BBC, (2008). Should we have a monarchy? [online]. Available at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/studentlife/debate/2008/46_shouldwehaveamonarchy.shtml [Accessed: 22 January 2013].
Danker, G., (2012). Do We Really Need the Monarchy? [online]. The BLOG. Available at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/the-cambridge-union-society/monarchy-do-we-really-need-it_b_1641067.html [Accessed: 16 January 2013].
Debatewise, (N/A). Should Britain scrap the monarchy? [online]. Available at:
http://debatewise.org/debates/1835-should-britain-scrap-the-monarchy/ [Accessed: 24 January 2013].
Donna, (2007). Why does England even HAVE a monarchy still? [online]. Yahoo answers. Available
at: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070831174425AA4sAKj [Accessed: 22 January 2013].
Easton, M., (2012). Why does the UK love the monarchy? [online]. BBC News UK. Available at:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18237280 [Accessed: 22 January 2013].
Education Service, (N/A). The monarch and parliament [online]. Available at:
http://www.parliament.uk/education/online-resources/parliament-explained/monarch-and-parliament/ [Accessed: 10 January 2013].
Glover, J., (2011). Monarchy still broadly relevant, Britons say [online]. The Guardian. Available at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/24/monarchy-still-relevant-say-britons [Accessed: 20 January 2013].
History Times, (2013). Timeline of English Monarchs (1066 – Present Day) [online].
Available at: http://www.history-timelines.org.uk/people-timelines/31-timeline-of-english-monarchs.htm [Accessed: 10 January 2013].
Jacker, S., (2008). Does Britain still need a monarchy? [online]. Yahoo! Inc. . Available at:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080712134229AAJgfXa [Accessed: 20 January 2013].
Jenkins, S., (2011). What’s the point of the monarchy? [online]. Prospect. Available at:
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/what%e2%80%99s-the-point-of-the-monarchy/ [Accessed: 17 January 2013].
MacLeod, H., (2012). The British monarchy in 2012 – is it important or not? [online]. You Gov plc.
Available at: http://yougov.co.uk/news/2012/05/28/british-monarchy-2012-it-important-or-not/ [Accessed: 17 January 2013].
Pendleton, D. et al. (2008). The Top 15 Wealthiest Royals [online]. Forbes.com. Available at:
http://www.forbes.com/global/2008/0901/038.html [Accessed: 2 January 2013].
Politics.co.uk, (2013). Monarchy [online]. Available at:
http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/monarchy [Accessed: 24 January 2013].
Royal Household at Buckingham Palace, (2008). The role of the monarchy [online].Available
at:http://www.royal.gov.uk/monarchuk/howthemonarchyworks/howthemonarchyworks.aspx [Accessed: 10 January 2012].
Smith, M., (2012). Does Britain still need a monarchy? [online]. The.squabble.com. Available at:
http://thesquabble.com/politics/does-britain-still-need-the-royal-family/ [Accessed: 10 January 2013].
Socialist Worker, (2011). Does a monarchy make a difference? [online]. Available at:
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=24617 [Accessed: 22 January 2013].
Sodahead (2011). Who pays the Queen of England? Why do they still have a monarchy, and do they
have jobs to pay for the big wedding of William and Kate? [online]. SodaHead. Available at: http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/who-pays-the-queen-of-england-why-do-they-still-have-a-monarchy-and-do-they-have-jobs-to-pay-for-t/question-1544679/ [Accessed: 22 January 2013].
Evaluation
My project achieved the intended outcome in that I managed to find more weight in the arguments for a monarchy than those against. However there are some parts in my project that I could have done better.
When deciding the topic for my extended project I had to consider some important factors like the relevance of the topic to my current and future studies and personal interest. As I study Economics, Politics, Maths and Accounting A-levels I thought that my project title must be anything connected to those subjects. I also considered my future study: Government and Politics faculty at university. Looking at those factors initially I thought about writing a project about the economic situation of my country. Initially I thought that it would be an interesting topic to write about which it actually is, referring to that my personal interest was huge about this topic because I would like to make a proper research about the situation of my country today, however later I recognised that it is a much wider and spread issue than I thought it was. Hence, I had to think of something smaller and more specific. I then remembered that there is a constitutional monarchy in the UK and it would be interesting to investigate the issue of relevance of the monarchy today. This was an effective choice of title because it satisfied all of my requirements which were, firstly, being relevant to my current subjects at college – Economics and Politics, and the future study – Government and Economics, and secondly, my personal interest in the subject was huge, as I study in the country where this topic has been relevant all the way through many centuries and has become an issue for a number of debates between the monarchists and the republicans.
I have learnt from this research that the monarchy is important for British nation politically, economically and socially. I now know that the Royal family gives happiness to the nation, therefore I think it is important for the British to have the monarchy. But I also learnt that economically it is not as important as socially and that the British taxpayers spend a huge amount of money for the Royal family which is not that fair. In my conclusion I support the existence monarchy because it is the national symbol without which the British will not be same.
