There has been more uproar caused by ignorant and impolite republicans.
Ben Elton - the guy who wrote the Blackadder comedy series - has recently quit Britain for Australia.
Whilst there, he thought it would be fun to have a pop at the Queen and her husband Prince Philip whilst appearing on a current affairs gameshow.
He called Philip a 'mad old bigot who wishes it was still the war' and the Queen a 'sad little old lady who lives in state-sponsored accommodation'.
Apart from the fact that Prince Philip is a World War II veteran and calling a war hero a 'mad old bigot' is not the way to go about things (the Queen is also the only surviving Head of State in the world who served in WWII), what harm has the prince ever done to Ben Elton? And what is wrong with little old ladies?
When republicans - who are very much an endangered species in Britain - often overlook when ranting against the monarchy is that, usually, republics cost the taxpayers more. For example, America's Air Force One alone costs £390 million - ten times MORE than Britain's entire constitutional monarchy, which cost just £38 million in 2006).
And republicans fall into the trap of believing that republics are somehow freer than constitutional monarchies, ignoring the fact that Iran and North Korea are republics, and so was Nazi Germany. Female French "citizens" acquired the vote in 1944, whereas female British "subjects" acquired the vote in 1918, almost 30 years earlier.
Mr Clever Dick Ben Elton should leave this little old lady alone
By
Peter Hitchens
21st November 2009
Daily Mail
Why do some people hate the Monarchy? It is a strange form of bitterness. What harm has Prince Philip ever done to the alleged comedian Ben Elton, that Mr Elton should call him a ‘mad old bigot who wishes it was still the war’ and then describe the Queen as a ‘sad little old lady who lives in state-sponsored accommodation’?
Both these jibes lack wit, style or substance. Nobody who actually served in the war has any illusions about it.
The Duke of Edinburgh is clearly one of the most level-headed and drily humorous people in public life. What is wrong with little old ladies, without whom our lives would all be much poorer?
Lacking wit: Ben Elton described the Queen as a ‘sad little old lady' and was later forced to apologise
And this is a fairly mild version of the sort of abuse that a certain type of person thinks can be rightly aimed at the Sovereign and her consort.
Now, I’m all in favour of abusing politicians and other voluntary public figures. And in idle moments I can Google myself and study the wide (though unimaginative) range of personal insult that is hurled at me by my critics. I can’t say I enjoy all of it, but I have to learn to take it.
But it is different when it comes to the Queen. With two notable exceptions, for which I have criticised her and always will (no gongs for me, thanks), she has stayed out of politics for her entire reign.
Where she has intervened – on Northern Ireland and political correctness – her view has been a good deal closer to Mr Elton’s than to mine.
She did not choose to be Queen, and would clearly have preferred to have been spared the crown until much later in life.
She took it on as her plain duty, a word Mr Elton probably thinks is laughable.
Mr Elton neither knows nor cares about any of this. He is just a creature of fashion who has made a lot of money by telling modish jokes to people like him, who think their opinions are terrifically advanced, nonconformist and clever. In fact these opinions are as nonconformist as jeans and trainers.
They have got them off the television, from their teachers and their rock-star heroes. They have never thought about them for an instant.
They instinctively hate the Monarchy because they have been brainwashed by the cultural revolutionaries.
They claim falsely that the Queen lives an extravagant life. Piffle. She breakfasts out of Tupperware, while modest, unassuming republican Air Force One costs £390million.
They pretend she is powerful, when the seat of absolute power in this country is Downing Street.
They seem to think that a republic is automatically more free than a monarchy. Tripe. North Korea is a republic and East Germany and apartheid South Africa were republics.
Yet of the seven longest-lasting law-governed free nations in the world, five are constitutional monarchies.
Republicans are ignorant, stupid, thoughtless and malign – and it is time they were subjected to the mockery they mete out to the blameless couple in Buckingham Palace.
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