(no subject)

[danohu]

[Edit: as predicted, this was a case of a misleading article in the Guardian. See i_am_toast's comment.]
Plans to make schoolchildren take part in citizenship ceremonies pledging allegiance to the Queen

Yes, it's the Guardian selling papers by angering liberals, and somebody's always willing to say idiotic things to get himself back in the news. But it still leaves me feeling sour - and yes, these things can matter.

Worse - I hadn't realised (or had forgotten) that we make immigrants swear to "be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, her Heirs and Successors, according to law"

sorry; I will stop posting so much about politics eventually. I just seem to have remembered in the past few weeks how beautiful the world is, and therefore also how fucked up chunks of it are

Comments

[lavendersparkle.livejournal.com]

When I heard about this it made me wonder what they would do about people who do not make oaths for religious reasons. (I come from a long line of non-conformists some of whom got into trouble for refusing to make oaths in the 19th century.)

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

Presumably a lot of people would refuse to swear that, not just the religious. My school was pretty right-wing, but even there I imagine a handful of students would have refused, regardless of consequences. And the republicans among the teachers would have made pretty damn sure there weren't many negative consequences.

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

What a shame we didn't have that when I was at school. I would have very much enjoyed refusing.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

yes. I've been idly wondering which of my schoolfriends would and wouldn't have refused.

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

Not that I was one of your schoolfriends, but I would have refused. I'm not sure that anybody else would have done, though perhaps I'm doing them a disservice.

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

Meh. Not good.

Yes, it's the Guardian selling papers by angering liberals

Argh, I really hate it when they do that. There are such a small number of newspapers that are largely not-right-wing, and then one of them apparently decides that in order to be dynamic and controversial they need to be as much like the other newspapers as possible. Mind you, AIUI the Independent has been known to do the same.

But then, being left-wing or even what I could call centrist just isn't cool anymore. It's very irritating.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

well, it turns out the actual report is much more sensible than that guardian article. Who'd'a thunk it?

[mirabehn.livejournal.com]

The Guardian FAIL.

Though I'd rather the report was more sensible than the article than the other way around, of course!

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

I think the complaint was that it was going to be imposed on all schoolchildren, not just those assuming citizenship deliberately.

government committee that handles petitions and encourages communities to get involved in government

Sounds like the sort of thing that Sir Humphrey would set up to neutralise attempts at actual change..

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

Looks like they've edited that article pretty substantially since I linked to it. The text I linked was the first line of the article; I guess the moral is (yet again) not to trust the Guardian.

If it's a pledge to the country rather than the monarchy, then I don't have a problem with it. As for the national day: I'd probably spend it grumbling, but it doesn't seem a bad idea in principle.

So basically: yes, you're right. You haven't completely missed something; I have.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

Well the bit about pledging allegiance to the Queen was widely reported (and the BBC for example still lead with Pupils 'to take allegiance oath'). AFAICT the situation seems to be that pledging allegiance to the Queen is one suggestion - so whilst it's not correct to say this is a definite plan, I'd say it's still reasonable to be critical of this. Even if the pledge doesn't involve the Queen, there would be the question of whether pupils can not take part without being penalised.

It does seem to be the case that there are other parts of the report which are sensible, which have been given little coverage in comparison (the BBC briefly mentions this on one of their blogs), so to be fair to the Guardian, the entire spectrum of the media seem to have been guilty on this one.

(I'm not a Guardian reader btw, though I probably fit it's stereotypical demographic rather well...)

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

"I'm not a Guardian reader btw"

I don't actually think it's any worse than the rest of the British media. Plus, it still has easily the best website, prints the Bad Science column, and generally has opinions I at least half-agree with.

[shortcipher]

The word "swear" is showing as an empty link (href="").

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

bugger. http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/britishcitizenship/applying/ceremony/

[robert-jones.livejournal.com]

I didn't see the original form of the Guardian article, but I did hear the Today Programme interview to which the article refers. Radio 4's presentation was along the lines of the your link tag, and I suspect that the Guardian just picked up on that.

[robert-jones.livejournal.com]

Also to be fair, we don't make "immigrants" swear allegiance to the Queen. It's only if they want to become citizens that they need swear, and there's no need for them to become citizens (since, if I've understood correctly a prospective citizen would necessarily already have permanent leave to remain).

I can't see anything objectionable in that, given that we do live in a monarchy (even if you might prefer it if we didn't). You and I owe our allegiance to the Queen by birth, so there's no need for us to swear, but it seems reasonable to me that the subject of another sovreign should have to make some definite act to transfer allegiance.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

"a prospective citizen would necessarily already have permanent leave to remain"

having looked it up: yes, you're right. Yet again my mental map of the categories of residency etc. has very little connection to the (confusing) reality.

"You and I owe our allegiance to the Queen"
We live in a country where the queen has some powers, parliament and the executive have others, and there are various other rights and responsibilities scattered around the place. Few people would claim the Queen has the power to give me or you orders, except as a part of that system. I don't strongly object to asking people to pledge loyalty to the system.

But more generally I don't like arrangements where people are pressured to, or given incentives to, say things they don't believe in. It ends up penalizing people who refuse to lie, which feels deeply wrong to me. Compare to Irish nationalist MPs refusing to swear allegiance, or people wrongly imprisoned who are denied early release because they deny their guilt, or the Quaker teacher in California fired (briefly) because she inserted 'non-violently' into a loyalty oath. Even if Britain is a monarchy, and a majority want it that way, to make people swear allegiance to something 20-odd percent of Britons disapprove of is a recipe for hurting the honest.

[iain666.livejournal.com]

Erm, Her Majesty has absolute legal power over you, me and all her subjcitizens. The power wielded by the government belongs to the monarchy and is granted to the government by the monarch. Ditto the judiciary (HRH is the fount of justice). The executive powers of the government are devolved from HRH by convention and little more. There are may be acts of parliament which notionally limit her power and it might be 300ish years since a British monarach denied royal assent to a parliamentary bill but Her Majesty could, in theory, dissolve parliament tomorrow and appoint ministers at her whim. There's only the worry of civil war and/or mass-uprising to stop her. Sod all Gordon could do about it except look peeved.

The Queen is the system. You might be some kind of republican scum who should be sent to the tower (joke, mostly) but just because you don't like it doesn't stop it being true.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

What stops it being true is 800-odd years of British history (the Bill of Rights, Magna Carta, Act of Succession, Petition of Rights, etc, etc, etc). And no, she can't just ignore them - Elizabeth wouldn't be queen if her ancestors hadn't agreed to them.

As for the powers you mention: she certainly doesn't have the right to meddle with the judiciary (see: bill of rights, act of succession). Yes, she could theoretically dissolve parliament and appoint ministers - but they'd have to make do without tax or an army.

And in reality, there is no way she would - or could - do that. If she tried to claim more privileges than she has, she'd either get properly deposed or start a civil war. The monarchy (fortunately) has neither a monopoly on violence, nor the consent of the country to do more than perform her limited functions.

You're right about Godwin's law, though.

Godwin's Law

[iain666.livejournal.com]

Also. Oh dear. You automatically lose. ;-)