The death of Queen Elizabeth will be one of the most disruptive events in Britain in the past 70 years by Rob Price on Jun 29, 2018, 11:37 AM Advertisement
 Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, is not going to live forever. Since ascending to the throne in 1952, the monarch has seen 13 Prime Ministers serve Britain, and lived through another 13 US presidents. She's now 92. At some point — not for many years yet, we hope — Queen Elizabeth II's reign will come to an end. But what happens then? For at least 12 days — between her passing, the funeral and beyond — Britain will grind to a halt. It'll cost the UK economy billions in lost earnings due to the chaos. The stock markets and banks will likely close. And both the funeral and the subsequent coronation will become formal national holidays, each with an estimated economic hit to GDP of between £1.2 and £6 billion, to say nothing of organisational costs. But to focus on the financial disruption doesn't begin to describe the sheer magnitude of it. It will be an event unlike anything Britain has seen since the end of the Second World War. There will be trivial disruptions — the BBC will cancel all comedy shows, for example — and jarring cultural changes. Prince Charles may change his name, for instance, and the words of the national anthem will be changed, too. The British Commonwealth might even unravel completely. The deaths of Princess Diana and the Queen Mother both brought on waves of public mourning and hysteria. But the Queen, due to her longevity and fundamental place atop British society, will be on a whole new level above that. The vast majority of British people have simply never known life without the Queen. It will be a strange, uncertain time. The Queen has been around for a long, long time — living through the rule of everyone from Adolf Hitler to JFK. 
In the early hours after the Queen's death, much will depend on the manner of her passing.  If it is expected (from a long illness, say), then detailed plans will have been put in place for handling it and making the announcement. These plans are already being made: Inside Buckingham Palace, arrangements for after the Queen's passing and the subsequent succession are known as the "Bridge."
But if it's sudden or unexpected, the news could get out immediately, in an unplanned and uncontrolled fashion.  This is what happened when Princess Diana died following a car crash in Paris in 1997.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
| 
0 comments:
Post a Comment