The breaking news headline stated that, “A spokesperson for Kensington Palace says the christening of Prince Louis of Cambridge by the Archbishop of Canterbury will take place on Monday, July 9, at the Chapel Royal of St. James’s Palace in London”. The public might think that this is a quite straightforward news announcement. Yet, take a closer look at the text of the announcement.

“A spokesperson for Kensington Palace says…” The announcement is by an anonymous spokesperson for a family that is expected to be known by its exclusive place of abode!

 “…the christening of Prince Louis of Cambridge…”  A religious ritual is to be performed on a ‘princely person’ who carries no political or citizenship rights for the city of Cambridge or its county, that person being the privileged offspring of a family that has self-inferred and inherited titles, property, wealth and religious significance!

 “…by the Archbishop of Canterbury…” The religious ritual is to be sanctified by the highest prelate of the Established (Christian) Church in the kingdom, an institution and a ritual that carries little significance for the majority of the constantly diminishing number of Christians in the UK and no significance for religious people of non-Christian persuasion! Moreover, it is the same archbishop who places the crown on the head of the monarch at a coronation ceremony – on behalf and with the assumed authority of the God of the Church of England and not with the formal consent of the people of the British nation state!!

“…will take place on Monday, July 9, at the Chapel Royal of St. James’s Palace in London”. Once again an exclusive place of abode, yet another palace, of the same family is mentioned in the despatch – this time focusing on a religious place of prayer given a royal name and significance. So too, the location of the City of London ensures that this whole (and one might say ‘holy’) announcement is situated most firmly in the centre of British privilege, power and possession.

So, well into the 21^st century, the electronic media is doing the work of the ancient town crier, the royal scribes and scripts, in announcing to the world the affairs of the British monarchy. With this goes the assumption that the news will be listened to with the heightened expectation of a nationally important event and, perhaps most obviously and frighteningly, such a state of affairs will be accepted as the norm for and by the family in question.

The very means and method of this announcement are intended to be uncritically heard by the masses (after all, everyone loves to hear a celebrity ‘baby story’, don’t they?). So too, one of the unspoken assumptions behind such announcements is that the ‘masses’ are still regarded, by implication if not public pronouncement, as subjects of a monarch and not as citizens of a nation.

What is worrying about announcements of this kind, not to mention the increasing numbers and wide variety of media articles and programmes now being produced for public consumption, is the fact that little seems to be happening to counteract the royalist propaganda for which these announcements, articles and programmes effectively serve the purposes. Whether by design or opportunity, there is little by way of information, interviews, articles or actions that permit the counter-views to be presented.

Where is the republican voice? Where is the presentation of the non-Christian, or non-religious, perspective? Where is the challenge to a secretive and selective establishment? Where is the protest of ordinary people who continue to live under the subtle yolk of anachronistic cultural, religious, social and political perspectives and practices? Where is the realization that the continuing existence of a monarchy in the United Kingdom is part of the problem and not part of the answer?

What other nation on earth continues to parade its privileged class in the manner that is exercized by those who control and manipulate the strings of the British state? What other nations on earth, apart from those controlled by oil-rich, royalist dictatorships (most of which are usually void of the system of human rights we are meant by law to enjoy in the UK), permit their affairs of state to be carried out by unelected or unsanctioned officials? What other nation on earth gives so much, to so few, for so little?

It is hard to resist the notion that the manner of the recent announcement about the christening service for the latest member of the Windsor dynasty is just another example of how the controlling elite in the UK goes about its business.

The British monarchy is in dire need of democratization. This is also true of other aspects of the elite in British society. Examples of the foregoing would include the existence and functioning of the unelected House of Lords; the voting system for the House of Commons; the lack of a proper federally entrenched system of national, regional and local government; and the separation of Church and State.

The former Emeritus Professor and Director of the Global Policy Institute at London Metropolitan University, Stephen Haseler, seriously calls into question the existence and function of what he has called the ‘ancien regime’. This includes

(a)  the Monarchy;

(b)  the Established Church of England, of which the monarch is the head – along with being the head of the political state;

(c)  a secretive Privy Council – a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign of the United Kingdom (note: the reference is to the sovereignty of the monarch, not the sovereignty of the British people through Parliament!);

(d)  the Royal Prerogative – the undemocratic royal powers of the Crown within the executive process of British politics.

The foregoing are weighty matters and a reader might wonder at the link between them and an announcement of a christening service for the latest addition to the British ‘royal family’ – such as that with which this article commenced. A few moments of critical reflection, however, and the link may become less tenuous and more evident than at first thought.

RSC