Sunday, October 30, 2011

Last In The Line Of Succession

I read yesterday that Spain is now the only country in Europe that doesn't give equal right of succession to the throne for men and women. This follows the UK having finally changed the situation so that the eldest child is the one who gets the right to live well at public expense, regardless of their sex. David Cameron describing this small change to a medieval hereditary institution as being a sign of modernity would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

The situation in Spain is of course different. It requires a change to the Spanish constitution and this, as we know from recent experience, is something that is incredibly difficult to achieve. Perhaps if Angela Merkel could be persuaded to write a letter to the Spanish government on the subject it might help to move things along?

3 comments:

Lee said...

I suspect this was part of Katie's pre-nup. Yawn. If they really want to reform the monarchy, just freaking abolish it.

leftbanker said...

Do these monarchs and enablers of monarchs know that it's 2011? The thing is, with America's runaway income inequality we've almost come full circle to the good old days of royals and serfs.

Now where did we put those guillotines?

Graeme said...

@Lee

I think even if William was to die in a freak accident at one of his brother's "let's celebrate genocide" fancy dress parties, Kate still wouldn't get the job. She would get a decent widows pension though. On the reform proposal I'm a bit torn between your solution and leftbanker's.