Me, I'm 52% Republican

Don't let the upper-case R in the title fool you. Titles require that but my republicanism is strictly lower case and definitely I'm-not-exactly-certain. I wondered, and that's all this is, a wonder, what a country might do to resolve this internal conundrum that I am surely not alone in feeling? Coronations water that particular seed.

If you want to hear a more vicious attack on the monarchy then Frankie Boyle can help.

The role of the King in our country's public life is complex and, let's face it, pretty weird.  Speaking of the monarchy Simon Jenkins said 'It's hereditary basis is defensible only in being elemental and in remaining scrupulously impotent.' (Guardian 10/9/22) Can we not do better than to burden a family with the opportunity to spend their lives opening things whilst vesting them with no more than scrupulous impotence?

I suggest our country needs to grow up. Maybe we could embrace some version of agreed republicanism and own a written constitution. It surprises many people that although we have government by laws and rules they are not codified in a single, written document.

As a Church of England priest I have sworn allegiance to the crown on a number of occasions. It happens at ordination services and at installations. In my case the allegiance was always to the late Queen, and her successors, in all things legal and honest. That final clause reminds us that the King is not above the law. Be ye ever so high etc. As an established church the bishops of our country act as the monarch's representatives in their diocese. Visiting royalty can play havoc with the episcopal diary. They call the shots.

I didn't make my oaths with my fingers crossed behind my back. I was loyal whilst reserving the right not so much to rebel but to tentatively suggest that there may be another way of doing things.

There are some difficulties in changing the mind of a country. People are reluctant to line up publicly behind a view that they guess may be unpopular. The advantage of voting, or referenda, is that they are secret ballots.

I recently listened to James Burke as a guest on the You Are Not So Smart podcast. I had forgotten his wonderful series of programmes on TV (and the book that followed) setting out not only the great scientific discoveries of the modern era abut also how they are linked together. In the interview with presenter David McRaney, Burke suggests that we could use the power of the internet to set out a tentative idea and keep refining it and resubmitting it for voting and discussion until something came along that had general support and could be voted into law. The exact opposite of divide and rule, which has too high a profile currently.

There are many problems. In talking to people under the radar I find that a common hesitation is 'the sort of people who might become president'. Granted this has a certain marmite factor to it, but then so does electing a government.

We recently had a huge learning experience as a country. We put an issue to a referendum requiring people to vote yes/no on a massive and divisive issue without ever clarifying what the vote meant. It went badly and led to seven years, and counting, of appalling confusion. Thanks to Brexit we now know exactly how not to do something of that magnitude.

We don't need a heated debate. It doesn't need to go in any party's manifesto, until it can go in every party's manifesto. Let's have a nice chat about it, eh?