The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 21

27 3 29 Flying the flag amid gales of laughter The creeping rehabilitation of Franco A big victory over Fund managers must learn to flex their muscles tax perks? TMauardian 321 Saturday November 28-Sunday November 29 1992 23 36 You don't need blood and tumbrils to abolish the monarchy; it wouldn't even be necessary for a majority in the House of Lords, writes Catherine Bennett. Illustration by Peter Clarke So who would be president if the Queen went? Farewel in A good actor or actress could easily play the part of a president in ceremonials." Like who? "Glenda Jackson would make a perfectly good president if she got away from the Labour Glenda Jackson? Glenda Jackson grimacing for Britain? Glenda Jackson grimly launching ships? But look around at other actor-statesmen and who would you prefer? Kenneth Branagh or Stephen Fry instead of the queen? Surely not. Charter 88, the earnest, non- 1 A. "Y2' Reg -HT HERE'S I such divin- Iitydoth hedge a king, That I treason can but peep to what it would. Acts little of his remarked Shakespeare's King of Denmark.

But this, as we know, is no longer quite the case. If a few tabloids, an ambitious blonde and a lustful redhead start trimming vigorously enough, Treason can lean right over the privet and grab himself an eyeful. Beyond the hedge, Treason surveys a short woman with a basilisk glare: a pensioner who likes head-scarves, horses and holidays in Scotland. It's the Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, Queen of this realm and a number of other realms and territories. Mrs Mountbat-ten as was.

What does Treason do next? First Treason tells her she's greedy. The Queen looks contrite. Treason says she should start paying her taxes. Righty-ho, says the Queen. So what does Treason do now? He decides to jump over the hedge and get rid of her for good.

How? "If astonishingly simple," says Tony Benn who has spent 17 years designing a Bill which, if enacted, would bring about the abolition of the monarchy and the creation of a When, last year, he informed the Queen of his intention to make her redundant, she gave consent gamely for a debate in the Commons. "The thing is just absolutely staggeringly simple," Benn repeats. "It could be done by a single Act of parliament. It would require a majority in the Commons it would be helpful if there was a majority in the Lords but my Bill ends the legal status of the monarchy, liberates the Crown from all statutory restrictions she would pay income tax like everybody else, the Church of England would be disestablished, the House of Lords would end, and so on Even if the Lords threw out his Bill, Tony Benn says, the Parliament Act would allow the Commons to reintroduce it later, whereupon it would become law. But it would still need the royal assent, wouldn't it? "No king or queen has ever vetoed a Bill once it has been through both Houses of Parliament, ever, since Queen Anne in 1705, or something," Benn says sunnily.

The whole business could, he imagines, be dispatched in around two years. You see? No blood, no mess, no tumbrils none of those pesky heads to unload this modern method of monarch-disposal is so delightfully quick 'n' easy that it's a marvel that we didn't get round to it years ago. After all, there was criticism at the beginning of her reign. The coronation-speak which heralded the age of "new Elizabethans" had barely subsided when Lord Altrincham (now John Grigg), incisively pointed out that her entourage was her speaking voice "a HOWARD BRENTON, playwright: Oh God, I think a sportsman, someone you could admire for something other than politics or brain like Nigel Mansell because he's just a beautiful man. The quality that is most truly British is his bloody mindedness.

ELSPETH BARKER, novelist: Clare Short. Why? because she's humane, intelligent, articulate with the right priorities; she's a woman and a proper woman. Men have had a go at leadership for a long time and haven't done it particularly well. SUSAN CROSLAND, author: Someone with eccentricity, decency and sense of fair play and individuality. I wouldn't like to commit myself to a dream figure.

BRYAN GOULD, MP for Dagen-ham: The Queen for President she's probably the best. It is easier to give a flip answer than a serious one, a difficulty that demonstrates the merits of monarchy. Czechoslovakia has Vaclav Havel as head of state but there's no one comparable here. All politicians' careers end in failure so it must be someone above politics. We would want someone of the stature of the late Grahame Greene, someone who is his or her own person and stands for something that people can respect.

It would be wonderful to have a woman president, someone like Mary Robinson in Ireland, someone who is a symbol and stands for something British whether you agree with them or not a figurehead. DENNIS SKINNER, MP for Bolsover: You don't need a president. You don't have to have one. You elect them to office for a few years then you've got a chance to kick 'em out The prime minister should be head of state. MARY KENNY, journalist: I suppose being Irish I'd want someone in the bardic tradition, a poet or a musician.

If it is not to be a hereditary dynasty we should have a poet, but I don't know who. Perhaps a woman in charge. Women are better than kings. A woman poet, but I can't think of one offhand. WILLIAM REES MOGG, chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Council, former editor of the Times: It's not going to happen and it's not a topic on which I have any views.

ANTHONY SAMPSON, author and political analyst: The Queen or Ted Heath. As soon as people start thinking of alternative heads of state they go back to the Queen. The most important quality is being able to represent Britain in Europe for which Ted Heath qualifies again. ELEANOR MILLS pain in the and her broad cast manner that ot a pnjaasn Willie Hamilton was soon questioning her expenses. But it was Willie Hamilton who became an object of abomination, not the Queen.

The Queen just got more popular. Calmly, she proceeded from one celebration of her existence to another a Jubilee here, an anniversary there, significant birthdays all over the place; on each occasion reverent tributes would praise her lovely family, her beautiful manners, the wisdom she was wont to share with "her" prime ministers. Even that churl Philip Larkin, asked to effuse for the 1977 Jubilee, found something to praise out of nothing, in his verse 1952-1977: In times when nothing stood But worsened, or grew strange, There was one constant good-She did not change. But she did change, didn't she? That may have been the Queen's great mistake. She fixed up television shows promulgating images of her perfect, hearth-loving family to conquer the mushy hearts of the nation.

