Heads Should Roll

With the passing of HRH Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh at 99, and with the Her Majesty now left on her own at the age of 95, some are questioning the role of the monarchy from here on. Some have been doing that for decades, but events such as Philip's death rekindle the flame of interest in a wider context and to a wider audience.

Even within 'the firm' the issue of just what a royal should be has manifested itself in recent times, with Harry and Meghan having decamped to the USA, and with apparent rifts between said Harry and brother Wills. There's no shortage of falling-out rumours across the royal board, as the tabloids remind us with every issue and online update. It's become so dramatic that it's also become... a drama (ref. The Crown television series.) It could be argued that Her Majesty Olivia Coleman is now more popular than Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.

HM Olivia

But yes, it's all very well for me and others to sit smugly back and say, 'So what's the monarchy going to do next then?' as we delve into our bag of crisps and sip on our can of lager. (Glass of sauvignon blanc, surely? Ed.)

Here's my take on it. And yes, you might like to pour yourself a glass of Oyster Bay savvy or open a can of Heineken (not being paid for product placement, but email me if you work for a winery or brewery) before I start. It's okay, I'll wait.

With the death of HRH the media has been awash with historical retrospectives, especially during the official national mourning period, so we've all been reminded about Betty's rise to the throne, her romance with Phil the Greek, their marriage and the following decades of service to the country and the Commonwealth (a word which, in itself, is now cause for great debate. Mass debate even. If you'd like to mass debate, go ahead, but maybe wait till I've finished penning my thoughts. Always remember: the penis, mightier than the sword. Sorry, the pen is mightier than the sword. Bloody autocorrect.)

But let's get serious. Straight face, no smirking. Traditionally - and that's an important word - the Queen's role has been one of hands-off day-to-day running of the country, and has instead been more ceremonial as Head of State; opening Parliament (and dissolving it where necessary), and  approving Bills before they become law, etc. Although she apparently has weekly meetings with whoever happens to be Prime Minister, it's very unclear what effect she has on the elected chief executive of the United Kingdom, if any.

As regards the so-called Commonwealth, Her Majesty again acts as a ceremonial Head of State, making occasional visits to her subjects, waving from her Rolls Royce, and cutting ribbons to declare something open. She rarely, if ever, intervenes in Commonwealth crises.

Anyway, these days she's far more likely to send son Charles with a pair of scissors to do the cutting and opening, and at 95 who can blame her?

But - and it's a big but - the United Kingdom finds itself in a state of great uncertainty today. It voted in a referendum to leave the European Union, and for many that vote was a decision based on outright lies (reference the Tory promise that the NHS would be £385 million pounds per week better off; witness the recent one percent pay rise given to nursing staff). Some actually believed that all eastern Europeans would be kicked out of the country, and that Britain would somehow be 'great' again. 

No accounting...

Well, many Europeans have decided to stay away from the UK, or leave it and go back home. But to our cost. And, as we know, the NHS remains underfunded. Meanwhile there are accusations that Prime Minister Buffoon - sorry, Boris - Johnson is ensuring government money goes to his Etonian cronies and pals or relatives of his family. And he's allegedly spent up large on decorating his own flat using public funds if not Tory funds. Possibly both.

His oversight of his various ministers' roles in managing the Covid crisis has been abysmal (witness Dido Harding's complete failure to initiate any meaningful track and trace system after being given billions in government funding), and let's not even ask about who in the government has made millions from investing in Covid-related response schemes such as vaccine development.

From the start of the Covid crisis the British government's handling of it has been utterly shameful, and now there are government mandarins willing to 'testify under oath' that Boris Johnson said that he didn't care if thousands of bodies piled up in the streets, there would definitely be 'no third lockdown.'

Did I mention the scandals around unsafe and/or inefficient personal protection equipment for the NHS frontline workers? Or the handing out of billions of pounds in support money to businesses with no checks or balances to ensure those businesses actually qualified for them? And that there is little or no investigation into who might have been fraudulently claiming support?

Product placement

I could go on, but I fear you will have consumed the whole bottle of Oyster Bay before I finish. So, let's cut to the chase and return to the monarchy.

We have a country in crisis and a monarchy in crisis, but one can help the other. It's time for the monarchy to reinvent itself, as the people's guardian. We need an overseer, we need a 'higher authority' that can hold the government to account. And especially its chief executive, the Prime Minister.

We are ready for the monarch's role to become one of actual Head of State rather than merely ceremonial. We need a monarch who, in the weekly meetings with the prime minister, questions intensely the reasoning and rationale behind decisions taken at Number Ten. And we need this to be done 'for the good of the people.'

Because, at the moment, we have nobody to hold the Prime Minister and his cabinet to account. Nobody to say, 'Oi, what the bloody hell do you think you're doing, one wonders?'

Instead, let's have a monarchy that has actual impact and puts the fear of God into government. If Henry VIII was on the throne, heads would roll, and in his case you only had to be married to him for that to happen.

But at the moment, Buffoon Boris answers to nobody, fears nobody, and does whatever he
likes. And gets away with it. Above all else that is the thing that should not, must not, be allowed. It is the equivalent of Putin electing himself to rule for another thirty years or whatever, or Idi Amin calling himself the King of Scotland and shooting anyone who disagrees. 

