Today has been an amazing spectacle even the most cynical should accept and it has shown our country at its best
I expect it has benefitted the monarchy and the union
The coronation next year will be another spectacular event
It will but it will not be on this scale, certainly not globally. Nor on the scale of the Queen's own coronation in 1953.
She was truly our last imperial monarch. Charles, William and George will be monarchs more in the style of the Scandinavian, Dutch and Spanish monarchies
Enough of your declinist drivel
Yes, the Empire has gone. It went 50 years ago, and probably not before time
And yet we still live in a remarkable country, which influences the world in innumerable ways, far and beyond military or economic power
Indeed: As the free world faces Putin and China my guess is that a nation like Great Britain will gain in symbolic power: as we embody incredible tradition plus ongoing freedom. As we see here
People admire Britain because we are free and fair. And ancient. Not because we have nuclear missiles. Learn this
We do but when the Queen came to the throne we were still just about a superpower alongside the US and USSR with Churchill as PM and we still had a large Empire.
British “Superpower” status disappeared at some point in WWII - the fall of Singapore is as good a marker as any - as we found out to our cost during Suez. Having not been defeated it made it psychologically easier for us to give up our Empire than other European colonial powers - imagine what would have happened if we’d tried what the Dutch did in Indonesia or the French in Vietnam. We remained a significant power - as we still do, but as George Bernard Shaw remarked at the start of the war - there will be two winners, the USA & the USSR.
I would have said the withdrawal from Greece in 1947 marked the moment Britain abdicated superpower status. That was the instant when it accepted it wasn't possible to act as the world's policeman any more and literally handed that over to the Americans.
Suez was an attempt to put the clock back, with unfortunate results.
Suez appears now to have been an indicator of the extent to which our power had diminished. It wasn't a cause in itself, it just made our status obvious.
I like the style of marching at events like this. Synchronised, but not excessively so in the self-parodic North Korean fashion. The French are good at that too.
The weather has behaved impeccably.
It might be the dramatic flourishes and perfection of NK style presentation that for some reason makes it seem a little unnatural, like there's no way even very well trained and choreographed troops should be so robotically in sync.
Sure, the royalist British regime gets its ceremonial act just so right. Not too perfect, mind you. It's not like in North Korea where ceremonial training is technically better. And that's what makes it so natural. It's better than anything any parliamentary republic could possibly muster. It's a wonderful loveliness that brings together the splendid and the real. In every way, it's just right. Even when it's less than right, that's something that makes it even righter. Bravo. God save the king.
Listen to yourself.
Her Majesty's life was one of unremitting SERVICE, do you hear?
Unrelatedly, she gave royal warrants to Dubonnet, Bacardi (for Martini Vermouth), Gordon's gin, Berry Bros & Rudd, and SEVEN Champagne houses – Bollinger, Mumm, Krug, Lanson, Roederer, Moët & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot.
Austerity.
Don't forget my gran's fave (though you may want to) Croft's Original.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/09/king-charles-queen-elizabeth-funeral-death/671457/