Beyond Charles: a radical case for the monarchy

In a culture that tends toward populism and moral relativism, what the coronation says is, ironically, radically prophetic, writes Nigel Biggar.

Nigel Biggar

Nigel Biggar is Regius Professor Emeritus of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Pusey House, Oxford.

A uniformed Prince Charles sits on a throne reading a speech, beside a crown resting on a cushion

In May 2022, the then Prince Charles delivers a speech in the House of Lords.

Judging by a recent YouGov poll, the monarchy currently remains popular among the British, with 58 per cent supporting its continuation and only 26 per cent preferring an elected head of state. But support drops dramatically with age: 38 per cent of those aged 18-24 would like to abolish the monarchy, while only 32 per cent want to keep it.

If the monarchy is to survive beyond the reign of King Charles III, therefore, a strong case in its favour needs to be articulated. It needs to be justified in terms of political well-being. Can this be done? I believe so. Monarchy as we now have it—with its executive powers entirely transferred to elected members of parliament (except in case of constitutional crisis)—makes important contributions to political health. For sure, most of these are symbolic; but symbols can represent important truths and serve important functions.

First, by embodying a reassuring continuity and stability, monarchy enables society to cope with change. Thus, far from fostering conservatism during her seventy-year reign, the late Queen Elizabeth actually presided over huge cultural, social, and political change.

Thanks to their monarchy, the British are spared the predicament of those Americans who loathed the politics of Donald Trump, while having to respect him as the symbolic representation of their nation.

Second, the distinction between the monarchical head of state and the prime ministerial head of government makes it easier to tell criticism of government policy from a lack of patriotic loyalty—easier than in an American presidential system, where the symbolic head of the nation and the head of government are one and the same. Thanks to their monarchy, the British are spared the predicament of those Americans who loathed the politics of Donald Trump, while having to respect him as the symbolic representation of their nation.

Next, it’s good to have a head of state who, being unelected, can transcend party-politics and use her patronage to support civil society, thus reminding us (and politicians) that there is far more to public life than elections, parliamentary debates, and legislation.

But there is yet a further benefit, which is more principled, more Christian, and more fundamentally important than any of the others. A good political constitution certainly needs a part where rulers are made sensitive and accountable to those they rule—that is, an elected legislature that can hold government to account and stop it in its tracks. A good constitution needs a democratic element. After all, according to a biblical and Christian view, rulers exist to serve the ruled: kings are expected to be shepherds of their people.

Nevertheless, a Christian view is not naïve about the people. It does not suppose that the popular will, as expressed in majority vote, is always right and just. After all, it was the people (the laos as in ‘laity’) who bayed for Jesus’ blood in the Gospels, and it was the people (the demos as in ‘democracy’) which, according to the Acts of the Apostles, responded to the Christian persecutor, Herod, by lauding him as a god (Acts 12.21). If kings can be sinners, then so can the people. Hitler, remember, was elected by due democratic process.

What this means is that a healthy political constitution should be more than simply democratic. In addition to an elected House of Commons, it needs other parts too, to balance it. It needs to be mixed. For example, it needs a House of Lords composed of a wide range of experts and leaders of civil society (including the Church of England). That is, it needs an aristocracy of wisdom, not of land, which can only be secured by appointment, not popular election.

The heir to the throne gets on his knees to receive the crown—the symbol of his authority—not from below but from above, not from the fickle people but from the constant God.

And it also needs a monarch, who symbolises the accountability of the whole nation, rulers and ruled, kings and people, to the given principles of justice. At base these principles are not human inventions. They are not the passing creatures of popular whim or majority vote. They are given in and with the created nature of things. And this is exactly what the coronation ritual says, when the heir to the throne gets on his knees to receive the crown—the symbol of his authority—not from below but from above, not from the fickle people but from the constant God.

Contrary to what now passes for democratic common sense, the moral legitimacy of government does not lie in popular consent. It cannot, since the will of the people can be corrupt. Rather, moral legitimacy lies in the conformity of law and policy to the given principles of justice and prudence—to which the people might or might not adhere. Popular consent is vital, if law and government policy is to have any effective social authority, but it does not establish its moral legitimacy. This is a very important and fundamental political truth, which is rarely spoken nowadays, but which the coronation ritual speaks. And in a culture that tends toward populism and moral relativism, what the coronation says is, ironically, radically prophetic.

In sum, then, I do think that there are good reasons—some of them directly Christian—to support the kind of monarchy we now have. However, on the question of how much public money should be used to support it, or how many members of the royal family should be supported, I am agnostic. And I don’t suppose that a monarchical republic is the only decent kind of republic. Nonetheless, I do think that monarchy can confer some important and distinctive political benefits; and if we are to continue to enjoy them—if Prince George is to find a throne awaiting him—then we had better bring to mind what they are.

