Kim Jong-un and the Queen
Spot the difference: Kim Jong-un and the Queen (Reuters)

"Part of Antarctica is to be named Kim Jong-un Land in honour of the Supreme Leader as he made a historic visit to the Supreme People's Assembly," said the North Korean state news agency.

"He met ministers, who gave him a set of 60 placemats to mark his first year as leader of the country."

Only this wasn't in North Korea, and a part of the world wasn't being named after despotic Kim Jong-un. This farce is the work of Britain's ring-kissing government in honour of our own hereditary figurehead, as reported by the BBC.

Queen Elizabeth Land, which sounds like a theme park for monarchist pensioners, is a slab of frozen Antarctica named after Britain's reigning Dear Leader in exultant, wide-eyed celebration of her diamond jubilee.

It is the latest thing, in an ever-lengthening list, to be named after her and represents similar sycophancy shown by the pitiable, brainwashed and oppressed people of North Korea towards the family at the top of their hierarchy.

At present, the Queen boasts cruise ships, town halls, courts, parks, parliament's clock tower, schools, awards, and much more on a list of dedications from across the Commonwealth.

From the Saddam Hussein International Airport, to Kim il-sung Square in Pyongyang, to Stalin naming whole cities after himself, dedicating things to rulers with no authentic democratic mandate can be seen across history's worst societies.

Even if the tyrants and dictators did not directly order the tributes themselves, they can rely on a legion of soppy bureaucrats, politicians, and high ranking supporters to carry out these acts of mindless tyrannophilia off their own backs.

Likewise the Queen and other royals can rely on the senior politicians, many of whom are spawned from the same aristocratic swamp, to gawp like stupefied imbeciles and clap like well-trained seals in admiration and intellectual surrender to the unelected Head of State.

Of course, the Queen and Britain's royals are not autocratic in the same bloodthirsty way that can be seen in Syria, for example, with that chinless child murderer President Bashar al-Assad.

But she and her unelected family wield soft power in Britain, which masquerades as a democratic beacon for the rest of the world. They have unwarranted and privileged access to senior politicians at home and abroad, which they can, and do, use as lobbying opportunities.

And there is another bitter note on the people's tongue about honouring monarchy in this archaic and slavish tradition favoured by vain authoritarians. The Windsors are a family that receives millions of pounds of taxpayers money a year, are treated to lavish ceremonies of worship for no reason other than having genes nobody else has, and are routinely dressed from head to toe in priceless, gaudy get-ups all as the hungry proles line up at festive food banks in 21st Century Britain, too poor to feed themselves because of government austerity measures and economic crisis.

This isn't a wobbly being thrown over the concept of naming things in honour of people. That is often a fitting, moving and deserved piece of recognition for the honourable things they have done. Instead, this is a call to reason.

Stop naming things after the disgustingly opulent, mandateless elite in what is supposed to be a democratic society, else you'll make Britain look uncomfortably similar to the personality cults in autocracies and dictatorships most of us despise.

Shane Croucher is a business writer with IBTimes UK