Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

Yeah they don't make comments on her health very often so it must be quite serious.

And BBC One have apparently broken normal broadcasting to cover the Queen's health.

Edit: In the middle of Bargain Hunt by the looks of it:
https://twitter.com/scottygb/status/1567842011729756162?s=20&t=pSwPQsSZrfmo-4DihoTqUQ

[Josquius]

Wow, thats crazy. :shock:

[Tamas]

  That BBC report and interruption does make this sound very serious. I did notice on the photo with Truss she did not  look good.


What is going to be the expected protocol when she dies? I also mean for everyday life: will it be socially expected to stand down work or anything like that? I need to know I am a foreigner and I am constantly whipping people to work more.   

[Richard Hakluyt]

BBC will tell you what to do. It will be a big deal I think.

[Richard Hakluyt]

...and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_London_Bridge

[Sheilbh]

That BBC report and interruption does make this sound very serious. I did notice on the photo with Truss she did not  look good.

Also Charles and Camilla had apparently already travelled to Balmoral, but the rest of the royals are travelling now.

What is going to be the expected protocol when she dies? I also mean for everyday life: will it be socially expected to stand down work or anything like that? I need to know I am a foreigner and I am constantly whipping people to work more. 

The Guardian had an amazing long-read on this:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/16/what-happens-when-queen-elizabeth-dies-london-bridge

Geidt will contact the prime minister. The last time a British monarch died, 65 years ago, the demise of George VI was conveyed in a code word, "Hyde Park Corner", to Buckingham Palace, to prevent switchboard operators from finding out. For Elizabeth II, the plan for what happens next is known as "London Bridge." The prime minister will be woken, if she is not already awake, and civil servants will say "London Bridge is down" on secure lines. From the Foreign Office's Global Response Centre, at an undisclosed location in the capital, the news will go out to the 15 governments outside the UK where the Queen is also the head of state, and the 36 other nations of the Commonwealth for whom she has served as a symbolic figurehead – a face familiar in dreams and the untidy drawings of a billion schoolchildren – since the dawn of the atomic age.

For a time, she will be gone without our knowing it. The information will travel like the compressional wave ahead of an earthquake, detectable only by special equipment. Governors general, ambassadors and prime ministers will learn first. Cupboards will be opened in search of black armbands, three-and-a-quarter inches wide, to be worn on the left arm.

[...]

Screens will glow. There will be tweets. At the BBC, the "radio alert transmission system" (Rats), will be activated – a cold war-era alarm designed to withstand an attack on the nation's infrastructure. Rats, which is also sometimes referred to as "royal about to snuff it", is a near mythical part of the intricate architecture of ritual and rehearsals for the death of major royal personalities that the BBC has maintained since the 1930s. Most staff have only ever seen it work in tests; many have never seen it work at all. "Whenever there is a strange noise in the newsroom, someone always asks, 'Is that the Rats?' Because we don't know what it sounds like," one regional reporter told me.

All news organisations will scramble to get films on air and obituaries online. At the Guardian, the deputy editor has a list of prepared stories pinned to his wall. The Times is said to have 11 days of coverage ready to go. At Sky News and ITN, which for years rehearsed the death of the Queen substituting the name "Mrs Robinson", calls will go out to royal experts who have already signed contracts to speak exclusively on those channels. "I am going to be sitting outside the doors of the Abbey on a hugely enlarged trestle table commentating to 300 million Americans about this," one told me.

For people stuck in traffic, or with Heart FM on in the background, there will only be the subtlest of indications, at first, that something is going on. Britain's commercial radio stations have a network of blue "obit lights", which is tested once a week and supposed to light up in the event of a national catastrophe. When the news breaks, these lights will start flashing, to alert DJs to switch to the news in the next few minutes and to play inoffensive music in the meantime. Every station, down to hospital radio, has prepared music lists made up of "Mood 2" (sad) or "Mood 1" (saddest) songs to reach for in times of sudden mourning. "If you ever hear Haunted Dancehall (Nursery Remix) by Sabres of Paradise on daytime Radio 1, turn the TV on," wrote Chris Price, a BBC radio producer, for the Huffington Post in 2011. "Something terrible has just happened."