The most important part of my research was my primary research. Even though I have had only two personal talks to specialists in politics and history, I was lucky to have them both with different points of view so that I could investigate the question from both the monarchist and the republican sides. Hence I could evaluate the information given by the interviewees and decide what I thought. Another reason why I think the primary research was the most effective part is that I could rely on the given by the specialists’ because they have read extensively about British politics and have strong arguments to support their opinions. Moreover they are the inhabitants of the UK so they were giving me the answers relying on their personal views as well what is important as I wanted to know how the monarchy affects the lives of ordinary people as well.
The parts of my project which worked well are the introduction and the literature review, because I found them easiest to write. As I read a lot about the monarchy during my secondary research it was not hard for me to introduce the reader to the topic of monarchy using simple facts and some definitions from the sources I have found. The literature review was done well too, because I simply needed to put the information I have found from the secondary research in order so that it could explain the positives and the negatives of the monarchy.
Even though I am satisfied with the work I have done all the way through creating my project, there are some parts of the project that I wish I could have done differently. One of them was conducting my secondary research. As this is the first project I have ever done, while evaluating the information found I did not put all the words into my own, because I did not realize that it would be much easier for me to paraphrase the information during the secondary research and not when it comes to writing the literature review. Therefore I spent a considerable amount of time reading again and paraphrasing the information. A similar situation happened while creating the actual essay. I should have created a plan of organising the paragraphs by topic because when I started writing the essay I found the information difficult to organise logically and I then needed to put it in order which also took more time than it could have taken if I had planned sufficiently.
My time management was not as perfect as I wanted it to be. That was mainly because of the lessons that I have had apart from the Extended Project and the exam preparation for the other lessons. I was also not realistic while creating the project plan so I did not always meet the deadlines in time. I found myself unusually organised at the end of my project. That was because of a high pressure was put on me in the end. In the future I will need to try to find a way for pushing me forward, so that my time management will improve.
From this project I have learnt to manage time: I understood that it is important to be realistic whenever investigating something or even just preparing for exams. The reason for this is that while being realistic it is easier to start on time and not be late at the end. I also learnt to write essay without using informal language, so I think that my English level has risen. I learnt to find relevant information and to determine whether the information is biased and has any assumptions. I learnt how to work with internet sources: finding the publishers, authors and the dates published of the information in the source. I now know how to work on projects of different types because of the presentations given by my classmates, who have done design and performance as well.
I have found that I am good at finding relevant information, because I have used information from almost all of my twenty one evaluations of sources. Unfortunately I found that I need to improve my time management skills. Meeting deadlines was the most difficult aspect.
I think that the results of my research are quite reliable because I have looked at a wide range of sources involving a wide range of time – from 1066 to the present day. I have had personal talks with specialists who gave me reliable information as specialists could give me as much reasonable opinions as they could. I tried to put the information in my essay without changing the meaning and I think that I managed to do that well.
I think that my conclusion is reliable because I have tried to look as objectively as I could at the arguments for and against so that I could give a reasoned answer to the question.
This project has helped me in many aspects of understanding the issue of monarchy. I have looked at many poll data, personal views of the British and have interviewed specialists. I have investigated a long timeline so that I could clearly see the monarchy developing through time. Now I have a much wider concept of what monarchy is and why it still exists.
It is easier for some skills like time management and academic language to develop while writing essays or projects. Hence, this project has helped to improve my academic English language skills and taught me to manage my time carefully.
This project will be useful for my future studies as I want to do Government and Economics faculty at university so this is an important addition to my studies in preparing to enter the university.
Project Proposal form
Learner Name
SHAKENOVA, Lyazzat
Learner number
0107
Centre Name
Bellerbys College Cambridge
Centre Number
22179
Teacher Assessor
Anne Dorey
Date
6/12/2012
Unit
P301 Dissertation
Proposed project title
Does the UK still need a monarchy?
Section One: Title, objective, responsibilities
Title or working title of project (in the form of a question, commission or design brief)
Does the UK still need a monarchy?
Project objectives (eg, what is the question you want to answer? What do you want to learn how to do? What do you want to find out?):
I want to find out whether people agree to have a monarchy any more.I want to explore the effects of the monarchy on the country’s economic position.I hope in my project to see how several different subject areas can be linked together in this question, to be more precise - politics and economics.
If it is a group project, what will your responsibilities be?
This is not a group project.
Section Two: Reasons for choosing this project
Reasons for choosing the project (eg, links to other subjects you are studying, personal interest, future plans, knowledge/skills you want to improve, why the topic is important):
I am studying Politics and Economics A levels. I would like to study Economics and Government at university in the UK and I think that this topic will help and give me an advantage in my future study because it is multi-faceted and is relevant to my future study as involves both economic and political issues. When I was a child I used to be excited that there were still monarchs ruling some countries. When I discovered in my politics lessons that actually they do not really rule anymore, I found it interesting to explore what real position the monarchy maintains in the UK nowadays and what people think about the royal family. This project will give me a chance to find out why monarchy in the UK still exists and help to understand whether I think the UK should or shouldn’t have a monarchy any more.
