No thrill about royal wedding
2005-03-27 16:34
London - Most Britons want to retain the monarchy, but few want Camilla Parker Bowles to be queen when Prince Charles takes the throne, an opinion poll in the Daily Mail newspaper on Saturday suggests.
60% of the 511 respondents to the ICM poll, conducted by telephone on Wednesday, said Britain would be worse off without the monarchy, and 71% disagreed that the monarchy should end with Queen Elizabeth II.
But while 57% approved of Prince Charles marrying longtime partner Parker Bowles in a civil ceremony on April 8, 73 percent said she should never become queen at his side.
65% also believed that their marriage will weaken the British monarchy, an increase of 16 percentage points since the question was last asked by pollsters six weeks ago.
The wedding plans have been mired in controversy ever since they were announced, with Queen Elizabeth notably opting not to attend the civil ceremony in the 17th century Guildhall in Windsor, west of London.
The poll was conducted two days after Prime Minister Tony Blair's government confirmed that Parker Bowles would officially become queen once Charles is king, although she will be known as Princess Consort.
Many Britons say they blame Parker Bowles's long affair with Charles for the break-up of his first marriage to the hugely popular Diana, who died in a Paris car crash in August 1997.
In a sign of how little excitement the wedding has aroused amongst the British public, 67% of the poll's respondents said it was unlikely they'd watch it on TV, compared to 31% who stated that they would.