A symbol of British democracy, "The Queen shows us who isn't boss"

"The monarchy aren't that rich or powerful at all by modern standards."

"it really isn't that actively harmful"

How can you be sure?

Sure.

The picture shows the President queuing behind a member of the public to use the ATM.

As far as I know he's not required to do this, of course. He could have someone go for him etc.

In the UK it's very unlikely the Head of State would queue for an ATM and people who prefer the pageantry, pomp and ceremony of Royalty might feel this kind of behaviour demeans the office and is not worthy of a HoS. On the other hand, people holding more republican values might feel proud of their choice in electing a person who lives as they do.

I hadn't noticed the security thing. Ireland is neutral, guns are stringently controlled and no existing paramilitary group has a motive to assassinate the President. The security is probably there to mitigate the slightly increased risk of a 'lone nut' attack and not much else.

I agree. I was thinking that it could have evolved to reduce the risk of destructive change and revolution, or to entrench the privileges of the powerful. I didn't fully appreciate the point that, to the rich and powerful, there is no distinction between those aims.

But go back just 50 years and there were shenanigans aplenty - and the years before weren't the peaceful settled picture we often have in mind.

France was far more stable than England for several centuries before 1789.

(You're right of course. But 1700 is a convenient cut off date, and belies the fact that pragmatism in the mix was a direct result of just how horrible was the interregnum.)

I wasn't advocating changing anything. I should probably have made it clear that I was referring to the role of the monarchy in the constitution. "The Crown" might have been a better phrase.

I'm totally ok with tradition and pomp... up to a point.

As an American with little knowledge of British politics this is a bit surprising. Do you mind going into the reasons that lead you to be on the Royal side?

American here, out of curiosity, why?

Picking a side if forced to is hardly extreme. Trying to overturn a democratic decision by starting the civil war is more what I was thinking of.

Oh, I'm not saying he won't contribute, just that his choices are extremely limited, to a degree I would not want for my son.

Being a part of military actually should be seen as a limitation rather than William going his own way. Since the soldiers pledge their loyalty to the crown it is deemed appropriate that a potential future monarch should serve in the military. They get to choose which bit, and perhaps when, but they probably never had a choice about joining up. Then the Royals only tend to spend a couple of years. Harry is the keenest as he joined infantry. But his fame brought him back from action early because he was a prized target.

Also Wikipedia now says Harry's now in project management: "On 17 January 2014, the Ministry of Defence announced that Harry had completed his attachment to 3 Regiment Army Air Corps and will take up a staff officer role at the position of SO3 (Defence Engagement) in HQ London District. His responsibilities will include helping to co-ordinate significant projects and commemorative events involving the Army in London."

I would expect this is not what he would have chosen had he been born Harry Smith.

Not to say anything about anything else that he's done, but is search and rescue not a worthwhile thing to do then?

He can stop, but that doesn't mean that he necessarily controls the succession process afterwards. That is, if you meant by "stop", that he could quit as monarch.

You can't stop being "the guy who decided not to be the King of England"

It's still a nostalgic symbol of the days when "the sun never sets on the British Empire". Nobody is nostalgic for the days when England was a tiny backwater whose only claim to fame was bothering the French.

The monarchy pre-dates England having any sort of prestige at all. Indeed, it pre-dates England as being a single kingdom or a collectively ruled entity of any sort.

Best remove the symbol, then, so we can pretend that classism no longer exists?

Not a job she can get fired from, was hired to do, or is held accountable for etc...

It's also worth saying that the "soft power" of a Royal Visit, not even the Queen, is immense. A visit from the US President is probably on par with a visit from the Queen in terms of soft power projection, no other head of state in the world would garner anything close.

A visit from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge probably eclipses either.

The goodwill benefit to the UK is immense. Taking the politics out of it is also very useful, see the recent state visit to Ireland, any elected British head of state would not have been able to produce such a meaningful and symbolic event.

The whole financing of the Royals was updated fairly recently:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_Grant_Act_2011

The "bunch of assets" that the crown effectively surrendered in return for financial dependence on parliament is the Crown Estate, currently worth GBP 8.1 billion (USD 13.6 billion).

They also pay tax: "In 1992, The Queen volunteered to pay income tax and capital gains tax, and since 1993 her personal income has been taxable as for any other taxpayer. The Queen has always been subject to Value Added Tax and pays local rates on a voluntary basis." I also assume that she does minimal tax avoidance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Estate

http://www.royal.gov.uk/TheRoyalHousehold/Royalfinances/Taxa...

Key difference I suppose is that President Hollande was elected. The French did not like Sarkozy anymore so they kicked him out at the last election. Bit more accountable that way, and it's not possible that you would be stuck with the same president for decades unlike monarchs.

We probably wouldn't have a President Cameron , most republics separate the head of state from the head of parliament. The US system works differently altogether in this regard. We would probably have someone like Jeremy Clarkson as president.

In a way -- and I say this as an American -- I perceive that one possible advantage of the British monarchy (with its particular form and historical context) is that by concentrating the ceremonial roles of chief of state in a different person than the head of government -- and divorcing the former from the political process in a way which you don't have in systems that have the separation but choose both through conventional political means -- you divorce, to a degree, tribal patriotism and support for the nation from support from the current political leadership, and simultaneously remove the distancing (from the rest of society) effect that the ceremonial functions of chief of state has from the functional head of government.

Its not something I would want to replicate in form here (and it wouldn't work anyway -- to the extent it works in the UK it does because of historical context, not because of the form alone), and I'm not saying that Britons shouldn't adopt a Republic, but I think that its worth considering what benefits the monarchy provides (even if they are outweighed by the costs) and whether any replacement system can retain or replicate them by alternate means while mitigating the costs (and maybe it can't, and the best net is to sacrifice the benefits to eliminate the costs.)

yep, the Queen is quite frugal in that matter. The cost of representation and the the perceived splendor aren't really correlated.

I've heard a few years ago that Hollande, to break with his predecessor Sarkozy, wanted to travel by train rather than by plane whenever possible, in order to look less costly for the French citizen. However it wasn't the case : a train is way more complex to secure than a plane.

Basically in order to secure a train, you need to put an agent at every junction/bridge/tunnel to look for saboteur or terrorist, whereas a plane can take off (resp. land) from (resp. on) a military airport (national airspace is being monitored anyway).

Prince Harry is only something like 4th in line to the throne though, they didn't let Prince William go to Afghanistan.

> You could even argue that the reserve powers of the British monarch are indeed great, although, if they ever tried to exercise them in there own right there would probably be a constitutional crisis, and without broad public support they would not prevail.

And by extension... with broad public support they would prevail and execute the will of the people in a time of crisis and with the full support of the military. Which, perversely, effectively places the reserve powers of the Monarch and the might of the military in the hands of the people at exactly the time the people would need them.

That’s how democracy in Britain works. You vote for a party, not a person. The party is free to make changes to the internal structure as they see fit.