Dear oh dear – the Queen of Australia and her other realms and territories beyond the seas – is very angry. She’s sick and tired of the paparazzi lurking behind the clipped hedges at Sandringham – her multi million pounds holiday house in Scotland – taking pictures of the rollicking royals on their Christmas break.
So angry is the Australian head of state, she’s threatening to invoke laws if any of the snappers are caught in the royal grounds – there’s nothing she can do if they stay outside the castle’s fences so the guess is ladders will be the orders of the day.
What the Queen fails to understand is that she, along with the other members of her family are nothing more or nothing less than paid public servants.
They get their fortnightly cheques from Whitehall – which are taxed these days – and they go about doing what they are paid to do : open; open fetes, cut ribbons, launch ships and other important day to day duties.
Being in the pay of politicians, means she heads a politician’s monarchy. Being the astute trooper she is, she does what the prime minister of the day orders, even reading from the throne in the House of Lords the government of the day’s legislative program.
This was illustrated when Tony Blair hauled her over the coals and reprimanded her for her lack of sympathy when Diana died and she was made to do the prime minister’s bidding. She knows which side of the bread the butter is on.
The situation she finds herself in these days is one of her own making.
A few decades ago she “let the light in” and approved a series of TV programs showing her and her family doing what ordinary people do – having picnics, watching TV, playing game and other mind bending pursuits.
Of course in letting in the light the monarch unwittingly did something she now obviously regrets.
She created a family of celebrities – of royals acting like lesser mortals: sister Margret giving a new meaning to boozing, Phillip insulting people right, left and centre, Harry in Nazi gear, William living in dad’s house with a “commoner” – the list goes on.
So it should come as no surprise to the Queen that the media is more than interested in the shenanigans of her offspring and other relatives.
It’s sad they don’t take a leaf out her book and behave themselves – either that or hand back their pay cheques and become private citizens.
Then they can as they do now…which is whatever they like but not at the expense of the hapless British taxpayer.
Barry Everingham is a Melbourne writer and commenter on royalty.
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