Within the space of a week, we have seen the appointment of a new Prime Minister, and the ascension of a King following the death of a much loved monarch. Queen Elizabeth II is the longest serving monarch the UK or England has ever had. During her 70-year reign she has presided over a changing country in an evolving world. Prime ministers and Presidents have come and gone, and she remained serenely in place. The majority of people in the UK have known no other monarch, and many will take some time to adjust to their even being a King. Though we have a constitutional monarchy where the King or Queen wields no real power, they do have a significant amount of influence, or soft power. A leadership conducted behind the scenes, but no less effective for that. In my opinion Queen Elizabeth conducted herself with grace, and poise throughout, and I think most people will remember her with fondness. Charles has been waiting and preparing for a long time for his new role as King. He does have a hard act to follow, as his mother was so widely respected, and because she has been such a fixture of British state life, but I wish him well in his new position. The change of Prime Minister is likely to have more impact on our everyday lives than the change of monarch, but for now this is overshadowed by Elizabeth’s death.
A smooth transfer of power is important for the continuity of any state. All people’s, no matter what their political views may be, need to come together to ensure the business of making and enforcing agreed upon laws continues. We saw this almost come unstuck in America in January 2021, and if it had, our whole world would be a very different place than it is today.
Lost behind the visual spectacle and the symbolism is the important truth that any group of humans working together must have a set of rules by which they organise their lives. Virginia Satir was a family therapist who was modelled in the creation of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). One of the things she said about families is that they have rules, acknowledged or not, by which life operates. Growing up in my family we knew that mum was in charge, because whenever there was a disagreement about how to proceed, it was mum’s view that eventually prevailed. Therefore, as a child I understood who was in charge, and who to keep on the right side of. One problem in families is when the rules are not discussed and when they are also not agreed upon. Who looks after the money, who makes financial decisions, who does the cooking, who does the cleaning, the ironing etc. For a happy household these rules need to be discussed and agreed by all interested parties. As with households so with nations. We do need a process of making rules, laws, about how the country operates. In the UK we have a constitutional monarch, who is the Head of State. That is one who has no real power, but as I said plenty of influence. We then have a parliament, from the French word parler, which means to speak. This parliament, with its parties and representatives of the people makes the laws that we all live by. You don’t have to agree with all these laws, but we all know what the process is for changing them. It has a good degree of transparency. And in the UK this system has worked very well for hundreds of years.
I teach personal development. One of the tenets of this is the idea of personal power. I frequently say to people that, you have all the power to create the life that you want. Because you do. What you want to notice about this is that we naturally give some of our power to our political process. We have transferred some of our power to it. I think that is okay, providing you know you’ve done it and providing you pay attention to and participate in that political process. After all the alternative is anarchy. So, as we witness the British version of a double transfer of political power, just remember where all the real power lies, because it’s all still in you.
“Politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.” Charles de Gaulle
