Background Briefing: September 8, 2022
The Death of Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Family’s Future Under a New King Charles
We begin with the death of Queen Elizabeth II after seven decades on the throne and go to the UK to get a sense of the shock and sadness gripping the country. Joining us is Polly Toynbee, a columnist for the Guardian who was formerly BBC social affairs editor, columnist and associate editor of the Independent, co-editor of the Washington Monthly and a reporter and feature writer for the Observer. She is the co-author of Dismembered: How the attack on the state harms us all and her latest article at the Guardian is “In grieving for the Queen, we also mourn the losses in our own lives.” We discuss the royal family’s future under a new king, Charles, and the internal strife in the royal family following the departure of Charles’s younger son Harry and his American wife Meghan for California. And although the British sovereign’s political power is largely symbolic, the monarchy plays a constitutional role even though there is no written constitution, nevertheless within 24 hours of the queen’s death, lawmakers in Parliament will take oaths of allegiance to the new King Charles.