The Red Notebook

Plinth Charming

I've had a prominent link to it on the FOCD homepage for a couple of weeks now, but it occurs to me that I probably should also have written about it in the weblog…

There's an online petition to UK Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to commission a statue of Charles Darwin to occupy the vacant plinth in Trafalgar Square. The petition is for UK citizens/residents only. Get over there and sign it, you chaps! (And don't forget to put FCD after your names!)

Citizens! Doesn't Downing Street know there is no such thing as a British citizen? No, in this twenty-first of centuries, we are still officially British subjects (of Her Majesty).

Richard Carter, FCD | 09-Mar-2008 | x del.icio.us | Digg this
Comments:
The Englishman (FCD)

Much as I wish we were still subjects I'm afraid we are now citizens (there are only a few British Subjects - ""British subject" now has a very restrictive statutory definition, there is no problem with the word "subject" per se. Accordingly, nationals of countries of which Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is Head of State may still be referred to as "Her Majesty's subjects", while British nationals may accurately (if circuitously) be described as "subjects of Her Majesty in right of the United Kingdom".")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_subject 

09-Mar-2008 11:31
Richard Carter, FCD

Blimey! I stand corrected. According to the above-cited Wikipedia article:

From 1 January 1949, every person who was a British subject by virtue of a connection with the United Kingdom or one of her crown colonies became a Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies.

...so there is such thing as a UK citizen. As a staunch anti-royalist, this pleases me immensely. 

09-Mar-2008 13:18
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