Section Three: Activities and timescales
Activities to be carried out during the project (eg, research, development and analysis of ideas, writing, data collection, numerical analysis, rehearsal techniques, production meetings, production of final outcome, administration, evaluation, preparing for the presentation, etc):
Project planning: I am going to do some initial research to decide on my final project titleResearch: I am going to do my secondary research by the use of books in the local library and try to find some books in the internet which are relevant to my topic. I am going to write the notes which I will be making while doing the secondary research up as the research section of my project. I am also intending to historical background to my topic as wellDevelopment and analysis of ideas: I will need to spend some time to evaluate the information a have found in order to develop my ideas for the discussion section of my project with both arguments and counter-argumentsOther sections of the project: I will do the introduction, conclusion and evaluation as wellEditing: I will re-draft my project after having feedback from my project tutor-assessorPreparing for the presentation: I will plan, practise and give my oral presentation.
How long this will take:
1 week5 weeks6 weeks2 weeks3weeks1 week
Milestone one: submit project first draft
Target date (set by tutor-assessor): w/c 11 March 2013
Milestone two: deadline extended project
Target date (set by tutor-assessor): 19 April 2013
Section Four: Resources
What resources will you need for your research, write up and presentation (eg, libraries, books, journals, equipment, rehearsal space, technology and equipment, venue, physical resources, finance):
I am going to use my school library and hopefully the library in the local universityI will use internet resources which are relevant to my topicI will use technology and equipment such as dictaphone and computer in my primary researchI will use my AS politics textbookI will use books that I have already found in my school library such as
Clarke, P. (1997) Britain 1900 – 1990 (History of Britain); Viking Adult.
Christopher, D. (1999) British Culture: An Introduction; Routledge.
Jones, B. (1997) Politics UK; Prentice Hall.
What your areas of research will cover?
I am going to explore the history of monarchy in the UKI am going to find information about the royal family todayI am going to look at the nation’s opinions of the royal familyI am going to look at whether the UK’s political and economic position is affected by the existence of the monarchy
Comments and agreement from tutor-assessor
Is the learner taking this project as part of the Diploma? Yes/No
If yes, which Diploma are they taking? ______________________________________________
Comments (optional):
Is project derived from work which has been/will be submitted for another qualification? Yes/No
Which qualification (title and unit)? _______________________________________________
Comments (optional):
I confirm that the project is not work which has been or will be submitted for another qualification and is appropriate.
Agreed: (name) (date)
Comments and agreement from project proposal checker
Comments (optional):
I confirm that the project is appropriate.
Agreed: (name) (date)
Plan
Lyazzat Shakenova
Extended Project Plan 16 Jan 2013
16-Jan
24-Jan
Conduct secondary research
20-Jan
30-Jan
Evaluating of Internet and printed sources
25-Jan
12-Feb
Write literature review, developing arguments
08-Feb
12-Feb
Produce rationale
12-Feb
19-Feb
Write primary research
20-Feb
28-Feb
Conduct primary research
28-Feb
05-Mar
Analyse data and write up primary research
05-Mar
10-Mar
write conclusion
11-Mar
Submit first draft of the project
18-Mar
28-Mar
write bibliography
29-Mar
15-Apr
Edit the project
29-Mar
15-Apr
write evaluation
Project Activity Log
Learner Name
SHAKENOVA Lyazzat
Learner number
Centre Name
Bellerbys College Cambridge
Centre Number
Unit Name
P301 Dissertation
Unit number
10/01/2013
Teacher Assessor
Anne Dorey
Proposed project title
Does the UK still need a monarchy?
This form should be used to record the process of your project and be submitted as evidence with the final piece of work.
You may want to discuss:
· what you have done (eg, from one week to the next)
· if you are working in a group, what discussions you have had
· any changes that you have or will need to make to your plans
· what resources you have found or hope to find
· what problems you are encountering and how you are solving them
· what you are going to do next
Date
Comments
6/12/2012
-
12/12/2012
I finished my project proposal form and started writing the plan.
13/12/2012
-
15/12/2012
Finished writing the plan and started doing the secondary research.
1/01/2013
Today I evaluated one internet source, which is about the history of the monarchy as a whole. I have found some interesting facts about the power of the monarch. I intent to put this information in the introduction.
2/01/2013
Today I have done one evaluation of internet resources. This was about the top 15 wealthiest royals around the world according to Forbes. In this list the Queen Elizabeth II is the 12th. This is to be written in the chapter in my essay about the expensiveness of the monarchy.
10/01/2013
Continue doing the secondary research.
I found four different resources three of which about the meaning of the royal family in today’s society and especially about the Queen. And one was about the history timelines.
They all are quite objective what is useful to start the project with, because it introduces in the current position of the royal family in the UK today.
