Pernicious authority and poor administration or just bad journalism?

A more recent controversy gives support to such a contention.

On Monday 14 January 2013, the UK press reported on ‘secret papers’ showing the ‘extent of senior royals’ veto’ over Parliamentary Bills, after a court order revealed ‘how approval of Queen and Prince Charles is sought on range of bills’. This may seem a mile away from the giving out of information to preposterous impostors of sovereign and son, in accents unlikely to pass muster at Oxford or Eton. Yet the authority wielded in a telephone call fielded by nurses never having met or spoken with the real thing may be understood in a context where royal status and authority do indeed rule the roost.

When the dimensions of such authority in a democratic parliamentary system are so exposed, perhaps it is no surprise that a mimicked authority and impersonated status overruled staff caution?

The ‘secret papers’ disclosure reveals that Elizabeth Windsor was ‘asked for consent’ on a wide range of bills, giving rise to a ‘growing concern in parliament at a lack of transparency over the royals’ role in lawmaking’. Over the period preceding the application for a court order, at least thirty-nine Bills were subjected to ‘royal scrutiny’, with the veto power employed ‘to torpedo proposed legislation’ on a wide range of issues, including that relating to decisions about the declaration and progress of war:

‘… released following a court order [the Whitehall pamphlet] shows ministers and civil servants are obliged to consult the Queen and Prince Charles in greater detail and over more areas of legislation than was previously understood.

‘New laws required to receive the seal of approval from the Queen or Prince Charles cover issues from higher education and paternity pay to identity cards and child maintenance. In one instance the Queen completely vetoed the Military Actions against Iraq Bill in 1999, a private member’s bill that sought to transfer the power to authorise military strikes against Iraq from the monarch to parliament …’

In turn, Charles Windsor is reported as having vetoed legislation ‘on more than a dozen occasions’, with civil servants being warned that obtaining consent ‘can cause delays to legislation’. Even amendments to bills ‘may have to be run past the royals’, with the Guardian editorialising that all this may ‘help explain why ministers appear to pay close attention to the views of senior royals’.

One MP was reported as saying that the eyes of those ‘believing the Queen has a [solely] ceremonial role’ are being opened, whilst the legal scholar who sought the disclosure observed:

‘There has been an implication that these prerogative powers are quaint and sweet but actually there is real influence and real power, albeit unaccountable.’

Meanwhile, the director of Republic, campaigning for the head of state to be elected by popular vote, was calling for ‘full disclosure of the details of the occasions when royal consent has been refused’, adding:

‘The suggestion in these documents that the Queen withheld consent for a private member’s bill on such an important issue as going to war beggars belief. We need to know whether laws have been changed as the result of a private threat to withhold that consent.’

Although the role of the monarch in the British system is believed to be purely formal, or at least that was so until this expose, clearly there is far more to it than pomp and circumstance, tiara and pageantry, spectacle and display. Further, underlying all this showiness and splendour, to the woman and man in the street power is implicit in title, authority and status inherent not only in birth but, as the radio transcript shows, in marriage. Hence, in the ‘hoax’ call, the key words appear to be: ‘Kate, my granddaughter’ and ‘my granddaughter Kate’, along with ‘Kate my darling’ and (later, from ‘Charles’) ‘Mummy, is everything OK?’ For the professional in the hospital wards and corridors, not even the statement: ‘It’s the Queen here’, or ‘It’s “we” calling,’ or ‘I (sic), the Crown, speak,’ is (apparently) required.

When the hoax was revealed, listeners readily detected a lack of authenticity in the call and the callers. Yet to be fair to the call’s recipients, they saw concern and the seeking of familial reassurance at the heart of the enquiry. This is what the words and the voices said to them. More significantly, the words and the voices said ‘authority lies with me’ and ‘I have a right to know.’ In other words, royalty speaks.

Going back, then, to the case of the ‘secret’ dossier and the royal ‘right to veto’, this provides some insight into relations between monarch and subject, state and head of state, authority and subordinate. For if the power of the Crown is such that ministers go begging for consent to bills and endeavour to hide this from the public, can it be any surprise that ‘ordinary’ mortals bow to the authority of the (purported) royal voice?

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