Lord Goldsmith is suggesting bribing people (by offering council tax and student fee rebates) into taking an oath of allegiance to the Queen. I don’t even know where to begin with this one… firstly, if we’re being paid for it, what would it mean? Surely people won’t be taking the oath out of any sense of loyalty, they’ll just be in it for the money.
Secondly, there are an awful lot of people – republicans, citizens of nations of the UK other that England who don’t want to swear allegiance to a someone they view as a foreign monarch – who won’t be willing to do that, and who aren’t in any way ‘un-British’. Should they be effectively punished by not receiving the financial benefits of the oath? Not to mention the distrust that oath-takers might feel towards those people.
It’s just ludicrous, not to mention pretty offensive.
I heard the interview with Lord Goldsmith on Today (Radio 4) this morning, and he went as far as saying he couldn’t see why the roughly 2 million republicans in the UK would have any problem with personally swearing allegiance to Mrs Windsor!
The man is an ignorant prat of the highest order.
Doesn’t 1984 suddenly sound like a cosy rural idyll?
What about those who don’t pay council tax and aren’t students? Is he going to suggest bribing them differently, or will they become second-class citizens?