Sunday 11 April 2010

Danes want Queen Margrethe to abdicate

After months of rumours and speculations about Queen Margrethe abdicating when she turns 70 next week, Jyllands-Posten now publishes an opinion poll which shows that 45.6 % think she should indeed abdicate, while only 42.6 % believe she should remain monarch until the day of her death (which is what she has repeatedly said she will). 23.5 % think she should abdicate on her 70th birthday on Friday, while 22.1 % are of the opinion that she can wait until her 80th birthday.
It should be pointed out that this is a scientific poll (1,010 people were asked by Rambøll/Analyse Danmark on 29 and 30 March) and not one of those worthless Internet polls. These results are in my opinion quite startling. It seems to me that when one has a monarch like Margrethe II one ought to cling to her for dear life.

Jyllands-Posten’s poll: http://jp.dk/indland/article2034894.ece

POSTSCRIPT: I see from the backlinks that at The European Royal Message Board (http://members3.boardhost.com/EuropeanRoyals/msg/1270991317.html) a poster calling herself “Marianne” questions the findings of this poll and the credibility of my blog in general. Although she obviously did not have the guts to post her comments here I feel the need to address some of her misconceptions.
“Marianne” twists the headline into reading “1 out of 3 Danes think Queen Margrethe might abdicate”, but no poll has asked what people think she “might” do rather than what they think she should do. The significant distinction between what people believe she might do and what they think she should do is obviously lost on “Marianne”.
“Marianne” goes on to say: “From what I have been reading in Danish papers it's just 1 out of 3 who would not mind their Queen to abdicate”. Here she obviously confuses Rambøll/Analyse Danmark’s poll with another poll conducted on behalf of the news agency Ritzau and referred to briefly in Politiken, which shows that 1 out of 3 think she should abdicate now. The poll in Jyllands-Posten however shows that nearly half of those asked are of the opinion that she should abdicate at all, either now or within the next ten years.
The second option is, as far as I can see, not included in that other poll and the two of them are therefore not really comparable. However, what is comparable is that 23.5 % in the poll referred to in Jyllands-Posten are in favour of her immediate abdication.
“Marianne” adds about my blog that “most comments are purely made seen from his own personal perspective”. This is utter nonsense. Quite on the contrary I refer what are the findings of a scientific poll conducted by a leading polling agency and published in a serious newspaper. In the link I provided one may find all the facts and results of that poll, something which has nothing whatsoever to do with my personal perspective. I did however add that personally I would not like to see Queen Margrethe abdicate.
Complete with an exclamation mark, “Marianne” pompously adds “it is always wise to read more papers of the country involved so as to get a broader insight in matters!” In answer to that patronising comment I can say that I read several Danish newspapers every day and that my insight into Danish matters is probably greater than most foreigners’.
It seems “Marianne” wants do deny the findings of Rambøll/Analyse Danmark’s poll by twisting questions and mixing different questions into one answer. However, the results of Rambøll/Analyse Danmark’s poll are there for all to see even though some people may want to deny them.

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