This may sound very, very ignorant (because I admit, I am ignorant about British government), but where does the royal family come into all this? Are they mostly just figureheads, or could they theoretically say, "Nuts to this democracy crap! We're in charge again!"? Again, I'm embarrassed by how little I know about your political system. Just trying to get rid of a little ignorance.
I wouldn't worry, our political system is more than a little eccentric in some ways. As I understand it, the way the Royal Family fit in is as follows:
They're in charge.
Technically.
A sitting Prime Minister must visit the Queen and ask for Parliament to be dissolved when a General Election is called (By the way, there's actually a sliding scale, a window of opportunity about a year long as I recall, within which said election can be called.). The Queen is Head of State, the various senior Royals are heads of the Armed Forces but it's technically a figurehead position. Which hasn't stopped friends of mine speculating about exactly who the Army would side with if it came to it, but that's a whole different cheap air port novel...
Ok, well done Chodon, you've just walked straight into one of my pet subjects... So please excuse me for coming back into this discussion.
Disclaimer: Simon's opinions on the monarchy are unusual and aren't shared by pretty much anyone-else.
As Alasdair just said above, the Monarchy is technically a figurehead position, but this isn't really the way it works. The thing about the monarchy is that, like any other political role, it reshapes itself to whoever has the job. Elizabeth II has had the job of Queen for quite such a long time (over 50 years now) that there is almost no collective memory of what the monarchy used to be like before she came along. In my mind Elizabeth II has undermined almost all the historical roles of the monarchy and moved it from being a position of leadership to being the stuff of gossip columns.
Elizabeth II is the worst Queen England has ever had.Common Sense by Tom Paine (you know, the book that kick-started the American Revolution) has a nice summary (in hostile terms) of the role of the monarch in the British system, and I'll stick it up here:
I know it is difficult to get over local or long standing prejudices, yet if we will suffer ourselves to examine the component parts of the English Constitution, we shall find them to be the base remains of two ancient tyrannies, compounded with some new republican materials.
First.—The remains of monarchical tyranny in the person of the king.
Secondly.—The remains of aristocratical tyranny in the persons of the peers.
Thirdly.—The new republican materials, in the persons of the commons, on whose virtue depends the freedom of England.
The two first, by being hereditary, are independent of the people; wherefore in a constitutional sense they contribute nothing towards the freedom of the state. To say that the constitution of England is a union of three powers reciprocally checking each other, is farcical, either the words have no meaning, or they are flat contradictions.
To say that the commons is a check upon the king, presupposes two things.
First.—That the king is not to be trusted without being looked after, or in other words, that a thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of monarchy.
Secondly.—That the Commons, by being appointed for that purpose, are either wiser or more worthy of confidence than the crown.
But as the same constitution which gives the commons a power to check the king by withholding the supplies, gives afterwards the king a power to check the commons, by empowering him to reject their other bills; it again supposes that the king is wiser than those whom it has already supposed to be wiser than him. A mere absurdity!
He's obviously hostile to the whole system, but if you read through Paine's propaganda you see an idealised view of what the Monarch is for. Basically the Monarch is supposed to be the vessel that has to be used by Parliament to get things done, and by withholding their executive privilege they act as a check on government (and of course this has changed over the last 300 years). They can't actually say no, but by paying attention and withholding their powers, a competent monarch is a superb check and balance on corrupt government. Bills don't become law till the Queen signs them, the Queen has national standardised addresses to the nation in which she is supposed to be politically impartial, and a number of executive powers can only be followed through in the name of the Queen. Basically the Queen is supposed to be politically impartial, act in a leadership role for the country, and use her powers in the interests of the country at times of crisis.
Thus her great-grandfather declared War on Germany in WW1, and there were a number of examples in the first half of the century of The Monarch leaning on Parliament in the interests of the country as a whole (the most significant would be when her grandfather asked the two main parties to form a government of national unity after the economic crash at the beginning of the Thirties, and they did, something that goes completely against normal politics). Elizabeth II on the other hand is, to be brutally frank, hideously poorly educated... She lacks any leadership skills, any real interest/understanding of the political process, and is primarily interested in her family rather than the country. This isn't just my view, there was a fantastically
amusing article in The Guardian by David Starkey - a major, even
the major British Monarchist historian in the media - titled
Queen is poorly educated and a Philistine, says Starkey in which he spells out something similar to my argument. Because of her exceptionally long reign, this flawed individual has allowed The Government and her minor officials to usurp almost all of her executive powers... Some examples: up until the mid-'60s The Queen was responsible for choosing the leader of The Conservative Party, The Dismissal Crisis in Australia occurred when her vassel, The Governor, used her supreme authority to dismiss the elected government and demand a new election. This means that when a genuine crisis occurs in which The Government could be viewed as acting against the interests of the nation (The David Kelly affair is a perfect example), there is no constitutional body who can do the job of taking them to task, because all these powers now reside in the government (we are all so used to this Queen that if she actually
did start doing her constitutional job, there would be dismay).
So, for instance in the aftermath of David Kelly's death - when the entire country suspected The Government (and the PM's personal team) of having a major Public Servant's blood on its hands due to its desire to go to war, and the government was proving extremely difficult about setting the terms of a public enquiry, a situation that could have been akin to Watergate if there was an independent body to act on it - the Queen should have the authority to step in and act as a check on The Executive when it comes to the terms and remit of the public enquiry.
Some further examples of the total neglect of duty in the House Of Windsor is the total disdain they have for their roles as Head of State in the Commonwealth countries. She is Queen of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, and Saint Kitts and Nevis; Duke of Normandy, Lord of Mann, and Paramount Chief of Fiji (I copied that list, I admit it) but acts in an extremely provincial fashion. Her family spend the vast majority of their time on large estates in the countryside of England and Scotland, and treat visits to the countries where she is equally head of state as if they were foreign visits. No state-houses that her family are sent to actually
live in at all. No wonder The Commonwealth is a toothless international organisation if for its entire existence it has been embodied by a family who refuse to take their responsibilities to it seriously.
Now the role of the Queen is seen to be to perform certain ceremonies in a dramatic and austere fashion, for her family's life to be documented at length in the national and international media... Vessels for the media to enjoy as a narrative,a constitutionally important Britney Spears. Their main job now seems to be as vessels for everyone to feel sentimental and nostalgic about - to somehow embody Britishness for the tourists. She makes the occasional international visit, and her family are supposed to shake hands with people to make those people feel important. As leaders, and as a check and balance on the government, they are totally incompetent.
If a different person were monarch, and that person tried in some way to act in the interests of the country/countries rather than defending their own selfish Clan, then Britain may have had a very different time over the last 50 years. Unfortunately Elizabeth II is a moron, her son is a fool despised by the country, and her family have spent far too long doing things Elizabeth's way...
The Queen is a half-wit, and has done serious damage to the constitution... We'd be better off with a President. I wish her ill, even dead. Better yet she would never have been born.