Queen to abdicate?

Gassage

Although he is an embarassing bigot who, if he were anyone else, would have been drummed out of office and probably charged with racism, he is so dumb as to be hilarious.

here's the best of

1 After being told that Madonna was singing the Die Another Day theme in 2002: “Are we going to need ear plugs?”

2 To a car park attendant who didn’t recognise him in 1997, he snapped: “You bloody silly fool!”

3 To Simon Kelner, republican editor of The Independent, at Windsor Castle reception: “What are you doing here?” “I was invited, sir.” Philip: “Well, you didn’t have to come.”

4 To female sea cadet last year: “Do you work in a strip club?”

5 To expats in Abu Dhabi last year: “Are you running away from something?”

6 After accepting a conservation award in Thailand in 1991: “Your country is one of the most notorious centres of trading in endangered species.”

7 At a project to protect turtle doves in Anguilla in 1965, he said: “Cats kill far more birds than men. Why don’t you have a slogan: ‘Kill a cat and save a bird?’”

8 To multi-ethnic Britain’s Got Talent 2009 winners Diversity: “Are you all one family?”

9 To President of Nigeria, who was in national dress, 2003: “You look like you’re ready for bed!”

10 His description of Beijing, during a visit there in 1986: “Ghastly.”

11 At Hertfordshire University, 2003: “During the Blitz, a lot of shops had their windows blown in and put up notices saying, ‘More open than usual’. I now declare this place more open than usual.”

12 To deaf children by steel band, 2000: “Deaf? If you’re near there, no wonder you are deaf.”

13 To a tourist in Budapest in 1993: “You can’t have been here long, you haven’t got a pot belly.”

14 To a British trekker in Papua New Guinea, 1998: “You managed not to get eaten then?”

15 His verdict on Stoke-on-Trent, during a visit in 1997: “Ghastly.”

16 To Atul Patel at reception for influential Indians, 2009: “There’s a lot of your family in tonight.”

17 Peering at a fuse box in a Scottish factory, he said: “It looks as though it was put in by an Indian.” He later backtracked: “I meant to say cowboys.”

18 To Lockerbie residents after plane bombing, 1993: “People say after a fire it’s water damage that’s the worst. We’re still drying out Windsor Castle.”

19 In Canada in 1976: “We don’t come here for our health.”

20 “I never see any home cooking – all I get is fancy stuff.” 1987

21 On the Duke of York’s house, 1986: “It looks like a tart’s bedroom.”

22 Using Hitler’s title to address German chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1997, he called him: “Reichskanzler.”

23 “We go into the red next year... I shall have to give up polo.” 1969.

24 At party in 2004: “Bugger the table plan, give me my dinner!”

25 To a woman solicitor, 1987: “I thought it was against the law for a woman to solicit.”

26 To a civil servant, 1970: “You’re just a silly little Whitehall twit: you don’t trust me and I don’t trust you.”

27 On the 1981 recession: “A few years ago, everybody was saying we must have more leisure, everyone’s working too much. Now everybody’s got more leisure time they’re complaining they’re unemployed. People don’t seem to make up their minds what they want.”

28 On the new £18million British Embassy in Berlin in 2000: “It’s a vast waste of space.”

29 After Dunblane massacre, 1996: “If a cricketer suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, are you going to ban cricket bats?”

30 To the Aircraft Research Association in 2002: “If you travel as much as we do, you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort – provided you don’t travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly.”

31 On stress counselling for servicemen in 1995: “We didn’t have counsellors rushing around every time somebody let off a gun. You just got on with it!”

32 On Tom Jones, 1969: “It’s difficult to see how it’s possible to become immensely valuable by singing what are the most hideous songs.”

33 To the Scottish WI in 1961: “British women can’t cook.”

34 To then Paraguay dictator General Stroessner: “It’s a pleasure to be in a country that isn’t ruled by its people.”

35 To Cayman Islanders: “Aren’t most of you descended from pirates?”

36 To Scottish driving instructor, 1995: “How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?”

37 At a WF meeting in 1986: “If it has four legs and it’s not a chair, if it’s got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane and if it swims and it’s not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.”

