I know everyone’s making jokes about it but also as a british citizen it is just so Fucking weird to see how the country stops when a royal dies. this man was almost a hundred years old. the news story begins and ends at ‘very elderly man dies after being ill for a long time’. and yet it’s EVERYWHERE. as if it was remotely unexpected. as if it actually affects the people in this country. every kind of broadcasting stops in its tracks and talks about this and only this, on and on, tributes, memorials, the same things again and again. when all that’s happened is an old man has died. and people consider it disrespectful if you’re not interested in it - disrespectful, to not grieve for a complete stranger! to treat his death with the exact level of engagement you would any other person you didn’t know!
it just kind of feels like a wake-up moment to how fucking backwards this country is. you realise that every single media outlet has been feeding you the idea that these people are more important and monumental than anyone else. you realise they’ve been pushing that on you for your whole life. in the year of 2021 we are still their subjects and we are still expected to care about the royals as though they have a single fucking thing to do with us
Jeremy Corbyn is the ex leader of the Labour Party, in case you thought he tweeted something rude about Prince Philip, he didn’t. This was the tweet in question:
Its simply not about Prince Philip. And it was posted after the news had broken, and that is the reason for said backlash. It has been reported in multiple national news papers that Jeremy Corbyn tweeted about something else after the Prince was already dead.
We have now entered into our 8 day mourning period, and the government will soon offer guidance as to how public bodies should proceed. Yes you heard that correctly we all need governmental guidance for dealing with the death of a 99 year old most have never met. The standard rules involve local governments ceasing operation during this time.
It is absolutely everywhere, every single radio station, news report, newspaper, magazine, television show HAS to be talking about it 24/7 right now. Went to watch BBC iplayer last night and every recommendation is about Prince Philip.
I feel like a broken record but I really cannot stress this enough, he was 99. You don’t even need to have any negative sentiments towards the royals to realise this is not actually a particularly dramatic or tragic occasion. And yet it brings the whole country to a ridiculous standstill.