#LoveWins

LOVE always prevails: over bitterness, over competitiveness, over corporations, and over institutions too.

Ailing institutions, at their weakest point, lash-out at anyone that they perceive to be a threat to their power structure, and decry them as traitors. As the Roman politician Seneca once said "The route of all hate, is fear."

In many ways, the story of Harry and Meghan is the tale of collateral damage. Their marriage has strayed into the zone of trench-warfare that has been fought between the Tabloid Press and the Royal Family for many decades, and by refusing to align with one side of the other, they now find themselves taking fire from both sides.

If we take a step back, and try to make sense of the passive-aggressive relationship between The Press and The Palace, we find that they are co- dependent. The Tabloid Press needs a story that sells their papers, and The Palace needs to maintain the favour of the British public, via the media, in order to maintain their position of power.

It's a symbiotic death-spiral and a modern-day tragedy.

In order to solve the Harry and Meghan problem, one needs to remedy the relationship between The Palace and The Press, and that can only happen if the cycle of co-dependency between the two can be broken.

How can this be done? Well, the answer is conceptually simple, but also culturally painful - The Royal Family will have to subject themselves to some sort of electoral process, in order to gain a foundation of legitimacy. This new-found legitimacy, will then render them less vulnerable to the the whims of public opinion.

Of course, any discussion of democratisation  will be met with scorn by those invested in the current power structure; who, like the loyal supporters of Nicolae Ceausescu, never saw the end coming, nor predicted how quickly it would arrive.

What is needed, is a plan to let the Royal Family survive, and a system that keeps the British Monarchy alive.

Conceivably, one might do this by having a Parliamentary vote, on who should be the next Monarch, given a shortlist of candidates from within the Royal Family. Maybe a final winner is not chosen by the UK Parliament, but instead a short-list of two or three candidates is achieved, which then go-on for a final down-selection, at a Heads of Commonwealth conference?

By adding an element of democracy to our nobility, we may yet impose upon them some notion of legitimacy and with it, lasting stability.

- Pal Blanko