TOM UTLEY: King Charles isn’t flawless, but we’re jolly lucky to have him

How it lifted my withered old heart to hear those flag waving primary school children in Liverpool drown out the protests of a group of anti-monarchists during the King’s visit to the city this week. ‘Not my king! Not my king,” the demonstrators chanted.

‘He’s our king! He is our king,’ the youths yelled in response. Simply put, they were right, of course, while the 50 or so protesters from the pressure group Republic were dead wrong.

Whether the anti-monarchists like it or not, Charles III is undoubtedly their king (I assume British).

In fact, he is their ‘only rightful and lawful Liege Lord’, in words unanimously endorsed by both Houses of Parliament, among others, and proclaimed throughout the United Kingdom and its other realms and territories following the death of his beloved mother last September. .

What’s more, although Republic clearly doesn’t see it that way, the Constitutional Monarchy, embodied in the person of King Charles, has been a tremendously effective unifying force for our nation, as well as a bulwark of our liberty and defense against tyranny, ever since it came into being more than 300 years ago from the glorious revolution of 1688-1689. But how long can it survive?

Debt

I ask this in response to a very disturbing survey this week showing that those children in Liverpool were far from being representative of the young people of Britain today, while those keen on abolishing the monarchy are quickly gaining the upper hand .

Conducted for the BBC, and based on a poll of 4,592 adults, the research found that while support for the institution remains rock solid among my generation of Brits, over 65, less than a third of our children feel the same way.

In fact, 78 percent of my age group said they supported the monarchy, but only 32 percent of 18-24 year olds.

As I need hardly point out, this does not bode well for nine-year-old Prince George’s chances of ascending to the throne once his grandfather and father’s turn has come.

As for why this should be, I don’t think we have to look far for an explanation. The problem, as I see it, is that too many young people find it impossible to separate the concept of constitutional monarchy from the character of whoever sits on the throne at any given time.

I don’t blame them for this. To begin with, British history is no longer taught in schools as it was in my day, when we were encouraged to develop our liberal democracy from Magna Carta through the upheavals of the 17th century and the various Reform Acts of the 19th to women’s suffrage. in the 20th.

Today it seems to be all about the sins of the British empire, the horrors of the slave trade and the oppression of women and minority groups over the centuries – forever emphasizing the negative and eliminating the positive.

Meanwhile, the daily unfolding drama of the royal family soap opera encourages all of us to think of the characters involved in much the same way as other celebrities.

This is a huge distraction from whether or not constitutional monarchy is a good form of government.

Inevitably we take sides. Some are for Meghan and Harry, others for Catherine and William – and who among us doesn’t have strong opinions about Andrew or Fergie?

For what it’s worth, I think we’re pretty lucky with our new king – though God knows he had an almost impossible act to follow.

Though he may be flawed (who among us isn’t?), he strikes me as a man of strong sense of duty, inherited from his mother, who longs to do good in the world and unite his increasingly divided peoples .

But I’m not surprised that so many young people, especially, dismiss him as a relic of an earlier era – over the hill, overprivileged and unaware of their interests and concerns. Heaven knows my own four sons think much the same of me – and at only 69 I am five years younger than the king!

Skeptical

My point is that it shouldn’t really matter what anyone thinks of an individual inhabitant of the Throne.

The great strength of our constitutional monarchy, as it has evolved over the centuries, is that as long as we have a hereditary king or queen, no one else can legitimately claim sovereignty over us.

Once upon a time this didn’t need to be said as the vast majority just accepted it. But now that the young are becoming more and more skeptical about the monarchy, it needs to be spelled out.

Admittedly, King Charles III has no real executive power. But isn’t that the fun part? While a monarch wears the crown simply by virtue of lineage, only he or she can claim the ultimate loyalty of the armed forces, government, judges, police, prison officers and others in our security and criminal justice systems.

All this may sound very theoretical. But for centuries, the system has protected the British from overly powerful generals, politicians or others who may have aspired to take supreme control of our lives.

Of course, many critics of monarchy will argue that the principle of heredity itself is plainly unjust.

I wonder how many of them stop to think that most British subjects, like me, benefit from that same principle, as we inherited our citizenship by accidental birth.

After all, with access to our advanced welfare state, even the poorest Briton is much better off than the average citizen of a country such as Bangladesh, Somalia or Sudan.

Other anti-monarchists, motivated by envy or simply a love of equality, will say that it is simply wrong for someone to live a good life, in all those palaces and castles, basically at the expense of the taxpayer.

To them, all I can point out is that the monarchy brings the country more than ten times what it costs us just by boosting our tourism industry.

How many elected presidents, I wonder, can boast in the same way? As the coronation approaches, keep an eye on the performance of the hospitality and theater industry and you’ll see what I mean.

divisive

Who, meanwhile, can seriously claim to envy the king? I don’t, that’s for sure. Indeed, I can think of all sorts of things I’d rather do than stand in the rain, open a new freeway, mingle with a swaying crowd, or give endless speeches at some godforsaken community center.

Besides, I find it pretty hard enough to find my specs if I’ve left them somewhere in our cozy four-bedroom suburb. If I lived in a draughty, 600-bedroom palace, the hunt would drive me half crazy.

But if none of these arguments for our constitutional monarchy hold any weight for you, I only ask that you consider the alternatives.

Leave aside the question of how much power an elected president should wield, though that debate would keep politicians arguing for decades.

Would you like a President Tony Blair, or a President Boris Johnson? Simply asking the question should clarify how divisive an elected head of state can cause.

Failing that, just ask an American Democrat what he thinks of Donald Trump, or a Republican if he’s happy Joe Biden is in charge.

Say what you will about King Charles III, but no one can argue that our constitutional monarch is tearing the nation apart, in the same way as above.

No, we should be thankful for the system we have, under which the king seamlessly adopted it from his mother – no ifs, no buts, no hanging chads or wild accusations of foul play.

Those anti-monarchist protesters should be thankful that they live under a system that guarantees their freedom to chant rude and factually incorrect slogans at their head of state while he is carrying out his public duties.

I’m with the Liverpool kids screaming them down. He is our King! And we are very lucky to have him.