Beguiled by such Royal Happiness, who could carp about Civil Lists, or spending too much time with horseflesh? But at the same time the Queen welcomed into her household a collection of faulty, divorce-prone commoners. Mystery gave way to misctaei. ODDLY, it was not the Labour Party that was the first to remark on the unedifying and ever-widen ing crack between the pious Christmas broadcasts and meretricious reality. Nor the other Ieftwing groups which one might expect to be on the qui vive for evidence against the royal family, that exalted symbol of unearned privilege, of power sinking from the top, not rising democratically from the bottom. But Labour prime ministers have been as eager, if not more eager than Tory ones, to fawn around Balmoral, mistaking proximity for acceptance.

The earliest, noisiest critics of the royal family were the ngntwmg popular press, it pathetic, isn't it?" says Tariq Ali, a republican. "I think the Labour Party always has been very deferential, actually." Ali isn't deferential. He wants the Queen and her family to go before inbreeding leaves us with "complete lreaKs ana He wants a president as head of state, elected by a reformed second chamber. Who would he nominate? Well. I mean, look, who knows who?" says Ali.

"I'm sure there'd be lots of candidates, people who are no longer involved in active do lines bv ana large. Because it should be a ceremonial thing in my opinion. so. who? "Tney couia De people who are venerated in their fields of endeavour. After all it doesn't require too much.

deferential pressure group is al ways calling tor one wortny thing or another a new constitutional settlement, freedom of information, PR you name it What would they like to do about the monarchy? Charter 88, hedges a press officer, doesn't actually have a policy on the Queen, other than tidying things up a bit. Don't they want to get rid of the House of Lords? "Oh absolutely, totally." So why not do the same with its spiritual boss, the Queen? "I think there's that sort of deference and also affection built into the system," she mused. "If you threatened to get rid of her, there'd be a sort of revolution." The Ieftwing Institute of Public Policy Research doesn't plan to trash the Queen either, even though it has produced lengthy schemes for removing the Lords. "I suppose I myself would be quite happy not to have a monarchy," says the director, James Cornford, "It's not something I would want to fight about, because I don't think it's as important as other things." But if somebody else did tight about it, and we needed a replacement. "It would be rather like electing a speaker of the House of Commons." Someone like? "I think Jo Grimond would have made a head of state, somebody who has ceased to be leader of his party quite young, and was an excellent public figure who behaved very sensibly and been an ornament," says Cornford.

A safe choice, Jo Grimond, but not perhaps a dazzling one. But then nor is the suggestion of Bernard Weatherill put forward by Professor Stephen Ha-seler, a republican and the chair of the Radical Society. "Any of the last few speakers of the Commons would have been fine for me we wouldn't want one that was too intrusive, we don't need to have this glamorous film star Which might rule out Betty Booth-royd, the former Tiller girl. Andrew Puddephat, director of Liberty (which does not have a policy on the monarchy), per sonally lavours an elected head of state, and sees no reason why it shouldn't be the Prime Minister so long as parliament had much greater autonomy from the government. John Major as our symbol of historic continuity? "The Queen is no more im pressive than John Major," Puddephat savs.

"John Major's actually done something. For right or wrong he's got a position, he's got elected, he's gone The model of a modern British president Head: Lord Owen, the always-available all-purpose statesman; Eyes: Michael rami, neen everywhere, seen everything; nose: Jtawara ueatn, most prominent tormer prime minister; Mouth: Kenneth Branagh, purveyor of well spoken rhetoric; Chin: Clare Short, most determined jaw in the business then, if a replacement must be found, she proposes Michael Pa-lin. "I can't think of anybody better really. He's very presentable, and good at languages, he's smart, he knows how to conduct himself, he's got a good sense of humour, and a very stable family background." He's also, as many who've seen his jocular antics on Pole to Pole will testify, capable of being a complete pain in the neck. Which is exactly, back in 1957, how the then Lord Altrincham described the Queen, God bless her.

through a process, and he's got mere, rne yueen nas never had to earn anything." A reasonable argument, hut with a bland outcome. The rous ing notion of a new Head of State tends to dull in the face of interminable constitutional wraneles. at the prospect of further glory tor au-purpose grandees such as Lord Carrington, or Lord Owen. "I see two verv strnne nprativp virtues in the monarchy," says Professor Bernard Crick, who describes himself, inventively, as a monarchical republican. "One is that it prevents us having a presidency.

I dread to think of President Thatcher, Heath or Callaghan. The other is I really do think it works as a very limited symbol of loyalty." But what need a president? Frank Vibert, formerly deputy director of the rightwing Institute of Economic Affairs, last year suggested stripping the Queen of her political powers, replacing her with a committee (to supervise assent) and a speaker-like dogsbody to perform her other duties. The Queen, stripped of political significance, could stay on, in a faintly symbolic, Scandinavian sort of way. The response of Roy Hattersley was to describe the Institute "a right- wing loony group with ideas incompatible with common sense and the opinion of the British At Class War, Tim Scargill agrees that there's no call for a substitute. "I think the only thing I would like to replace the monarchy with is gravestones," he says, mercilessly.

"It's the people that are putting the Queen in annus horribilis, and wc at Class War say toughus shittus, right?" More eloquent, but just as gleeful, Sue Townsend (whose recent book, The Queen And may yet prove prophetic) also predicts the fall of the Windsors, Leader comment, page 22; Letters, page 24.