31–40 of 90 posts
How to abolish it? Just quit talking about it or caring about it. It's public attention that makes it anything at all. Imaginary specialness invested in such a group of supercilious incompetents is baffling. Magical thinking.
Erm no. The way to abolish it is to pick a new head of state (elections, draws, pulling a sword out of a stone, etc)
Without a written constitution there is no limit on what a party with a majority in Parliament - which it can an achieve with a relatively small share of the vote - can do. Not a healthy situation.
Now the population that would have opposed the transition is long dead, so it seems reasonable to remove the compatibility layer.
Though, a more cynical take might be-- what if there is still latent support for reverting to a true classical monarchy, and keeping a monarchy in place dampens support. I.e. going from "no monarchy" back to "monarchy" might get some people excited, whereas going from "monarchy A" to "monarchy B" is less likely to stir up excitement.
“X% think the monarchy is ‘quite important’”, or summat. Next poll, please, please, please drill into why these folks think it is important. Because I’m trying to come up with something for which the monarchy is important, and I’m truly at a loss as a non-resident. EDIT: all great answers (except the snarky one) that gave me some insight, thanks.
I live in Canada. Some benefits of the monarchy vs the US system: * Much of the pomp and prestige of the state gets vested in the Governor General. Whereas in the US the president gets treated like a monarch * People swear allegiance to the monarchy and the state. They serve that rather than the leader * In the event the prime minister goes truly insane, there is an outside check on their power. People dismiss these…
Oaths of allegiance in the US are sworn to the Constitution, not to any particular leader.
It's been said, quite correctly, that the UK is a republic with a hereditary president, while the US is a monarchy with an elected king. I see plenty of misconceptions about the UK royal family in the comments, from them depending on taxes (they don't) to the importance of the monarch in the government. I don't really care whether the UK has a king of a president (except that the name change would be annoying) - but…
Yet I somehow think constitutional monarchies work. There is a reason (I don't know what) that the european ones are in the western richer + generally strong and high functioning democratic countries (Spain, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Their existence depends on the tolerance of the taxed. Burn that out and theyll have to work for a living. Edit as I can’t reply…. Japan’s royalty has been around far longer but isn’t particularly fancy. Denmark’s is similar in duration to the post Norman uk, similarly “mild”. People don’t like seeing such behaviour in lean times.
I’m not sure. The most successful, enduring ‘royal family’ in the world appears to be the one that has been the most careful to conserve all the ostentation.
The current monarchy format seems like it was necessary at the time of the transition away from pure monarchy in order to prevent too much opposition to the transition from blocking the transition. Like a compatibility layer with a legacy system. Now the population that would have opposed the transition is long dead, so it seems reasonable to remove the compatibility layer. Though, a more cynical take might be-- what…
I'm paraphrasing, but barely. Your comment just reminded me of that.
This seems like rather a biased summary of an obscure finding - can anybody point to the exact details that they've drawn these conclusions from (I don't doubt they are there), I had a quick look at the underlying report but it is difficult to navigate and I couldn't see a mention of monarchy. It's almost like The Guardian is trying really really hard to put the most anti monarchy spin on business-as-usual social att…
/s