16/01/2013
Today I have conducted and evaluated an internet source which is a blog about the necessity of the monarchy. This was an objective source with a poor bias. I have learnt a lot about the monarchy from this source because the author looked at all positives and negatives therefore I made some deductions from them.
17/01/2013
I rewrote my project plan today because I didn’t manage to do any secondary research on my Christmas holidays when I was in my own country because I spent the whole holidays in the village where my grandparents live and unfortunately they didn’t have any Internet access so I couldn’t conduct my secondary research.
Today I did two evaluations of internet sources. I evaluated them very carefully trying not to miss any of the main points that the author wanted to say. These evaluations are about the nation’s opinion of the Queen and both include answers from people all over the country to questions like “what do u think of the royal family and the Queen?”, “Do you think whether we should or shouldn’t have monarchy anymore?” so that I could point out what the nation thinks. I cannot judge yet as I haven’t done any primary research yet and don’t know the reasons why people like or don’t like monarchy in the UK.
20/01/2013
Today I have evaluated two of the resources found in which the issues of the Queen’s current position and the poll data were looked at. I have learnt from here that a measure proportion of people want monarchy and I can use these facts as arguments for in my essay.
22/01/2013
Today I have evaluated five internet sources, most of which were blogs. Hence I could make deductions about the national attitude because they sources were giving polling data and personal opinions, considering the authors were British. I have found a number of arguments for and against to write in my essay.
24/01/2013
Today I did one internet research which was a debate so it was quite useful for me to see how people argue about the monarchy so that I could evaluate all the benefits and the damages of the monarchy to the UK. I also evaluated five different types of printed resources which were varying in dates published between 1999 and the present day so I made some deductions about the monarchy changing in time.
7/02/2013
Today I have planned my dissertation structure. I intend to finish my literature review by the 13th of February. Also, today I have had the mid-term review with my teacher and where we discussed next steps of my project – dissertation plan, missing information in my research, what is the better way of organising the style of my dissertation and the main issues which could suit and describe my research topic best.
21/02/2013
I am continuing writing my literature review. In my plan I had to finish my literature review by the 12th of February, however I did not manage to finish on time because I had some important exams and therefore had to be fully concentrated on the preparation for those exams. I intent to finish my literature review by the 28th of February and at the same time conduct my primary research to catch up with my plan. Then I will write up my primary research according to the plan by 5th of March.
Today I have also discussed with my supervisor some important points that I have to consider in my literature review. We have revised things like the reporting language and how the literature review must be written, referencing so that escaping making plagiarism. We have also talked about the formal academic register. We spoke about how I am going to do my primary research and I have been given hand-outs with all of those important criteria which must be considered. After the discussion with my teacher I understood how I am going to write and organise the literature review and what way is best to do it.
25/02/2013
Today I have re-read all the information that I have. I have finished the history of the monarchy and the current situation. I think that I need some more things to write in those sections tomorrow.
26/02/2013
Today I have written roughly about another 500 words. I started doing the sectors of opinions and attitudes and the arguments for. I still intend to add some more to the two previous sectors about the history and the current position of the monarchy. On Friday I will talk to my teacher in Politics about the monarchy. This will be a part of my primary research.
27/02/2013
I have written another 1000 words today in my literature review. Currently I have 2200 words in my literature review. I am going to correct them as soon as I cover all of my 20 internet resources. I have also prepared questions for my primary research. I will publish them on Survey Monkey and I will interview some of my teachers in Politics and History in order to have some specialist views as well. I will ask them the same questions because I want to compare the viewpoints of people who have actually read about it and have a specialist view and of those who do not really have any clear concept of what the benefits and downsides of monarchy are.
7/03/2013
I have spoken to my supervisor about the project presentation. I have learned some essential skills in order to make my presentation easy to understand and speak the way that will not make people feel bored. I have created a power point presentation first draft about the monarchy. I will add more information and pictures to the ppt. I will prepare my speech for the presentation and practice it with my supervisor in order to speak fluently during the presentation and not be nervous.
14/03/2013
Today I have finished editing my presentation. I also collected my essay from my teacher and we have discussed the mistakes I have made. I will send the edited essay to my teacher on the next week.
18/04/2013
Today I have been correcting my essay and evaluation of the project. I have structured my essay a bit more precisely. I have added some more sub-titles.
20/04/2013
I have done 22 evaluations of sources. I have written bibliography and the evaluation. I have collected the whole dissertation and ready to hand it in tomorrow to my teacher. I have had some problems with the layout of my project which my supervisor helped me to solve.
Evaluation of Printed Sources
Name of Book / Periodical
Politics
Publisher
Oxford university press
Date published
Author / Editor
Iain McLean, Alistair McMillan
ISBN / ISSN
978-0-19-920516-5
Title of Chapter / Article
Monarchism
Page numbers
Type of publication: textbook / encyclopaedia / gov’t / academic / political / religious / campaign / other
Evaluation of this source:
· fact 1 opinion
· objective 1 persuasive
· level of bias
· assumptions
· up-to-date?
