Accession: Sentiment, Propaganda, Repression

The outline of the new regime is already discernible: if the accession moment hovers between three competing tendencies: first the sickly sentimentality of marmalade sandwiches and rotting garage bouquets; second the dereliction of duty by an entire media class; and third the brutality of a police force emboldened by new legislation at the fag-end of twelve long years of Tory rule, so too will the reign of Charles III contain these elements:

Sentiment Mania – Anglo-Normative Propaganda – Police Repression

As the matriarchal gaze fades the new characteristics of late-capitalist-post-Brexit-medieval Britain comes into focus. King Charles filmed snapping at assistants and ink-pens, police arresting peaceful protestors and an angry snarling crowd attacking a boy for pointing out the obvious about Prince Andrew with the incantation “God Save the King!” as if chanting this can ward of the truth about his behaviour and its subsequent cover-up.

All the while a mass of people descend into a delirium lasting weeks as society grinds to a halt (including shutting food banks). Most amazingly the actual parliament is stood down, unable to pass emergency acts to cope with the savage costs facing millions of people. Liz Truss, the other Elizabeth, the former Shell employee, is unable to pass her hopeless legislation as we wait for the mourning to end.

Meanwhile, an increasingly desperate Unionist and Royalist community clings to the scenes of respect and remembrance in Scotland with some glee. As Adam Ramsay reported from the streets around St Giles’ (‘Will Charles be able to hold the Union together?’):

“A decent-sized crowd had gathered along Edinburgh’s Royal Mile and, while boos were audible, most were clearly signed-up royalists. Cheering was heard as Charles was proclaimed King, joining in with rounds of ‘God Save the King’ and more cheering as one banner-waving republican was bundled away by police. The enthusiasts, though, represent a minority, gathered as part of a push to reanimate the corpse of British nationalism. A poll earlier this year found that only 45% of Scots wanted to keep the monarchy after the death of the Queen – a demographic that, like support for the Union itself, skews heavily towards older people, heavily towards a cohort which is already starting to thin in numbers.”

This is an uncomfortable truth for the online warriors who after years of stumbling about for an actual credible ‘positive case for the Union’ have rested on ‘an old woman died and some people were sad about it’ as their saviour.

A lot is being covered up here.

As Continuity Kingship glides on (and on) and the Commonwealth is weaponised against itself – Afua Hirsch reflects on the experience as a black woman from Ghana (‘This is a Britain that has lost its Queen – and the luxury of denial about its past’). She writes: “I will never forget visiting Independence Arch in Ghana. This was the nation proud to have been the first black African people to successfully break free from empire, and here was the physical focal point of that freedom – an archway bearing a symbolic black star. When I looked inside, I found a reality check: a plaque dedicated this freedom to none other than Queen Elizabeth II.

I understood it as a lesson that even in our freedom, we are not free. We are expected to be grateful for having been colonised. We are racialised, and then expected to prove that racism exists. Even as black British people continue to die at the hands of the state, such as the unarmed Chris Kaba, news of the black community’s mourning is obscured by the more important story of royal mourning. To the extent that it’s ever acknowledged that black lives matter, now is certainly not the time.”

Ah, another ‘now is not the time’ moment.

As history is re-written and redacted, the Queen emerges as someone not who was born out of Empire and colonisation but one who is re-imagined as liberator. Writing in the Times, Hugo Rifkind wrote:

 

I love this as a narrative-shifting device. The monarchy can have no responsibility for the Empire and the Commonwealth which they lead, because they are mere humble servants.

This speaks to the rhetorical madness we’ve been exposed to this past seven days (or decades). The Queen as humble servant, yet one of the wealthiest people in the world; a quite and un-ostentatious woman (who rides a gold carriage); the family as a symbol of the ideal family (yet dysfunctional and happy to cover-up sexual depravity); a modern and modernising institution (yet one which couldn’t deal with or treat with kindness someone of a different race), and so on and on. None of the surround-sound of media coverage that acts as more like a background thrum of obedience than a functioning press.

This dissonance even runs to framing Alice Thomson, again writing in The Times, explaining that we could learn frugality from a woman with a Royal yacht:

 

Tax Dodging

After the appointment of Prince Andrew as Counsellor of State you realise that at this stage they are just trolling you:

 

On tax matters things are no better. A legal clause means King Charles III inherits his mother’s vast fortune but escapes a £200 million tax bill.  0% tax for him. 40% tax for you.

God Save the King.

As I noted back in 2017 (‘Time to abolish the Queen of the Kleptocracy’): “Of the world’s 24 largest tax havens, the Queen is sovereign of no fewer than 13. She is the Queen of a Kleptocracy. Last year it was disclosed that Her Majesty received a record £19.2m from the Duchy of Lancaster in 2016-17, up 7.9% on last year’s profits. Revenue from the Duchy (that has for the last eight centuries has provided a private income to the monarch) has trebled since the millennium. It begs the question if the Queen could get by on £5.8m in 2000, why does she need almost £20m today?”

