Enough mourning for the Queen?
Mourning for the late Queen is currently dominating British public life. In the media, critics of the monarchy can hardly get a word in edgeways, and on the streets the police are cracking down against anti-monarchy demonstrators.
Compulsory mourning leading to self-censorship
The Guardian finds the way mourning for the Queen is dominating public life in the UK unbearable:
“Businesses, shops and charities, colleges, schools and public servants, any minor figure in the public eye has been rendered petrified, terrified of doing the wrong thing during days of mourning. ... Politicians are the most frightened of uttering a single word out of place, so they fall silent in the depths of a cost of living crisis, despite a chancellor reportedly planning to end the cap on bankers' bonuses and Liz Truss offering an energy bills support package that will barely touch the sides of many people's spiral into poverty.”
Nostalgia is a guiding star
The question of whether the monarchy is an anachronism is a moot point, columnist Jan Maciejewski comments in Rzeczpospolita:
“Pose this question to the crowds lined up to see the funeral procession carrying Elizabeth II's coffin, or organise a similar survey among those who waited almost 30 hours to pay their last respects to her in London. Why are they there? Sceptics and fanatical democrats have a universal answer in such cases: 'It's just nostalgia'. ... Never underestimate nostalgia, democrat. For it is not a candle lit on the grave of a lost cause, but a guiding star. That leads us home.”
The Queen doesn't deserve our grief
The British monarchy is above all a symbol of oppression, writes columnist Andreas Kosiaris on web portal Infowar:
“Elizabeth's death has reminded us that the oppressive preservation of the Crown tries to market itself simultaneously as old, traditional and sacred, but also as new, fashionable, updated and modern. However it has also reminded us that no matter what the propaganda says the old will always remain old, the oppressive always oppressive, and criminal institutions cannot be flushed out. Their victims can and do have the right to save their grief for someone who deserves it.”
Protest must be allowed
The protests may be in poor taste but the arrests go too far, writes The Times:
“Britain's institutions are not so weak that they require protection from such isolated displays of dissent. It is not unreasonable to question whether a system that allows a new head of state to be installed without a vote being cast is appropriate for a mature democracy ... The police face an immense challenge in the coming days, managing what are likely to be the largest crowds in British history. But threatening protesters with arrest for holding up blank sheets of paper on the grounds that it might cause someone offence is conduct usually associated with the police in Russia. That is where it should stay.”
The heart of our political system
The Daily Telegraph strongly disagrees with the anti-monarchists:
“The constitutional monarchy, and the strict limits imposed upon it by centuries of tradition, protects Britain from the dangers of such too-weak or too-strong presidents. In this way, it arguably leaves Britain less vulnerable to the dangers of creeping authoritarianism than any other comparable state. The unelected monarch is a focal point around which otherwise-divided Britons can still coalesce. ... By providing the undemocratic heart for our political system, the monarchy safeguards and maintains our reverence for democracy.”