· reliable?
This is an actual dictionary of politics thus consists of facts and is objective. It is not biased and there are no assumptions. It is up-to-date and I a reliable source.
Main points:
Monarchy originally meant ‘the rule of one’ but now it comes to be attached to the constitution of kingship (or queenship) that usually is being conceived as hereditary however the thing to consider is that such posts which we considered as monarchs e.g. Roman emperors, Holy Roman emperors, kings of Poland, were at least nominally non-hereditary.
Monarchism is a belief of necessity or desirability of monarchy. An extreme version of the word is a belief in a monarch which ruled but not really reigned and actually gained his authority by heredity. Contemporary monarchist usually support ‘limited monarchy’. Such people usually consider monarchy as the symbol of the state and think that it is good to have monarchy above the politics thinking that it keeps traditions of the nation.
Evaluation of Printed Sources
Name of Book / Periodical
Britain since 1945
Publisher
Routledge
Date published
Author / Editor
David Childs
ISBN / ISSN
0-415-39327-2
Title of Chapter / Article
Monarchy in crisis
Page numbers
293-294-295
Type of publication: textbook / encyclopaedia / gov’t / academic / political / religious / campaign / other
Evaluation of this source:
· fact 1 opinion
· objective 1 persuasive
· level of bias
· assumptions
· up-to-date?
· reliable?
There are both facts and opinions in this article. The article is persuasive and hugely biased and contains assumptions. It is up-to-date and is reliable because is going to be used in my arguments.
Main points:
When the Prince Charles divorced from Princess Diana after fifteen years of marriage, many of which were subjects to scandal and conflict, the Queen that in the future divorced wives of male descendants to the Sovereign would not be entitled to use the style Royal Highness. The whole story actually is a collapse to the myth about the Royal family. Actually his myth was held up with all the post-war prime ministers and started crashing in 1980 when the Royal family was surrounded by too much media attention. The economic difficulties of the country also brought difficulties in supporting the existence of the Royal family. The problem of the monarchist seems to be that they gave too much to the royal family in return for their stability, continuity, service and success.
The justification for retaining monarchy was just an accident of birth which gave the new-born wealth, massive status and great influence was that the Royal family should give the nation an example of a traditional values. However, by 1996 the Queen’s only sister, Margaret, was divorced, as was the Queens the only daughter, Princess Anne. Anne’s brother Andrew was from his wife Sarah and one other prince remained unmarried. There were rumours about Prince Philip, the Queen’s husband. Anne made history when she remarried in 1992. This was the first remarriage since Henry VIII. Therefore the royal family, which was supposed to be model of a moral family, was actually less stable and less able to cope with life than that an average British family did.
Since the Queen reached her 70 in 1996 there appeared a question of that whether she should retire or stay. But the trouble was that there were no such rules about the retirement of the Queen. The massive expenditure of space and time on the Royal family brought the question of more pressing issues which led foreigner to visit the country to make sure the seriousness of the British monarchy, particularly about the unreal arguments about British sovereignty and membership of the European Union.
Even more serious doubts were about is the country able to afford to pay the enormous sums for supporting the royal family. The monarch had paid tax until George V in 1930, and the Queen agreed to pay income taxes only in 1996. It is hard to imagine just how rich she was partly because of some of her admirers in the Establishment to obscure the sums involved. The royal yacht and the Queens flight was paid by the Ministry of Defence, the royal train was paid by the Ministry of Transport and so on. Few people could realise that even the clothes worn by the Queen and the royal family as a whole were paid by the taxpayers. According to the Independent (1996) Princess Margaret’s week in San Francisco in 1995 cost the taxpayer £7,200 for her clothes. Prince Edward’s tailor presented a bill of £2,200 for his four-day trip to Swaziland in 1993. And in the same year the Duchess of Kent’s four days in the Seychelles cost £4,300-worht of tailoring.
Supporters of the monarchy argued that these events helped to bring more tourists to the country, but were the French less able to attract tourists to Paris or were the USA unable to attract people to see the White House in Washington? Monarchists tried to bring the same argument about the export driving, well actually the highly successful countries such as Germany and South Korea and Taiwan managed without such help. And the Japanese monarchs were actually used a little as commercial ambassadors.
By 1996 the British monarchy kept losing is popularity fairly steeply in compare with that what was before, so that most of the nation picked up the question of reforming or at least scaling down the monarchy.
Evaluation of Printed Sources
Name of Book / Periodical
British Politics
Publisher
Oxford university press
Date published
Author / Editor
Dennis Kavanagh, David Richards, Andrew Geddes,
Martin Smith
ISBN / ISSN
0-19-926979-3
Title of Chapter / Article
Parliament
Page numbers
Type of publication: textbook / encyclopaedia / gov’t / academic / political / religious / campaign / other
Evaluation of this source:
· fact 1 opinion
· objective 1 persuasive
· level of bias
· assumptions
· up-to-date?
