The unfortunate effect that monarchy can have on normally sensible people and institutions was illustrated this week by a Financial Times story. The newspaper’s correspondent reported on the decision of the Netherlands government to significantly reduce that country’s “welfare state”.
The report was headlined “King’s speech to parliament heralds end of Dutch welfare state”. Although such policy changes are no more decided by the king of the Netherlands than they are by Lizzie Windsor in the UK, that headline was at least factually correct.
But reporter Matt Steinglass began his report with a statement that Willem-Alexander Ferdinand (the monarch referred to) “has made his first annual appearance before parliament one to remember” by making such a significant announcement. In fact the speech was written for him by the Prime Minister. It was therefore the PM who made the speech one to remember. The king was just a puppet.
Only in the fourth paragraph, after referring to Ferdinand’s golden carriage and the “outrageous hats” worn my MPs, did the reporter get around to telling his readers that it was really the Prime Minister’s speech.
Steinglass continued to refer to the “king’s speech” even after reporting that the prime minister had written it. He also told readers that “The speech quickly proved the most controversial annual address by the monarch in years, evoking far more opposition than those given by King Willem-Alexander’s mother, the former Queen Beatrix”. One might be forgiven for thinking that it was the monarchs, not the governments, which had caused the controversies.
The FT journalist went on to say that “The speech by the king falls in line with efforts by the government, a coalition between Mr Rutte’s centre-right Liberals and the centre-left Labour party, to portray austerity measures as a matter of responsibility and historical necessity”. It seems fair to ask how it could not have fallen in line in that way as it was nothing less than a statement of the governing coalition’s intentions.
Ferdinand was really an irrelevancy. But for the FT he was the tops with seven references against only three to the prime minister. The fairy tale world of kings, carriages and hats had pushed the realities and responsibilities of political policy making into the background.