The Queen’s Jubilee: Young People’s View

The Queen’s Jubilee is upon us and with the longest weekend ahead Live writers give a young people’s view and debate the big question: 60 years of hurt or a new golden Elizabethan age?

Monwar casts his eye over the monarchy’s star striker and shouts: What a waste of money

Ah the Queen! Queen Elizabeth II! Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie! Britain shall fork out millions of pounds to celebrate the GLORIOUS Queen’s sixtieth year on the throne. The Queen so deserves her Diamond Jubilee, after all signing Acts of Parliaments for 60 years must have hurt her poor little wrist, so what better way to show her hard work by making an event drenched in extravagance and dressed in tax-payers hard-earned pounds. Britain can afford it. It is not like we’re in £1.3 Trillion debt now, are we?

The only issue with the Diamond Jubilee is what are the benefits for Britain?  And not be just another abuse of tax-payer money, which will most likely be followed by additional taxation to claw back every penny spent. If we go back a year in time, it was the Royal Wedding. Tourism, souvenirs, and growth, the royalists yelled!

The Royal Wedding was expected to attract a net injection of £600 million in the second quarter of 2011 and the critics said we’d benefit for the next several years to come! Well, not wanting to burst anyone’s bubble… The statistics reveal that growth in Q2 2010 was -0.1 and recently we dropped back into a double-dip recession (guess the monarchist’s were wrong, eh? Don’t worry it wouldn’t be the first time).

The wedding cost roughly £20 million according to the Daily Mail. But what’s more concerning is that The Telegraph reported that the loss of productivity while Britain was holidaying during the Royal Wedding cost the economy £6 BILLION (HELLO!!! WE’RE IN FREAKING £1.3 TRILLION DEBT!). If Kate Middleton and her sister weren’t so hot, Britain would have been up in arms! Thankfully the men of Britain, at least, had something pleasant to distract them.

If the Diamond Jubilee produces the same repercussions as the Royal Wedding then Britain is in serious trouble and no one else can be blamed apart from the Government and the glorious, hardworking, honest Royal Family. So in the poetic language of the famous rapper Drake, I end this article by saying… Lizzie ‘HOW YOU FEEL, HOW YOU FEEL”?

What can you say Tej???

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As the Jubilee rolls by, Tej finds herself in an unexpected place: down the front, waving her Union Jack

I never thought I’d sing God Save the Queen, unless I was in some Vivienne Westwood get-up, striking my best anti-establishment pose. But in a recent debate here at Live HQ, I decided I rather like ol’ Liz and her motley crew. There’s dashing Wills, his lady friend Kate, roguish hip-gyrating, helicopter-flying Harry, the even greater rogue Phil (honestly, who can test this lyrical G? NO-ONE) – they are a truly splendid, bloody spiffing bunch.

Count yourselves lucky that we have respected reps to fly the flag for us who are not beer guzzling in Magaluf (here’s looking at you Geordie Shore); or raucous, jeering footie yobs (This is England, literally). We can hide behind their well-bred ways and get freebies abroad when people hear our accents and ask excitedly if we’d like some tea. Guys we have a freaking national brand.

The Jubilee festivities launched at the weekend, and with flashing images of Liz and Brits all over the country sporting the colours of the Union Jack, I reluctantly gave way to that fuzzy feeling: patriotism. You know, that sense that you are proudly standing on the white cliffs of Dover with rushing winds caressing your face, Vera Lynn cooing softly in the background.

It’s quite Dunkirk, a bold Blitz-like battalion of flickering historic images: VE days, Jubilee days gone by, street parties, the Commonwealth, the changing of the guard. It’s sickeningly wistful, but all the traditions, all the history, are brought to the forefront of national consciousness every time we remember just how long she has reigned. In this day and age, in this multicultural society that embraces so many traditions, and rightly so, it is a plus to have a cultural figurehead that grounds us in one national spirit open to all.

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Words by Monwar Husain and Tej Adeleye