· reliable?
This is an objective type of source. It does not include any assumptions and is not biased at all. It is up-to-date, however is irrelevant to my topic as the information is scarce and narrow.
Main points:
The Queen’ Speech which is delivered at the beginning of each session and promises various ‘bills’, ‘legislations’, items for ‘discussion’, and proposals’ is an important ceremonial part of government. Some of the proposals which were eventually introduced by ministers may not have been mentioned in the Queen’s speech because were not anticipated when the speech was written maybe because were not considered important at the time of writing the speech. To become law a government bill must go through such a thing called the Whitehall ‘obstacle race’. When the department will recognise the bill acceptable it then will need to go circulate a draft proposal to other departments and to the Treasury. If the Cabinet agrees, the proposal goes to its Future Legislation Committee, then to Parliamentary Counsel, who will draft a bill. Finally, the bill will be included in the Queen’s Speech with the government’s other plans for the forthcoming session.
Evaluation of Printed Sources
Name of Book / Periodical
BBC History exclusive magazine
Publisher
Thames & Hudson
Date published
June 2008
Author / Editor
David Andress
ISBN / ISSN
N/A
Title of Chapter / Article
The World in Revolt
Page numbers
28-29-30-31
Type of publication: textbook / encyclopaedia / gov’t / academic / political / religious / campaign / other(journalistic)
Evaluation of this source:
· fact 1 opinion
· objective 1 persuasive
· level of bias
· assumptions
· up-to-date?
· reliable?
The article’s main source of information is historical events and history as whole, which are based on facts, therefore, the information written is not based on personal opinion. No persuasive statements have been noticed in text, thus, it is objective. The level of bias is low. It must be reliable because being a journal article means that the reliability has been reviewed by journal committee and other authors.
Main points:
In this article author tries to demonstrate how the events of 1789 were to deprive American, British and French people of the human rights and equality, meanwhile the concept of “freedom” was not certainly defined.
For many centuries slaves, enemies and victims of the French monarchy were tortured and struggled to gain inequality. However, on 14th July 1789, people in Paris attacked the royal fortress and showed their anger and rage to the regency in order to get the human rights. This event was an important spot in French history, when the ‘revolution’ took place and the French monarchy failed to become an absolute monarchy. Since then, The King Louis XVI constrainedly formed an equal and free society up to nowadays.
Meanwhile, Britain had been experiencing difficulties within the government, King George III had health problems and thus he handed the regency to the youngest Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. At that time, the United States appointed its first President George Washington in January 1789. Both countries were trying to figure out the meaning of ‘freedom’, its consequences and conditions. However in 1776 it had been already roughly defined, where it says that all men are subject to natural inherent human rights and are equal in terms of freedom, which include rights to enjoy the life and pursue happiness. Even though American government agreed on that statement and definition of ‘freedom’, it did not privileged slaves and Indian nations on its land. Whereas, earlier in November 1688 Britain introduced the ‘Glorious Revolution’ for the liberty and social equality. After a century, when Britain was celebrating its liberty in 1788, speaker encouraged French regency to forget the hostility between them and start working with freedom issues and its advantages. However, over some time, France experienced huge disputes with regards to the equality and human rights in the country. On one hand, there were different governmental institutions which defended civil liberty and were in favour of revolution. However, on the other hand, there were others who supported unwritten constituency. From the political authoritarian point of view, there must be a hierarchy in the country and privileged class of top people, but from the religious and moral view, God is the only one for everyone and all people are naturally equal. Despite of all supportive arguments in favour of monarchy, its supporters wanted it to be limited in privilege over other citizens and be accountable to public. All this confrontation started because French government was in debts and thus monarchy questioned the existence of human rights and freedom in France. Eventually, in August 1789 France agreed on total civil liberty and equality (Declaration of the Rights of Man).
Evaluation of Printed Sources
Name of Book / Periodical
Government and Politics in Britain
Publisher
Polity Press
Date published
Author / Editor
John Kingdom
ISBN / ISSN
0-7456-1720-4
Title of Chapter / Article
The Monarchy
Page numbers
338-339-340-341-342-343-344-345-346-347
Type of publication: textbook / encyclopaedia / gov’t / academic / political / religious / campaign / other
Evaluation of this source:
· fact 1 opinion
· objective 1 persuasive
· level of bias
· assumptions
· up-to-date?
· reliable?
This is an article with personal opinions however it is objective. It is a little biased and there are some assumptions which push you to think a certain way. It is not up-to-date however can be considered as reliable as it was written at the time of the current Queen.
Main points:
Nowadays the monarchy in the UK is constitutional, what means that even if the Queen is said to be reign, she does not rule. It is said that perhaps the last monarchy’s dying gasps were heard under Victoria.
The monarchy is a significant element in political culture thus it affects modern politics in many ways.
Today monarchy is distinguished by certain characteristics like hereditary, ceremony, political neutrality, expense and popularity.