[...]

But there will be no extemporising with the Queen. The newsreaders will wear black suits and black ties. Category one was made for her. Programmes will stop. Networks will merge. BBC 1, 2 and 4 will be interrupted and revert silently to their respective idents – an exercise class in a village hall, a swan waiting on a pond – before coming together for the news. Listeners to Radio 4 and Radio 5 live will hear a specific formulation of words, "This is the BBC from London," which, intentionally or not, will summon a spirit of national emergency.

The main reason for rehearsals is to have words that are roughly approximate to the moment. "It is with the greatest sorrow that we make the following announcement," said John Snagge, the BBC presenter who informed the world of the death of George VI. (The news was repeated seven times, every 15 minutes, and then the BBC went silent for five hours). According to one former head of BBC news, a very similar set of words will be used for the Queen. The rehearsals for her are different to the other members of the family, he explained. People become upset, and contemplate the unthinkable oddness of her absence. "She is the only monarch that most of us have ever known," he said. The royal standard will appear on the screen. The national anthem will play. You will remember where you were.

It goes on.

[Josquius]

That BBC report and interruption does make this sound very serious. I did notice on the photo with Truss she did not  look good.


What is going to be the expected protocol when she dies? I also mean for everyday life: will it be socially expected to stand down work or anything like that? I need to know I am a foreigner and I am constantly whipping people to work more.   

Seize your local post-office and raise the republican tricolour.

https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/gb%7Drep.html

[Tamas]

That BBC report and interruption does make this sound very serious. I did notice on the photo with Truss she did not  look good.


What is going to be the expected protocol when she dies? I also mean for everyday life: will it be socially expected to stand down work or anything like that? I need to know I am a foreigner and I am constantly whipping people to work more.   

Seize your local post-office and raise the republican tricolour.

https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/gb%7Drep.html

I have made an oath to do no such thing. 

[The Brain]

Is Charles prepared for the national outcry of enthusiasm for his reign?

[Tamas]

Is Charles prepared for the national outcry of enthusiasm for his reign?

I agree with the article Sheilbh linked that her passing will be a watershed moment for the UK.

I keep thinking of Franz Joseph was in a lot of ways the last thing holding Austria-Hungary together at its seams, and maybe the Queen's passing will have a similar effect.

[Sheilbh]

I was thinking of Pope John Paul too - who was short-reigned in comparison - but also the only person I'd ever seen in that role. I'd guess for about 80% of Brits have only known one monarch.

[Syt]

Is Charles prepared for the national outcry of enthusiasm for his reign?

I agree with the article Sheilbh linked that her passing will be a watershed moment for the UK.

I keep thinking of Franz Joseph was in a lot of ways the last thing holding Austria-Hungary together at its seams, and maybe the Queen's passing will have a similar effect.

Maybe, maybe not. I guess there's little enthusiasm for King Charles, but if he declined in favor of William who seems reasonably popular? Then again, I don't know if he could live up to the status of "immovable institution" that his grandmother built over 60+ years.

[Syt]

I was thinking of Pope John Paul too - who was short-reigned in comparison - but also the only person I'd ever seen in that role. I'd guess for about 80% of Brits have only known one monarch.

It's with all long serving politicians/figures of the public, I suppose. I was ca. 6 when Helmut Kohl took office, and 22 when he was voted out, so I literally grew up with only one chancellor (and so has another generation, under Merkel).

[Josquius]

What I think will be curious with Charles is whether people accepted him as King George.
Yes, this may have been the norm for historic monarchs, but when he's such a well known figure as Charles...

[Tamas]

It goes beyond popularity, it is about being the last living symbol of the last golden age. The link to it will be severed on her death.