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The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

theguardian.com

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Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#461

Post by [deleted] »

Lio wrote: post #446
jopsen wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled. From a democratic/ideological perspective you might be right. On the other hand, having a royal family it cute -- doesn't that count for something :) I live in Denmark where we also pay the royal family some money, few privileges, etc.. My personal pocket philosophy is that the money we pay the royal family is the cost of a peacef…

Worth remembering that we in the UK have already had a French style revolution with the monarch being decapitated in 1649. It was considered a "bad move" and his son was restored to the role of head of state about 12 years later to correct it. :P The idea of a powerless head of state has always appealed to me. I can't think of anything worse than someone like Johnson assuming that role.

[deleted]

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#462

Post by pbhjpbhj »

randallsquared wrote: post #312
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they? The UK's representational democracy has major problems but it's [supposed to be] about having MPs who work for the people, not having rulers. Do you want someone to rule over you?

If they weren't rulers, you could simply choose not to comply with those rules you found irrelevant or misguided. I note that you felt constrained to add the bracketed bit -- I would submit that that's the fig leaf. You can argue that the doctor is being helpful when they tell a four-year-old "this won't hurt a bit", but the naked truth is that it's a lie, and the child has no actual choice in the matter. Similarly,…

The rule is by consensus in a democracy, law is an expression of that consensus. The constraint comes from the people, the demos, and not from some tyrant.

MPs are supposed to work for us, those with power wish to reduce the scope of "us" and some MPs are there specifically to enable that. But anti-democratic MPs doesn't alter the lack of rulers in a proper democracy it just changes whether our (UK) political system is a proper democracy or not.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#463

Post by psychoslave »

Guthur wrote: post #448
psychoslave wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between abolition of privileges reserved to a caste and striping of wealth people regardless of whether or not anyone is granted the possibility to obtain the same wealth by legal means.

If you think the House of Commons was actually common men like you or I you'd be sorely mistaken, it was Knights and landed people (and i don't think very much has changed there). Make no bones about the UK parlimentary body, it is not of the "people" if that's what you are into.

Oh, no. I just wanted to share some nuance on what can stand behind a "measure in a civilized society that values the concept of personal property."

And it’s not like "civilization" was something one might really believe to stand on fairness, reciprocity and mutual care. That kind of things can survive in civilizations, and probably civilizations can’t survive themselves without leaving some room for these feelings.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#464

Post by flukus »

diminish wrote: post #336
tim333 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled I'm guessing you're not a Brit? A problem with that is the British people support them - about 72% for 21% against and I think they've been clearly in favour for at least the last century. So you can't really do it unless you get a dictatorship in to go against the people.

72% figure comes from a vote or a poll? Btw, Can the brit people name any other candidate to be the queen or the king? From the existing family or a new one? That would be awesome, because there are some great. Brit scientists which would make a great king or queen.

> Btw, Can the brit people name any other candidate to be the queen or the king? From the existing family or a new one?

Theoretically yes through parliament, who approves succession issues in a complex system with precedents that about 3 people understand. William of Orange becoming King is probably the most notable example. Recently there was a curios case where succession laws were change so that females inherit equally, but everyone with the Queen as their head of State hate to change their laws at the same time, had one country not done so, or the wrong gender babies been born at the wrong time along with a few untimely deaths, the countries would have ended up with different Monarchs.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#465

Post by calgoo »

jopsen wrote: post #149
crumbshot wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've tried to explain to a lot of people the amount of influence and control that the monarch actually holds. I'm not sure that this is such a bad thing. She used her powers to get an exemption from transparency laws with regards to her personal wealth: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/07/revealed-que... , and Charles did the same to ban his tenants from purchasing freeholds: https://www.theguardian.com…

> Also, every member of the royal family should be stripped of their wealth and exiled. From a democratic/ideological perspective you might be right. On the other hand, having a royal family it cute -- doesn't that count for something :) I live in Denmark where we also pay the royal family some money, few privileges, etc.. My personal pocket philosophy is that the money we pay the royal family is the cost of a peacef…

Here in Spain the royal family is also paid in a similar way as Denmark and Sweden. However, they are corrupt and make deals with SA and other nations. They go on elephant hunts and are above the law as the Spanish secret service / police will try to defend them as much as possible. When something actually does come to light, they are allowed to leave the country without limit and live in SA with their millions of tax free money.

I don't see it as cute, more as a cancer. Sometimes they are benign but you still want to get rid of it in-case it actually ends up killing you.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#466

Post by crumbshot »

Guthur wrote: post #376
roenxi wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might have been a mistake to use the word 'cute', monarchies are an ugly business. But countries where the powers in charge are closely balanced enough that the transition away from a monarchy to something else slowly (maybe leaving the monarchy itself intact as in the UK) are much better than the ripping off the bandaid approach seen in Germany or France. Moderate political change is generally a better idea than…

And parliaments aren't? It's not actually clear to me which is better or worse over the long term. Some are bringing up points on wealth and for me that feels like it stems from envy which is also pretty ugly. I postulate that striping the royals of wealth will make no one here materially better off.

> Some are bringing up points on wealth and for me that feels like it stems from envy which is also pretty ugly.

This idea that criticism of wealth must be just down to envy is really quite a tired stereotype.

It makes even less sense when there's a hereditary class of people whose wealth and power is constitutionally guaranteed and, as we've discovered, who use corrupt means to maintain this by intervening in the lawmaking process to neutralise threats to their income.

It's not envy to realise that there must be a better system than this.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#467

Post by tremon »

kenneth wrote: post #388
oblio wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if after an election there are two different coalitions who both claim to be the best chance at a stable government, who makes the choice to go with one of them, or to call fresh elections? We, here in the rest of the world, use a magic number to determine that. 51% (or 50% + 1).

Belgium does a great job of proving that that doesn't quite always work.

It's a great example of why cancel culture shouldn't be used to run a country.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#468

Post by oblio »

kenneth wrote: post #388
oblio wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if after an election there are two different coalitions who both claim to be the best chance at a stable government, who makes the choice to go with one of them, or to call fresh elections? We, here in the rest of the world, use a magic number to determine that. 51% (or 50% + 1).

Belgium does a great job of proving that that doesn't quite always work.

There are a ton of counterexamples and things in real life are measured by ratios of good to bad, not by proving that one case is false, like in math.

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#469

Post by boomboomsubban »

kitd wrote: post #348
michaelmrose wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the Brits already HAVE a head of state what they don't need in effect is another. There is nothing the queen does that couldn't be done by existing members of government.

Whom does the armed forces pledge allegiance to? In the UK, it's the monarch, not the government. That balance of power (military v political/legislative) gives you national stability. You don't want one person having both. Its the main reason royals serve in the armed forces.

If a crisis happens, which side do you think the military would support, the one they pledged allegiance to or the one paying their wages?

Re: The Queen has more power over British law than we thought

#470

Post by oblio »

setr wrote: post #369
oblio wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterargument: all those grandiose empty buildings. People still come to see our Place of the Parliament in Bucharest and ain't nobody bringing back Ceaușescu :-))

The question isn’t whether people would visit, but rather do they visit more because of the queen’s existence. That is, would be worth a billion rather than billions

That's probably impossible to quantify. The example next door, Versailles, kind of says you don't need a living monarch.
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