In the British monarchy no one votes for the Head of State, and as other countries which also have monarchies like Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, Denmark and Norway, the British monarchy is unique in the degree to which the ceremonies have been preserved. The Queen does not vote for any of the political parties so she remains above the political fray and not expected to express partisan opinions. The monarchy does not come cheap. In 1761 George agreed to surrender the income from the Crown Estate, which is today worth £95 million a year, in exchange for a regular grant from Parliament, which was called The Civil List, to cover the expenditure which related to the monarch’s official duties. The same was under the Queen Elizabeth || - set at £7.9 million in a year up to ten years (does not include the upkeep of the five palaces and thee travel costs which were cost up to 2,500 official engagements annually which are met by Grants-in-Aid by Parliament). The royal yacht Britannia was the one of the most ostentatious expenditures by the royal family, which in addition to its annual running costs of some £2 million, required £5 million rent every three years. The Queens private expenditure is met from her own private fortune, and is estimated to be about £100 million. And apart from the two royal residences Sandringham and Balmoral, certain items are held not as private property but on behalf of the nation.
In November 1992, the destruction of Windsor Castle required £50-million from Conservative government. This was to be compensated by opening the Buckingham palace to a fee-paying public. In January 1997 the vulgar television debate about the Royals found around over 2.5 million telephone callers voicing the support of the royal family.
There are also such functions of the monarchy as:
Ceremonial – Walter Bagehot defined the expectations of British kingcraft in 1867, saying that the masses of Englishmen were not fit enough for the British government and that if the public knew how close they were to it, they would be surprised and maybe even tremble, the key point was that the monarchy was the façade which concealed the real processes of government from the uncomprehending masses.
The symbol of the nation – the monarch is able to actually symbolize the unity of the nation in a way that a party leader cannot. In some sense patriotism could become xenophobia which would be prudent if it could support the constitutional icon.
Head of the armed forces – the royal family frequently holds ceremonies with the military ranks and the armed forces taking part in them so they can show that they are actually independent from the politics.
Head of the Commonwealth – is an area where the authority of the Queen is not controlled by the PM. In 1987 the Queen showed her unpleasant feeling about Margaret Thatcher’s opposition to sanctions against apartheid South Africa.
Formal head of state - monarchy or not, any government requires a large element of formality.
Virtual regality – the monarchy can add some colour to the lives of people thus it helps to maintain social stability.
Moral leadership – the royal family is the example of family life for the nation. The role was to become the moral family when the Queen’s children started failing marriages and courted other scandals.
The throne behind the power – the Queen is said to have more experience of public life than any other political figure as she has been reigned for forty-five years surrounded by 10 different prime ministers.
While the supporters of the monarchy talk about it vitality and importance, the republicans say that monarchy is out of touch, they claim that it is a sense of vulgarization and that’s why the popularity of it is falling, they also say that the Royal family is dysfunctional and legitimates inequality as the British monarchy, unlike other constitutional monarchies, represents an “aristocratic iceberg of inherited wealth the survival of which is one of the political wonders of the world” thus legitimating elitism and helping capitalism to rise in the society. Republicans argue that the neutrality of the royals is an actual myth and all of these things bring to democratic deception of the country and the neutrality of the monarchs is not actually true because it is known that the Queen is the head of Aglican Church, long described as the Conservative party at prayer and that the Queen had difficult relationships with Margaret Thatcher.
The republicans say that the life experience of the Queen, despite the enthusiasm for Coronation Street, can hardly be said to bring her into contact with feelings of ordinary people. Her personal circle was remaining and consisting of aristocracy only According to Guardian 17 Aug. 1997 it was said that the popularity of the monarchy had fallen from 70% in 1994 to 48% in 1997. However this issue was then to be rising because of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. The idea of morality of the royal family became almost risible: the Princess Margaret denied herself marriage to Group Captain Peter Townsend because he was divorced, although she and three of the Queen’s children were themselves divorced. Moreover, the romance of the Prince Charles with his mistress Camilla Parker-Bowles while he was in marriage with Diana.
In Guardian 1993 David Hare, the playwright and polemicist, said “Because we do not have the guts to sweep the monarchy away, we shall do the only thing we dare. We shall mock them until they wish they had never been born.”
N/A not mentioned but written just before Royal Wedding 2012, so will refer to source date as 2012
Date accessed
10/01/2013
Type of site:
business / academic / charity / gov’t / journalistic /political / religious / campaign / blog / forum / education
Evaluation of this source:
· fact 1 opinion
· objective 1 persuasive
· level of bias
· assumptions
· up-to-date?
· reliable?
This is a political source and consists of personal opinion of the author. It is objective. It is not biased and has no assumptions. The date is not available but the site is supposed to be up-to-date because was written at the same time with the wedding of William and Kate. This source is considered reliable.
Main points:
The British Royal Family is one of the most famous families in the world and is headed by the Queen Elizabeth ||. Are role of the Queen and the future role of the royal family needed anymore?
