridiculous title of Majesty .

So far as I am concerned, let the queen be Queen, let Charles eccentrically succeed her and let the pages of American magazines long continue to drip honey over Wills and Kate. And if the Moutbatten-Windsor  family can embrace the idea of a constitutional republic, let them continue to be the symbols of Britain the world recognises. They might well earn more for the country from tourism than they cost, and there seems to be a chance that, within a republic, the son of Diana and the commoner Kate could be ambassadors of the people rather than the elite  All I want is that they be taken out of government, out of the constitution, and out of the law. That's real republicanism and I really can't be bothered with all this fury misdirected at an 86 year old with an occasionally mischievous smile. It really is missing the point.