38 “You ARE a woman, aren’t you?” Kenya, 1984.

39 A VIP at a local airport asked HRH: “What was your flight, like, Your Royal Highness? Philip: “Have you ever flown in a plane?” VIP: “Oh yes, sir, many times.” “Well,” said Philip, “it was just like that.”

40 On Ethiopian art, 1965: “It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from school art lessons.”

41 To a fashion writer in 1993: “You’re not wearing mink knickers,are you?”

42 To Susan Edwards and her guide dog in 2002: “They have eating dogs for the anorexic now.”

43 When offered wine in Rome in 2000, he snapped: “I don’t care what kind it is, just get me a beer!”

44 “I’d like to go to Russia very much – although the bastards murdered half my family.” 1967.

45 At City Hall in 2002: “If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion.”

46 On seeing a piezo-meter water gauge in Australia: “A pissometer?”

47“You have mosquitoes. I have the Press.” To matron of Caribbean hospital, 1966.

48 At a Bangladeshi youth club in 2002:“So who’s on drugs here?... HE looks as if he’s on drugs.”

49 To achildren’s band in Australia in 2002: “You were playing your instruments? Or do you have tape recorders under your seats?”

50 At Duke of Edinburgh Awards scheme, 2006. “Young people are the same as they always were. Just as ignorant.”

51 On how difficult it is in Britain to get rich: “What about Tom Jones? He’s made a million and he’s a bloody awful singer.”

52 To Elton John on his gold Aston Martin in 2001: “Oh, it’s you that owns that ghastly car, is it?”

53 At an engineering school closed so he could officially open it, 2005: “It doesn’t look like much work goes on at this university.”

Gassage

54 To Aboriginal leader William Brin, Queensland, 2002: “Do you still throw spears at each filmother?”

55 At a Scottish fish farm: “Oh! You’re the people ruining the rivers.”

56 After a breakfast of bacon, eggs, smoked salmon, kedgeree, croissants and pain au chocolat – from Gallic chef Regis Crépy, 2002: “The French don’t know how to cook breakfast.”

57 To schoolboy who invited the Queen to Romford, Essex, 2003: “Ah, you’re the one who wrote the letter. So you can write then?”

58 To black politician Lord Taylor of Warwick, 1999: “And what exotic part of the world do you come from?”

59 To parents at a previously struggling Sheffield school, 2003: “Were you here in the bad old days? ... That’s why you can’t read and write then!”

60 To Andrew Adams, 13, in 1998: “You could do with losing a little bit of weight.”

61 “Where’s the Southern Comfort?” When presented with a hamper of goods by US ambassador, 1999.

62 To editor of downmarket tabloid: “Where are you from?” “The S*n, sir.” Philip: “Oh, no . . . one can’t tell from the outside.”

63 Turning down food, 2000: “No, I’d probably end up spitting it out over everybody.”

64 Asking Cate Blanchett to fix his DVD player because she worked “in the film industry”, 2008: “There’s a cord sticking out of the back. Might you tell me where it goes?”

65 “People think there’s a rigid class system here, but dukes have even been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans.” 2000.

66 After hearing President Obama had had breakfast with leaders of the UK, China and Russia, 2010: “Can you tell the difference between them?”

67 On students from Brunei, 1998: “I don’t know how they’re going to integrate in places like Glasgow and Sheffield.”

68 On Princess Anne, 1970: “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested.”

69 To wheelchair-bound nursing-home resident, 2002: “Do people trip over you?”

70 Discussing tartan with then-Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie last year: “That’s a nice tie... Do you have any knickers in that material?”

71 To a group of industrialists in 1961: “I’ve never been noticeably reticent about talking on subjects about which I know nothing.”

