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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhuxi!houxm!houxk!jmg
From: jmg@houxk.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: England socialist?
Message-ID: <79@houxk.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-Sep-83 13:40:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: houxk.79
Posted: Fri Sep 16 13:40:03 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Sep-83 20:06:59 EDT
Organization: Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 36


	I'm not taking the side of pro-socialists or anti-socialists but
I must disagree with the statements of both liberals and conservatives on
the net who say that England is a socialist country. I know its not a
democracy, nor a republic, nor a pure monarchy. In my view England is an
oligarchy where the power of the monarch is shared with a group of nobles
through the House of Lords.
	Remember that the House of Lords is not an elected body but a body
appointed by the monarch through knighthood. After that initial knighthood
the seat in the House of Lords is passed on through heredity to the lord's
progeny. As long as there is an heir the seat in the House of Lords stays
in the same family. When some nasty law comes along that has been created
by those commoners in the House of Commons and it seems to threaten the
ruling class the House of Lords kills it with the blessings of the monarch.
	And to make the game even safer, a member of the nobility will
occasionally renouce his title (but not his wealth) and run for a seat in
the House of Commons as Churchill did. Now they've really got things tied up.
But "not to worry" when the old boy becomes to old to serve in the House of
Commons the monarch comes to the rescue and knights him again (as Churchill
was) and the title (and seat in the House of Lords) is once again safely back
in the family. Now if the Lord has a brother or a cousin who's not likely
to ever become the Lord then there's no need at all for anyone to give up a
seat in the House of Lords. Brother or cousin can run for the seat in the
Commons.
	And there are always those government commissions that are set up
to look into problems in the mining industry or the housing industry or
the shipping industry. A member of the nobility always makes a smashing
commissioner. So smashing that the government wouldn't have it any other
way.
	And citizenship has become a sticky problem in recent years with
so many people from the colonies coming into England so they devised various
grades of citizenship for people based on your ethnic background and whether
your father or grandfather (mother or grandmother) was born in England.
	Somehow I always thought the ideal of the socialist society was
supposed to be free of social classes. You may be able to point to social
security or nationalized railroads but these things were first implemented
by Bismarck under the Kaiser, hardly the model of the socialist state!