The advantages of the Uk having a constitutional monarchy are greater than the disadvantages. Discuss.

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12/02/03                                Vivian Cong

The advantages of the Uk having a constitutional

monarchy are greater than the disadvantages. Discuss.

As we enter the 21st century, the discussion about the existence of constitutional monarchy has become more and more commonplace. The ‘constitutional monarchy’ means the monarch's powers are largely exercised by the elected government. The Queen is Head of State which means she symbolizes the ultimate sovereignty of the state and represents Britain in an official capacity when foreign Heads of state visit the UK. Different people hold quite different point of views on this topic, however I, personally, would argue that the advantages of the UK having a constitutional monarchy are much greater than its disadvantages and the monarchy should not be fully abolished.

The disadvantages

In order to prove my viewpoint, I want to concisely list and discuss some disadvantages of having a constitutional monarchy first.

Firstly, some of the people submit that the existence of monarchy underpins hierarchy and difference. As far as we know, monarchy is inherited and privileged; some of his/her decisions may favour the upper classes instead of ordinary citizens. Some people may therefore argue that why we cannot elect a monarchy by ourselves on the basis of every citizen is born to be equal? Some critics recognise that this fact is really unequal to ordinary people in some degree, but, anyone cannot deny a truth that the inherited monarchy is the most suitable one. Queen has become the focus of the world since she was born as well as she has devoted herself to the royal affairs from that time onward. All these affairs give her enough experience to deal with the tough issues after she become the monarch. There is no one else could have this chance to accumulate the same experience. Therefore, for the smooth development of the UK, an inherited monarchy is not a bad choice at least.

Secondly, there is a saying stating, “to support the monarchy is a conservative view that undermines the democracy”. Generally speaking, democracy means “the belief in freedom and equality between people, or a system of government based on this belief, in which power is either held by elected representatives or directly by the people themselves” Many people complain that monarchy is conservative and no longer suits the modern society. The power should be handed over to the elected representatives. Monarchy in this situation plays an unpopular role. However, I still want to argue that the UK is a large country and different people hold quite different view on the same thing. As we know, there are three large parties, i.e. Labour Party, Conservative Party and Liberal Democratic Party. It is arguable fact that the politicians nowadays become only want to gain more benefits for their own party. In this circumstance, we need people who can redress the scales, i.e. the monarchy! Monarchy stands on a very neutral position over each party; she removes ‘any shred of ambition or greed’. In this cause if the monarchy is abolished, many people still cannot enjoy the equal rights, because no party won all the votes so far.

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Thirdly, some critics claimed that the royal family is expensive. According to the report of civil list, the Queen’s official expensive is ‘£7.9m a year until 2011’. What’s worse, maybe we can still clearly remember that in 1993, Windsor Castle caught a fire and it cost approximately 37 million pounds to rebuild it. Where is the money from? The answer is tax. Do we really need to pay so much tax to support the constitutional monarchy? Many people give a negative answer. Support the monarchy is too costly indeed. Although the royal has agreed to pay tax since a couple ...

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