72 On a crocodile he shot in Gambia in 1957: “It’s not a very big one, but at least it’s dead and it took an awful lot of killing!”

73 On being made Chancellor of Edinburgh University in 1953: “Only a Scotsman can really survive a Scottish education.”

74 “I must be the only person in Britain glad to see the back of that plane.” He hated the noise Concorde made flying over Buckingham Palace, 2002

75 To a fashion designer, 2009: “Well, you didn’t design your beard too well, did you?”

76 To the General Dental Council in 1960: “Dontopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, which I’ve practised for many years.”

77 On stroking a koala in 1992: “Oh no, I might catch some ghastly disease.”

78 On marriage in 1997: “You can take it from me the Queen has the quality of tolerance in abundance.”

79 To schoolchildren in blood-red uniforms, 1998: “It makes you all look like Dracula’s daughters!”

80 “I don’t think a prostitute is more moral than a wife, but they are doing the same thing.” 1988.

81 To female Labour MPs in 2000: “So this is feminist corner then.”

82 On Nottingham Forest trophies in 1999: “I suppose I’d get in trouble if I were to melt them down.”

83 “It’s my custom to say something flattering to begin with so I shall be excused if I put my foot in it later on.” 1956.

84 To a penniless student in 1998: “Why don’t you go and live in a hostel to save cash?”

85 On robots colliding, Science Museum, 2000: “They’re not mating are they?”

86 While stuck in a Heriot Watt University lift in 1958: “This could only happen in a technical college.”

87 To newsreader Michael Buerk, when told he knew about the Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Awards, 2004: “That’s more than you know about anything else then.”

88 To a British student in China, 1986: “If you stay here much longer, you’ll go home with slitty eyes.”

89 To journalist Caroline Wyatt, who asked if the Queen was enjoying a Paris trip, 2006: “Damn fool question!”

90 On smoke alarms to a woman who lost two sons in a fire, 1998: “They’re a damn nuisance - I’ve got one in my bathroom and every time I run my bath the steam sets it off.”

Phil_aka_Pip

digitalscream said:

Phil_aka_Pip said:

VimFuego said:

yup, except that doesn't actually address what I wrote, which is that morality is a sliding scale and not an absolute.

but you made it more of an attribute of the system than of the people who operate or control it.

The more people who are involved in a system, the less chance there is of it being fair. With a single dictator, you've basically got a 50/50 chance; with a large representative democracy, you start at 50/50 and it goes downhill from there...

except that absolute power corrupts absolutely so your 50% probability of a single dictator being fair is IMO a bit optimistic.

VimFuego

CabbageCat said:

VimFuego said:

well, it is as some systems are inherently more moral than others.

Nah. Some systems inherently match your morals better than others, but saying one system is fundamental more moral than another is like saying metric measures more accurately than imperial.

hmmm, I would say that a system that routinely abducted and killed its citizens was less moral than one that routinely gave them bogus parking tickets. I think most people would agree that the state killing people without trial etc. is a generally immoral thing (or maybe that's just me).

holnrew

They're not the only people born into a position of privilege, just the most visible. And they don't hold any real power. I don't give two shits about them, but they're harmless.

Phil_aka_Pip

@Gassage some of those are superb. I don't think he's dumb.

CabbageCat

VimFuego said:

CabbageCat said:

VimFuego said:

well, it is as some systems are inherently more moral than others.

Nah. Some systems inherently match your morals better than others, but saying one system is fundamental more moral than another is like saying metric measures more accurately than imperial.

hmmm, I would say that a system that routinely abducted and killed its citizens was less moral than one that routinely gave them bogus parking tickets. I think most people would agree that the state killing people without trial etc. is a generally immoral thing (or maybe that's just me).

I know you would say it was less moral. So would I. And so, indeed, would "most people". But if you're trying to suggest that a majority opinion on right/wrong is all we need to define an absolute right/wrong then I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree.

digitalscream

Phil_aka_Pip said:

except that absolute power corrupts absolutely so your 50% probability of a single dictator being fair is IMO a bit optimistic.

