Official Report search · Parliament Workbench

Chamber

Plenary, 16 May 2002

16 May 2002 · S1 · Plenary

Item of business

Golden Jubilee

Sheridan, Tommy SSP Glasgow Watch on SPTV

It may be hard to believe, but the Queen and I have certain things in common. Some members may recall that a number of years ago I was condemned as a tax dodger because I refused to pay my poll tax. Now the Queen has launched her own, one-woman, mass non-payment campaign by refusing to pay the £20 million inheritance tax that is due on her estate. I am sure that MSPs—particularly those who condemned me as a tax dodger for refusing to pay a £300 poll tax bill—will join me in condemning the Queen as a tax dodger and support my amendment, which calls on her to stump up the tax that she owes.

I am also sure that many MSPs—especially on the Labour and SNP benches—are squirming with embarrassment at the sycophantic, servile, forelock-tugging motion that their party leaders are asking them to support. Jack McConnell and John Swinney proudly describe themselves as modernisers. However, any genuine moderniser in the Parliament would back my amendment, which is about rejecting a feudal institution that is based on blood, ancestry and inherited privilege and power.

I will quote what a Scottish Labour politician said about the Queen's jubilee. He said:

"The throne is the symbol of oppression ... The throne represents the power of caste. Round the throne gather the unwholesome parasites. The toady who crawls through the mire of self-abasement to enable him to bask in the smile of royalty is ... the victim of a diseased organism".

Those are strong words. They are the words not of Tony Blair but of Keir Hardie, the founder of Mr McConnell's party. They come from his speech in 1897 on Queen Victoria's jubilee. Keir Hardie might have worn a cloth cap and sported a big beard, but he was a real modernising politician.

Keir Hardie was some 80 years ahead of Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols and more than 100 years ahead of Scotland's four main leaders today, who in the 21st century still fawn after an institution that was already well past its sell-by date in the 19th century. The royal family has a place in modern society, but I suggest that that place is in Madame Tussaud's or perhaps in the National Museum of Scotland next to the dinosaurs.

In the Parliament, we have heard moving renditions of songs that are anthems to democracy and egalitarianism: "A Man's a Man for a' that", which lampoons royalty and aristocracy, and "The Freedom Come All Ye", with its vision of a Scottish republic in which all are equal. Let us not just sing songs about democracy and equality but stand up for genuine democracy and equality. I ask members to support the amendment.

I move amendment S1M-3103.1, to leave out from "congratulates" to end and insert:

"believes that the position of Her Majesty the Queen and the monarchy represent the worst excesses of the extreme inequality of wealth and power which undermine society as a whole; calls on Her Majesty the Queen to pay full inheritance tax on the estate left to Her by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and believes that Scotland's future is as an independent republic where the people are sovereign and are recognised as citizens, not subjects as is the case currently under our archaic and outdated monarchy arrangement."