As you struggle in the next few months remember that the royalty that you care so much about do not care about you. Now doff your cap and pay your taxes. Despite all of this we can expect the mass hysteria to notch up to new levels over the coming days.

 

Comments (22)

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  1. Meg+Macleod says:

    oh ..someone who can see clearly..
    WHO? i wonder is selling the rosecoloured spectacles so many folk are wearing?

    1. Torry Joe says:

      M+M. Brainwashed Cringers. Unforgivable. (and I’m an ‘older ‘ oldie).

  2. Alistair Taylor says:

    Occupy Balmoral.

  3. John Learmonth says:

    Afua Hirsch is a mixed raced woman from North London not Ghana, dad’s a Norwegian.
    Privately educated followed by Oxford (how else would she have got a job at The Guardian?).
    Made a very nice living though highlighting the ‘unfairness’ of the world…..

    1. Alasdair Macdonald says:

      Ad hominem attack shows you have nothing of importance to say.

    2. JP58 says:

      John
      She is:
      coloured
      female
      Young
      Articulate
      Well educated
      Anti-monarchy

      She must tick all your boxes mate!

    3. SleepingDog says:

      @John Learmonth, red flag to John Bull?
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bull

  4. SleepingDog says:

    I don’t really think the last-gasp royalist framing of “the Queen is a puppet” has got the legs of a 96-year-old lady. If anything, it would invite unwelcome comparisons with the many puppet rulers the British Empire set up. Thinking about the Queen’s counterpart, Japanese Emperor (Shōwa) Hirohito’s funeral, it is interesting to see what tone of measured respect the British newspapers thought appropriate:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysanthemum_taboo
    What about all those charities the Queen was patron of who might have hoped to coin a little from her (sealed?) will? Largesse, littlesse, or just God bless, I wonder?

  5. James Mills says:

    We cannot ( or are not ALLOWED ) a conversation about the Monarchy in this ”country” .
    Certainly , during this week ”Now is not the time ” according to any MSM outlet when ”the country ” is in mourning .
    Later it will be that ”Now is not the time ” as we face a cost of living crisis .
    Then we will be told that ”Now is not the time ” as the nights are fair drawin’ in !

    There is never a proper discussion about the issues which should matter to the people of the UK , the future of the monarchy is one but far more important is the 19thC voting system which imposes unrepresentative Governments on us all .

    We will remain in thrall to an anachronistic two party dictatorship as long as we maintain an outdated and unfair First Past the Post voting system . But will we , in the near future , address this issue ? No ! It does not suit those whom it clearly benefits – and they , like the proverbial turkeys , will not vote for their loss of ”Buggins Turn ”.

  6. SleepingDog says:

    MediaLens has weighed in with a useful summary:
    https://www.medialens.org/2022/imposed-insanity-royalty-propaganda-and-the-coming-catastrophe/
    Will many people look back on their actions and ‘journalism’ in future and think OMG what was I doing?!?! It’s like one of those weird psychology experiments designed to test the utmost limits of human subjects’ conformity. I keep thinking I have seen something like this before. Was it in the Antz movie?

    1. John Monro says:

      Yes, I’ve followed the two Davids for many years ever since they started the Medialens site, when I used to be regular contributor. I’ve also sent them donations at times. . Medialens is is now defunct as a forum, unfortunately, but they pursue their critical journalism and examination of the sinister and destructive role of the mainstream media in our society. All their articles or opinion pieces are worth reading, I’d strongly recommend those contributing here to follow them. I think Mike and the Davids have had a less constructive interaction in the past. The Davids can be, in their robust but what might appear to some to be rather idealistic moral values, just a bit difficult for dissenting opinions to engage with at times. That’s not so much a criticism of them, but the nature of how we can all retreat to less cooperative intercourse when our own morals or judgements are so forcefully and rationally challenged, and all in the nicest possible way too…….

      Unlike others posting here, the UK having a monarchy doesn’t really trouble me, I see the monarchy more as a cultural thread of historical value running throughout the nation’s history. Just as I wouldn’t mine the White Cliffs of Dover, or demolish Buckingham Palace for affordable housing or put a motorway through the Lake District, I see no particular purpose or gain from abolishing the monarchy, though I doubt I’d go out and actually fight in a civil war on the monarchy’s behalf. The role of the Monarchy could reasonably easily be reduced to a much less intrusive and fairer one in our lives and in our politics,, along with reform of our voting system (in the Commons), serious reform of the House of Lords and the introduction socialist policies such as de-privatisation of vital energy, transport and water resources and a determination to reduce our mounting inequalities. etc. We could still vote for that if we wanted to. The totally OTT coverage of the Queen’s death and the gushing and apparently mindless dog-like devotion to the old Queen and the arrest of peaceful protestors etc, is to a monarchist like me, incredibly embarrassing, difficult to rationally justify and it’s worrying, not just in its propagandist and controlling function which is part of this discussion and I do understand this, but because it should make one wonder if in the face of all the compounding existential difficulties we truly face, this nation isn’t just a bit mad. The monarchy should be reduced to a background function where they are required to do all the boring bits of political life, for which a comfortable life style shouldn’t be begrudged, while competent and morally motivated politicians do the important bits. The problem for us now is not so much the monarchy perhaps, as the lack of competent and morally motivated politicians to look after the country and its citizens?