The monarchy has become little more than a tourist attraction and a reality TV show. It's time we drew on some of its more distant history and reinvented what it should be. For heaven's sake, David Bowie and Madonna knew how to reinvent their personas so that they didn't go out of fashion - why can't the royals?

Charles, Edward, Harry and Wills (let's leave Andrew out of this), and Princess Anne - who I suspect has more common sense than the rest of them put together - could, in principle, form a very powerful royal oversight group whose job it is to protect the best interests of the people by scrutinising government decision-making processes, and its actual decisions. It could, where doubt was raised, initiate royal commissions to investigate alleged derring-do, on the premise that if the chief executive or any of his team were found guilty of misdemeanours they would not only lose their jobs but their privileges and pensions too. And, where appropriate, their titles.

That, if nothing else - the possibility that they lose their jobs, their privileges and their statuses - should be enough to bring them to bear. To work for the good of the country rather than themselves, and to implement robust and transparent decision-making so that nothing is left to question. The monarchy should be a guardian of the people so that we can all relax knowing that there is, ultimately, a higher authority to which our elected representatives are answerable. Because at the moment, they can do whatever they like, destroying lives and livelihoods as they go, and get away with it.

Time for it to stop, your Majesty.

Death on Air

The passing of HRH Prince Philip caused radio stations around the UK to quickly amend their playlists today. This was done – as one announcer explained on air – as a mark of respect for the Duke of Edinburgh.

So if you tune in to your local station you're not likely to hear any songs that relate to death, and nothing too heavy. Your favourite Satanic core and Gothic industrial tracks will have to wait for a bit, while Glenn Campbell and The Carpenters are dusted off and aired once again.

Not that radio jocks have had to scrabble urgently for an appropriately-mellow playlist – it will already have been there waiting in the wings, for occasions just such as this. When I worked in radio back in 1978, this was known as the D&D playlist – for 'Death and Disaster.'

Picture if you will a younger version of myself sitting at a radio desk that had large knurled knobs, a few faders, old-fashioned throw-switches, a row of gauges showing audio levels, and twin record turntables, one on either side. The microphone hung from above, and the headphones I wore were huge, but top quality. There wasn't a computer in sight.

Off to the right was a shelf with a collection of LPs (which stands for Long Playing records for those of you who are too young) which were the Death and Disaster records. These had been chosen – I was informed when I started – as the go-to stack of music in the event that a member of the Royal family died, or when there was some other nationwide tragedy. The music was innocuous, mostly instrumental, and unlikely to upset grieving listeners.

As announcers we were told that the most likely situation for using the D&D pile would be if the Queen Mother died, choking on her gin and tonic while screaming at a horse race on the telly. As it was, she outlasted my radio career by a long shot.

But anyway, here we are in 1978. Radio Nelson – call-sign 2ZN – was my first station, situated in the charming city of Nelson in New Zealand's South Island. It was a great station and very much a part of the local community.

So it came as no great surprise when our station manager, Don Jones, told us one day that in order to continue providing a valuable public service while the local newspaper was on strike and not publishing, we would be announcing local death notices following the six o'clock news each evening.

This, he said, was the least we could do, though elsewhere in the station the marketing bods were rubbing their hands in glee knowing that any local businesses wanting to advertise would now have to come to 2ZN rather than The Nelson Evening Mail.

2ZN Radio Nelson in the 1970s
Image: Nelson Photo News

We announcers were somewhat dismayed at this news. Not only did we have to read out the death notices, we were instructed to do each one twice. We prayed the newspaper's union and management would reach an agreement sooner rather than later, as we couldn't think of a more effective way to reduce the listening audience to record low levels.

In those days, on the top of each hour, we would take a news-feed from Radio New Zealand's corporate centre in the capital Wellington, and when that had finished we would switch back and read our local news, provided each day by our station journalists. It was following the local news at six o'clock that the death notices were to be read, using – you guessed it – music from the easy-listening Death and Disaster collection in the background. You can probably see what's coming.

I had been listening to the six o'clock news-feed and waiting nervously for our journalist to deliver our local bulletin, but even after the main news was halfway through he still hadn't shown. I had the death notices and had read through them, but no news is not good news.

Just before the main bulletin was due to finish the journo flew into the studio waving a raft of news stories at me and apologising profusely. I quickly scanned the pages so that I had some idea of what I'd be reading, then the main news finished and I turned on the mic. 'Good evening, it's four minutes past six and here's the local news...'

All was good and I got through the bulletin, except that during the final item I realised I'd forgotten to line up any D&D music for the death notices. Continuing reading, I reached out with my right hand and selected a disc from the Death and Disaster collection, secure in the knowledge that it had been chosen specially and would not offend anyone.

I put the LP on the turntable, dropped the needle onto it, and then, as I introduced the death notices I slowly faded the music up in the background. I was relieved to hear that it was indeed quiet, with no heavy guitar riffs, and no vocals.

'And now, we bring you today's death notices,' I said in a suitably sombre tone. 'We are sad to announce the passing of Dora Blakehurst of Motueka...'

I am making this name up right now as I have no idea who died, and even at the moment I was reading I wasn't taking any notice either because, through my headphones I was horrified to recognise the music that I'd blindly selected.

It was a very soft and instrumental version of Roberta Flack's 'Killing Me Softly.'