That would be fine, were it an actual fact rather than an oft-repeated soundbite

VimFuego

EDIT: in reply to catty.

well, the problem is (and this is in danger of getting a bit meta conversation) there is no right or wrong, only what we generally agree is right or wrong. If I eat a steak, most people would agree that is not wrong. If I eat a steak made from human, most people would agree that is wrong. However cannibalism, in a state of nature, it is neither right nor wrong, it just is. it is only our perceptions that make something wrong (well, unless you're the one being eaten, I guess for them it is always wrong).

ICBM

Much as I dislike the pomp and deference that goes along with the 'Royals', and being naturally well left of centre, surprisingly I have come to realise that I do agree with the ideal of the head of state being a hereditary constitutional monarch after all.

Because it means that the final arbiter of law and the loyalty of the armed forces owes their position to nothing other than an accident of birth, and is not a politician who has had to climb the greasy pole.

It's not a position of privilege either really, as TTony said. It appears to be on the surface, and I'm sure it's quite a comfortable life, but in reality it's unrelenting hard work. The Queen doesn't get weekends off, doesn't have any privacy, most of the time doesn't actually get to choose what she does at all, and is still working full-time at 88. I wouldn't trade places, that's for sure. If she wants to abdicate it will probably be the first really major decision she's ever been able to take for herself in her 'career'.

I do think the royal establishment could do with being heavily cut back and modernised, but I wouldn't get rid of it.

I agree with Phil_aka_Pip that the other Phil isn't dumb, too - he has an extremely dry sense of humour, and most of those 'gaffes' are either spot on, funny, or both. He may also be a bit arrogant and insensitive as well, but he is 93 and old men quite often get like that. I suspect that if the Queen does abdicate it will be because he doesn't have long left.

Gassage

Because it means that the final arbiter of law and the loyalty of the armed forces owes their position to nothing other than an accident of birth, and is not a politician who has had to climb the greasy pole.

By the same token you are saying they are totally unqualified to do the job.

However, the Monarchy is supposed to exist as a necessary constitutional buffer between British subjects and an over-mighty executive.

The fact that it fails in this role is as much our fault as it is theirs

digitalscream

Gassage said:

Because it means that the final arbiter of law and the loyalty of the armed forces owes their position to nothing other than an accident of birth, and is not a politician who has had to climb the greasy pole.

By the same token you are saying they are totally unqualified to do the job.

Are any of them? Very few politicians are experts in law, economics, science etc...yet they're all required to make decisions on such things based on sketchy knowledge and personal gain/bias. At least the head of state has nothing to gain and no reason for bias in the vast majority of cases - they don't have to seek re-election, so there's no reason for them to do what politicians do (ie choose the option that's popular in the short-term and forsake the long-term benefits of a rational choice).

Gassage

digitalscream said:

Gassage said:

Because it means that the final arbiter of law and the loyalty of the armed forces owes their position to nothing other than an accident of birth, and is not a politician who has had to climb the greasy pole.

By the same token you are saying they are totally unqualified to do the job.

Are any of them? Very few politicians are experts in law, economics, science etc...yet they're all required to make decisions on such things based on sketchy knowledge and personal gain/bias. At least the head of state has nothing to gain and no reason for bias in the vast majority of cases - they don't have to seek re-election, so there's no reason for them to do what politicians do (ie choose the option that's popular in the short-term and forsake the long-term benefits of a rational choice).

Then by the same token, you are asking people who have never ever lived in the real world, have no idea what society is really like to make decisions too.

Fretwired

The Queen at least serves the people not a political party. Creating a republic will no doubt mean we have a president like Tony Blair ... now who wants that? Besides the Yanks are mad for it ...

Fretwired

Gassage said:

digitalscream said:

Gassage said:

Because it means that the final arbiter of law and the loyalty of the armed forces owes their position to nothing other than an accident of birth, and is not a politician who has had to climb the greasy pole.

