You know members of the Commonwealth are british too right? Ignoring them is like California saying that people in Oklahoma aren't not Americans.

SuchFriends - Members of the Commonwealth are NOT British! They all have independence from us, by and large.

EDIT - For example, Australia is not a Republic, so it still technically "British". Having said that, try telling that to your average Australian, and see what answer you get back.

Massively tricky one - obviously, you know the stories of a load of our colonial brethren from the WIndies coming over in the 50s to re-build Britain, clean our toilets and drive our buses? A lot of those coloured fellows were a little pissed off that the British government said they'd not be shat on, when they were. Not shat on in an apartheid sense, but a great many didn't receive the warmest of welcomes.

There's also the fact that a lot of the former Commonwealth have different rights to citizenship (before EU explansion) than, say, the Chinese do. The precise vagaries of cultural/ national identity are very tricky to negotiate - err with caution, my good man.

Australians can fuck right off as far as I'm concerned.

That was mainly a dig at Londoners - a fine British instution for us parochial mud hut-dwellers.

Verily true, this - the whole "cultural" thing can work both ways. For every batshit mentalist like Robert Mugabe that plays the "British are evil and smell of wee" card, there's a far larger amount of peeps who have been denied their "Britishness" through prejudice and ignorance.

The gays, the Welsh, Chipping Sodbury and Liza Manelli all spring to mind.

"Momma, do you love my Brtishness now? MOMMA!"

Not forgetting Al Fayed. As much as I'd like to.

Very bad PR to have Al Fayed as a proper Gor Blimey Brit though. Y'know, what with all the dealings he did with the British government back in the day. Best kept at arm's length all that sort of malarkey.

Glice - correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't "al" Fayed now a citizen of Switzerland, due to HM Government refusing to grant the Phoney Pharaoh a UK passport?

exactly. rumours he's a bit of a groper of the laydees too.

Well I've lived all my life in peripheries, out in the country with the simple bumpkin folk, I've only moved to just outside London for uni - and yet I still feel as strongly about the monarchy as I do. Is your point that your view on this differs with where you live?

It probably does if you live in buckingham palace.

Ha ha, good point.

how is 75% not most???? anyway......... at least it isnt mugabe or even a bush in power!

£150m is about £3 per person. If only 51% of the population wanted to keep the royal family, i.e. supported its existence, then they would have to agree that the royal family is at least worth £6 per year. I don't know if that's just a very American way of looking at it, but I feel like it's rather viable to assume that the royal family would remain in place if everyone in England knew how much it cost them, and it wouldn't be a terribly stupid decision at all.

I'm sure a good 50% of the country is capable of donating an additional £6 a year (progressively redistributed, if you wish) to something more practical if that's what they really want, but that's ignoring the revenue that the royal family does generate, regardless of whether it matches the cost.

I can't get worked-up about it, to be honest. They have no power or influence, and they've been pushed to one side, an anachronism, to provide light-entertainment for tourists (it's an old argument but they are popular with tourists). And they do represent a certain side of England: moral, respectful, sensible (even if it's all an act and the minor royals are snorting heroin and bumming their aides) which I would like to keep, as a kind of balance to the technicolor Top Shop fuckery which surrounds me.

Not a hard-and-fast rule, but I've noticed that the closer you are to London, London-Satellites (Brighton, Oxford and the like) or fake London (I'm looking at you, Melly - Saarf Lahndaahn my eye) the more likely you are to be a royalist; conversely, if you're in Manchester, Liverpool, further North or Scotland you're increasingly less likely to support the Royalty. You could say that the likelehood of support for the Monarchy is proportional to the distance from the centre of London.

Again, this is a slightly convulted equation - there's still families in Sheffield whose families' lives were made very difficult by William of Orange, and your average British Catholic is still bitter about the James II affair (and, obviously, that's to say nothing of the feelings of the Scottish, Irish, Welsh or Cornish).

Personally, the reason I'd support a referendum on the Monarchy is because I think the history of Britain is vicously entangled in not just the narrative of the Monarchy (I'd say Henry VIII or Victoria are as much part of the British folk-myth as Avalon, Gawain or Arthur are) but the narrative of the law of the land, proceeding from Roman occupation (or further back) through to parliamentary inteventions (your Georges, Victorias...). I know the Queen's position is, legally, pretty much a sinecure, but I believe that the alleged obselescence of a custom is not enough to dismiss it outright (we still say 'bless you' when we sneeze, we still have knives to the right...).

Just to make absolutely clear - I'm not a monarchist, I'm a benign observer who happens to be British. And besides which, they simply don't make celebrities like Prince Philip. He's a bumbling posh buffoon with iffy views, but I'd definitely watch him if he had a chat show.

prince phillip should guest host have i got news for you.. it would be unmissible telly