      1. SleepingDog says:

        @John Monro, your view on politics is that sheep need shepherds, then? There are other systems that don’t involve a cult of leadership. But because of our monarchy, we rarely hear about them in loyalist media.

        Those are ridiculous comparisons, what has mining the white cliffs of Dover got to do with how we humans arrange our political systems? You should look up the Tudor War on Nature.
        https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/jan/07/conservationandendangeredspecies.theobserversuknewspages
        Horrible Histories has nailed that one. British royals have been despoilers of nature, not its protectors, which is why the WWF report called the UK “one of the most nature depleted countries in the world”. Norman Baker skewers the Royals’ supposedly green credentials in his chapter on ‘Costing the Earth’, while in ‘Killer Wales’ the author details their murderous rampages through the living world. If we have progressed it is partly because we have left some atrocious things behind. The monarchy, with its murderous-censorious anti-democratic royal prerogatives, should be one of these.

        Anyway, haven’t the royals long benefited from mining Devon and Cornwall? And ‘Wales’ seabed could be mined as part of UK Government plans to extract metals from Crown Estate’ says a recent article?

        I find MediaLens is usually sound, they have useful media-research specialisations that link to more formal research groups, and they ask good questions. Occasionally they can overstate significances from presented evidence, and go off on the odd spiritual quest, but they are accessible and persistent. Their model of the propaganda blitz is worth reading about to understand mass media events like the one we’re experiencing.

      2. 220915 says:

        Although it does matter how we manage the succession of our head of state, whether by election or by primogeniture or by sortition or whatever. The monarchy is a cultural institution, but it’s also a political one. It would be nice to know how such matters would be decided after Scottish government became independent of government in the rest of the British Isles – and, more broadly, the mechanism by which the constitution of a future Scottish state would be determined.

        1. Mr E says:

          The last republican FM was Jack McConnell. The nationalist cohort from Salmond, onwards are (full-on) monarchists. So, in the event of independence I would be certain we would be like Canada, with a governor general working on behalf of the king.

          Like it or not, as there is no real debate about it, it’s a given.

          1. 220915 says:

            True. The current proposal is merely to disincorporate the two kingdoms, leaving Charles as the head of two separate sovereign states. Maybe the Scottih government’s calculation is that any more radical change would scare the horses and (to mix my metaphors) blow its chances of becoming independent by democratic means out of the water. Softly, softly, catchee monkey.

  7. David McCann says:

    At last!
    A sane voice in a sea of sycophancy!

  8. Squigglypen says:

    Thank you for keeping me sane. I thought I was the only one who despises these ‘tics.’ Absolutely honest and depressing article. Now how do we de-hypnotise the population who are talking about that nice wee wumman ..who shook my dirty hand…grinned at me…..
    I was at my gun club( attempting to escape the grieving etc) talking to one of the guys who is a royalist…I said why didn’t they just fly her back to Buckingham Palace…’well think about it this way’ he grinned..’she did a lot for tourism..look at beautiful Scotland as the wooden box travelled down to Edinburgh..basically see Scotland and die!’
    I did laugh..cheered me up no end.
    So cheer up.. the population will realise they’ve been had … the tics will put a foot wrong ..they always do ..eventually…
    For Scotland!

    1. Donnie MacKinnon says:

      Only the narrow minded bigots feel that way. The vast majority did Scotland proud in showing their respect for someone who had served her country well for most of her lifetime. Would have thought even Republicans would have had some respect for her service.

  9. 220915 says:

    ‘Liz Truss… is unable to pass her hopeless legislation as we wait for the mourning to end.’

    Nae harm done then.

    But ain’t it amazing how a day’s paid holiday in memory of the Queen can bring the country to it’s knees? It’s a pity she couldn’t have hung on for another week, then the jolly would have coincided with the September weekend.

    Anyway, I’m sure we’ll survive the inconvenience. To those who’d normally be working, enjoy the day off! F*ck knows they’re rare enough.

  10. Robert Ball says:

    Well said and thank you for this antidote to the tsunami of obsequious drivel that has been spewing forth from the mainstream media which seems to be doing the establishments bidding.

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