By the same token you are saying they are totally unqualified to do the job.

Are any of them? Very few politicians are experts in law, economics, science etc...yet they're all required to make decisions on such things based on sketchy knowledge and personal gain/bias. At least the head of state has nothing to gain and no reason for bias in the vast majority of cases - they don't have to seek re-election, so there's no reason for them to do what politicians do (ie choose the option that's popular in the short-term and forsake the long-term benefits of a rational choice).

Then by the same token, you are asking people who have never ever lived in the real world, have no idea what society is really like to make decisions too.

I'd say that after 88 years of service the Queen has for more idea about everyday life than Cameron and his fellow old Etonians ..

Gassage

Fretwired said:

The Queen at least serves the people not a political party. Creating a republic will no doubt mean we have a president like Tony Blair ... now who wants that? Besides the Yanks are mad for it ...

Yet in my passport it says I am her 'subject'.

What a load of arrogant bollocks.

I totally get the president thing. i know this is all about balance. My thrust is equality and monarchies are not comfortable bed fellows.

Fretwired

Gassage said:

Fretwired said:

The Queen at least serves the people not a political party. Creating a republic will no doubt mean we have a president like Tony Blair ... now who wants that? Besides the Yanks are mad for it ...

Yet in my passport it says I am her 'subject'.

What a load of arrogant bollocks.

I totally get the president thing. i know this is all about balance. My thrust is equality and monarchies are not comfortable bed fellows.

Equality .. doesn't exist. Next.

ICBM

Gassage said:

Because it means that the final arbiter of law and the loyalty of the armed forces owes their position to nothing other than an accident of birth, and is not a politician who has had to climb the greasy pole.

By the same token you are saying they are totally unqualified to do the job.

No, they have a lifetime of training from birth. Prince George is already expected to do the job one day.

Gassage said:

However, the Monarchy is supposed to exist as a necessary constitutional buffer between British subjects and an over-mighty executive.

The fact that it fails in this role is as much our fault as it is theirs

Agreed. The problem being that the monarch never actually uses their power, so if they ever did it would be such a big deal that it would be seen as a 'constitutional crisis'. It's not really possible to have it both ways unfortunately.

Gassage said:

digitalscream said:

Are any of them? Very few politicians are experts in law, economics, science etc...yet they're all required to make decisions on such things based on sketchy knowledge and personal gain/bias. At least the head of state has nothing to gain and no reason for bias in the vast majority of cases - they don't have to seek re-election, so there's no reason for them to do what politicians do (ie choose the option that's popular in the short-term and forsake the long-term benefits of a rational choice).

Then by the same token, you are asking people who have never ever lived in the real world, have no idea what society is really like to make decisions too.

I don't see that as a major problem if they are well educated and advised. The only sort of decisions they will ever have to make are of a fundamental right/wrong nature if an elected government ever gets seriously out of hand, and I doubt you need to be really in touch with normal people to do that.

Of course, there could be other ways of choosing a head of state more democratically without allowing politicians in - but the politicians would never allow that, so in the absence of a better alternative I would vote to keep the monarchy!

TTony

Phil_aka_Pip said:

@Gassage some of those are superb. I don't think he's dumb.

Completely agree.  If your average grandfather (or @Phil_aka_Pip, who's about the same age as many, and older than most) said some of those things, people would call him a "character".  

We need more character.

[edit]

And PS - also agree with @ICBM's comments there ^^

I'd rather trust a member of the royal family to make a decent decision than a politician.  But then that's not really a high standard.

TTony

Gassage said:

And, paradoxically, the only royal I've ever met socially, Zara Phillips (through rugby- Mike Tindall's wife now) is as earthy and normal as the next girl. Although if it doesn't eat hay and shit manure she's not really that interested.

Gassage said:

Although he is an embarassing bigot who, if he were anyone else, would have been drummed out of office and probably charged with racism, he is so dumb as to be hilarious.

here's the best of

68 On Princess Anne, 1970: “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested.”