Snub to Queen shows how illogical these MSPs are

THE 50th anniversary supplements have been printed. The television specials have rebroadcast the grainy footage of the young Queen. The Daily Telegraph has republished Constance Spry’s original recipe for coronation chicken and the rest of us are experiencing a disorientating sense of déjà vu. We appear to be stuck in groundhog week. Didn’t all this happen last year?

You might think the Scots, who would view Armageddon as an excuse for a party, would be stocking up on the Hellman’s and the curry paste. But the 50th anniversary of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth has been marked, not by strings of coloured bunting, but by a deep ambivalence, the most strident symbol of which will be the scattering of empty seats in the Scottish Parliament today for the Queen’s address.

In a display of fifth-form politics from MSPs more comfortable with swearing oaths about the Queen than swearing oaths to her, half the Scottish National Party, most of the Greens and all of the Scottish Socialists are expected to boycott the Queen’s visit. Some, such as Roseanna Cunningham, are veteran boycotters. Indeed, it is difficult to recall the SNP deputy leader hitting the headlines for anything other than her republicanism since she went AWOL for the Queen’s address to Parliament during last year’s golden jubilee celebrations.

Leaving aside the complete absence of manners, the boycott represents our MSPs at their most illogical. The Scottish Parliament may sometimes give the impression of operating in an isolationist backwater, but it is part of a British political system which encompasses constitutional monarchy, parliamentary democracy, devolution, local government and which has, increasingly, a European dimension.

We are not in a position to jettison the bits we simply don’t like. Sever one limb and the body politic bleeds to death. Even a planned amputation is not carried out without fitting a prosthesis. For parliamentarians to decree on a whim and unilaterally that one element is irrelevant or unpalatable sets a dangerous precedent. It is a pick-’n’-mix approach to government which demonstrates a complete ignorance of political philosophy.

Conventional wisdom has it that constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy are uneasy bedfellows. You cannot be a roundhead and a cavalier. We have, at some level, to choose between them. But constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy have coexisted more or less harmoniously in Britain since 1688.

When fissures have appeared, they have tended to be based on personality clashes rather than any fundamental contradictions, although they are rarely perceived as such. Thus, Margaret Thatcher’s frosty relationship with the Queen was misinterpreted as a constitutional crisis. This inability to separate personalities from institutions is central to our muddled thinking about monarchy.

When Sophie Wessex cashes in on her royal connections, our respect for the monarchy decreases; when the Queen Mother dies, it grows. The fact that the head of state is carrying out her duties in exactly the same way as before is irrelevant. The tide of republicanism ebbs and flows depending on the behaviour of bit part players in the royal soap opera. Build a republic on such shifting sands, however, and instability is guaranteed.

The main problem which the monarchy faces is that it is an amalgam of two things; family and job and maintaining the correct family/work balance is even more crucial for the Queen than it is for the rest of us. If she gets it wrong, the institution of the head of state is sullied by the wayward behaviour of the minor royals. For this reason the two roles need to be separated, the wider family kept at arm’s length and the function of the head of state defined, particularly in relation to a post-devolution Scotland.

So far, the monarchy has been reluctant to enter this debate. We may be privy to more intimate secrets of the royals than we are to our next of kin, but we still do not have access to the plans for the monarchy in a devolved Scotland, although we know they exist. The unfortunate consequence of this is the impression that the palace sees Scotland as little more than an upmarket playground or a convenient venue for second marriages.

This may be about to change. The Prince of Wales, who invited Alex Salmond to Balmoral for a dram and a chat, has made the decision to outline his duties, responsibilities and areas of influence. His commitment to Scotland is well known and his interests in rural affairs, the environment and inner-city deprivation resonate more strongly here than they do in the traditional royal stomping grounds of the Home Counties.

But these are minor quibbles in the scheme of things. The British monarchy has been a remarkably successful institution precisely because it has been able to adapt as circumstances have changed while enshrining a degree of continuity. That some glaring inconsistencies remain should not unduly alarm us. The process of modernisation is an ongoing one and we should not allow the defects to devalue the benefit and stability our country has derived from constitutional monarchy.

We live in a society obsessed with the present, whose culture is transient and whose collective memory is shorter than the average Alzheimer’s patient. Many of our problems stem from our determination to discredit the virtues of the past. We no longer value duty, loyalty or tradition. We don’t reflect on complex problems, we reflex - usually with a knee-jerk response. The monarchy allows a rapidly changing society to retain its connections with the past and maintain historical continuities.

"So long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak," wrote Walter Bagehot, the Victorian authority on the constitution, "Royalty will be strong because it appeals to diffused feeling and Republics weak because they appeal to understanding."

But the republican argument all too often hinges, not on reason, but on the basest of emotions: envy. And while the most thoughtful and egalitarian of republicans can make a strong theoretical case against the hereditary system and in favour of elected representatives, a quick survey of elected heads of state tends to weaken the argument. For every Nelson Mandela there is a Richard Nixon. For every Vaclav Havel, there is a Robert Mugabe. Closer to home, Franois Mitterrand’s reign was associated with rampant, institutionalised corruption.

Nor is Bagehot right to assume that the argument for monarchy has its basis in sentiment. It is no coincidence that in Afghanistan and in Iraq, constitutional monarchy has been mooted as the most desirable - possibly the only way - of uniting two traumatised and deeply divided nations.

Constitutional monarchy is not without its flaws, but it has contributed to stable government in Britain for centuries, and in an uncertain world that is worth a great deal. Our MSPs should acknowledge this by at least having the courtesy to listen to what their head of state has to say to them. She has, after all, advised ten British prime ministers.

The level of ignorance, in both senses of the word, in this Parliament seems alarmingly high. So the republican Roses - Cunningham and Kane - might even learn something. The difference between lese-majesty and less majesty is more than just a misplaced consonant.