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Ethics

Freedom

War & peace

25 August 2025

4 min read

There’s light and darkness in journalism’s truth game

“There’s your truth, there’s my truth and there’s the truth.”

George Pitcher

George is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and an Anglican priest.

A church altar holds commemorative frames of killed journalists

The Journalists’ Altar.

The Journalists’ Altar at St Bride’s church, on London’s Fleet Street, bears the Perspex tombstones of reporters and their colleagues who have died in wars and conflicts around the globe, in the act of bringing news to us.

This solemn memorial is joined by new ‘stones’s for Anas al-Sharif and his four-man crew from Qatar-based al-Jazeera, who were killed in a targeted strike on their tents at the gates of the Al-Shifa hospital in eastern Gaza City.

It was worth checking that they’re included on the altar, as there’s the sneaking suspicion that someone might have decided that honouring them in this way would be inappropriate or even inflammatory. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF), who killed them, would certainly take this view, having described al-Sharif, one of the few television correspondents bravely to have remained in northern Gaza, as a “terrorist” who “posed as a journalist.”

Journalist rights groups, such as the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), as well as, unsurprisingly, Al Jazeera itself counter that this is baseless. The CPJ adds “there is no justification for [the] killing.”

Of course there isn’t. Al Jazeera is pro-Arab and consequently pro-Islam and, therefore, anti-Israel. Al-Sharif may have had links with Hamas in the past, but he and his colleagues were demonstrably non-combatant. If we start killing journalists who are biased against us, we’re entering very dark moral territory indeed.

I worked for The Observer when it was owned by conglomorate Lonrho and it promoted proprietor Tiny Rowland’s best interests in Africa and in his battle with Mohammed Al-Fayed for ownership of Harrods. News Corporation’s titles aren’t famous for exposing and criticising the activities and opinions of the Murdoch family.

It might be a stretch for even their fiercest critics to suggest that Rowland or the Murdochs had committed acts of terrorism, but the point is that journalism, good or bad, is never truly independent. That al-Sharif and his friends had associations with Hamas is largely irrelevant. Indeed, journalists must have contacts with the dark side.

If we’re at risk for our allegiances, then it’s not just us but freedom itself that is under threat. Imagine if we could be arrested for sympathising with supporters of Palestine Action, currently a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK. That, worryingly, begins not to sound too farfetched.

Journalism, when it works properly, shines as a light in the world’s darkness, revealing what’s really going on. It’s what makes it a less trivial professional activity than many other walks of life. The Journalists’ Altar bears testament to that.

The light shining in darkness is central to the Christian tradition, revealed in the prose poetry of the opening sequence to John’s gospel (a line of which appears on the Journalists’ Altar). It is inextinguishable, exists only because darkness exists and is revealed in the human capacity for love, the triumph of hope over despair and lives led self-sacrificially.

That’s way too much freight for humble old journalism to carry. But it is true that journalism shines a light in human affairs, the better to reveal what lies in the darkness so that we can examine it. In that endeavour, it shares an interest in truth

A late and lamented Observer desk editor of mine once told me dolefully, when I wailed that lawyers were preventing a story I knew to be true, that “there’s your truth, there’s my truth and there’s the truth.” I don’t think he meant to mark the difference between subjective and an objective, absolute truth, but he did define the truth game that we’re in.

As it took Gaza’s territory, Israel’s government long ago ceded its moral ground – quite an achievement given the scale of the atrocities committed by Hamas on Israel’s people on 7 October 2023. It simply cannot afford to allow the light of what is true to shine in the darkness of Gaza. So, it bans foreign correspondents from reporting from within the Strip.

“Democracy dies in darkness” has been the slogan of The Washington Post since 2017, a line it lifted from its Watergate heritage. There’s been a fair bit of chortling and downright rage at this conceit since its newish proprietor, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, declined to allow the Post to back the Democrat candidate against Donald Trump at the last US election (those pesky owners again).

But it’s not really democracy that dies in the dark. It’s just that we can’t see in the dark. We need light to do that. Journalism, for all its weaknesses and absurdities, provides some of that light. Israel, Gaza and the deaths of five Al Jazeera journalists show that it’s a light that isn’t inextinguishable. That’s more than a worry.

Al Jazeera’s anchor Tamer Almisshal nailed it: “Israel, by killing and targeting our correspondents and team in Gaza, they want to kill the truth.” Our democracies need to ensure that doesn’t happen.

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