The UK is a unitary state which consists of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each has its own parliament (apart from England) that is ultimately controlled by Britain’s central government, which is located in London at the Houses of Parliament. Here the current government, comprising of a “Cabinet” of 22 Ministers (Government department heads), are led by the Prime Minister who collectively run the country. The current elected prime minister is David Cameron with his coalition party of Conservative and Liberal Democrats parties. The Queen’s role is limited to nan-partisan functions, such as granting honours, the Queen’s speech, the annual opening of Parliament and welcomes a new Prime Minister after an election.
The Queen is also the Head of State of 16 of the 53 independent states of the Commonwealth, which includes Australia and Canada. Additionally, Her Majesty is also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.
The existence of the royal family in the UK benefits the country in different ways. The most obvious one is the economic impact. The history of the royal family, their residences and ceremonies attract loads of tourists. The upcoming Royal Wedding of William and Kate could generate an estimated £1 billion+ for the UK economy, which more than covers the £20 million cost of the event. Also the royal family does plenty of charitable works across the country and makes up the ‘face’ of the country as a whole.
However, British monarchy is undemocratic. The British monarch has not been elected and became a ‘head of the state’ just because of their parents. This is not reflected in our society where we encourage our children to better themselves by working hard and not marrying the social ladder. So is it fair for some people to live posh life just because they were born in a special family and for the others to struggle to survive?
Evaluation of Internet Sources
Name of Website
You Gov
What the world thinks
Title of Article
The British monarchy in 2012 – is it important or not?
Type of site:
business / academic / charity / gov’t / journalistic /political / religious / campaign / blog / forum / education
Evaluation of this source:
· fact 1 opinion
· objective 1 persuasive
· level of bias
· assumptions
· up-to-date?
· reliable?
There are quite a lot of different opinions in this source. This is an objective source because there are different opinions and views in this source. It is not biased but there are assumptions which I will consider in the main points. This source seems to be up-to –date because the copyright says that it covers the years 2000-2013. This source is reliable because there are different view from people all over the country which can be used in my dissertation.
Main points:
This is a source with different opinions and I think that the author did a similar type of resource with the same question as mine. Loads of people all over the country must have been answering this question before I try to find out whether the monarchy should exist or not. The main point here is that the author said that it seems like most of the people like democracy and only a little part of them don’t. Also, the author made assumptions as he said that most people insist on that monarchy should stay because people like it and the Royal family and the Queen.
As I said before, the majority of people want monarchy to exist in the UK bringing such arguments as that the monarchy represents stability, continuity and ethics. They also say that the Queen brings the entire nation together. One of the interviewed thinks that the whole nation would lose such a lot if they didn’t have the Queen and that the Queen has more historical knowledge than that the prime ministers do as she has seen it all before. “They do a pretty good job of representing us and are cheaper than some presidents. They take their job seriously and have the country's best interests at heart, which is more than can be said for some elected statesmen and women. … Having a hereditary head of state seems a bit archaic and undemocratic, but I guarantee that if any of them damaged our country or abuse their position in the future we would become a republic very swiftly. Because of this, we keep them in check, and they keep us in check.” says Eadwyn from Hampshire.
On the other hand, some people say that the existence of the royal family is just a waste of money and even time. All those invitations to lunches that most of people don’t want in the country at all have no need to be. They say that the royal family belong to elite that no one can afford and even if they do not need more than they have, they still take more, while most of other people all over the world just struggle to survive. People say that the monarchy is an absolutely undemocratic system, which favours people who are lucky enough to be born in a certain family and that they need more democratic system where all the citizens have spire to be the head of the state and not just one over-privileged family.
Type of site:
business / academic / charity / gov’t / journalistic /political / religious / campaign / blog / forum / education
Evaluation of this source:
· fact 1 opinion
· objective 1 persuasive
· level of bias
· assumptions
· up-to-date?
· reliable?
This is a source which includes opinions of different people over the country. Thus this is an objective type of source. It is hugely biased because the author already mentioned his/her opinion about the British monarchy. Even though there are no assumptions. It is not up-to-date but can be considered as a partly reliable source because the question of monarchy hasn’t been changed a lot since the time when the article was written.
Main points:
The Queen costs less than many presidents all over the world do. She costs on 66p per year per person while the president of Italy for instance cost £1.24 what almost twice as much. Even though she still represents the country and keeps it economic situation keeping the attention of loads and loads of tourists all over the world. All of the four persons who answered the question want monarchy to stay and giving such reasons as “Does Britain needs the monarchy? No but, more so than it needs you. If there was to be a referendum, the vote would be overwhelmingly in favour of it.. With all of its faults, it is still a better system than in many places.”, “Having a non-political head of state can be very useful. For example, if a tyrannical Prime Minister even managed to get to power, the monarch would be the only one who could remove such a PM and call an election. This is what happened in Thailand after the 1981 coup, when the King stepped in to restore democracy.”
