You will have seen very numerous commentaries of all kinds about the Queen’s death after the longest reign in British history. What happens to the monarchy now? Kevin Ovenden, a republican on the left, comments:
“The memorialising of the queen is going to invoke the national story. It is there in the selection of pictures that every newspaper and news organisation have already prepared for years.
They are incredibly well selected. And they go back to the pre-war period and naturally her in uniform during the Second World War.
There is a new king in England. It has happened. Just like that.
But Charles is not a popular figure. His portrayal in the hit series The Crown is of a weak and vain man. So you can see the huge understatement of the news of the blessing that there is now a King Charles III (or however he styles himself).
This is a difficult thing for the high state in Britain to pull off. He is not young apparently ushering in a new age of Britain's glory - his mother 70 years ago.
He has no discernable personality or attractive feature. For some it is his talking to flowers. For others him being horrible to Diana. But there is no big public affection.
This is why I do not think people should confuse the sentiments of the next couple of days with some restoration of deference and royalism in Britain. I think it is going to be much more contested than that, even in the short term.
The British state and the capitalist interests that look to it have lost a major asset in the personhood of Queen Elizabeth I , and it is not coming back”.
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