I think the royal family actually works out as a net positive economically when you factor in the tourism income they generate.
It's also quite nice having someone connected with government that has been around longer than one or two political terms and thus has a wealth of experience to draw from and can an act in a way that's above short term popularism. If you ask even the most die hard anti-monarchists in the UK, I believe most of them would agree that the Queen has done a very good job. They're more concerned with her offspring and what happens when she dies.
Edit: forgot to mention too that the Queen, Charles, Harry, William, Kate and other immediate family members spend an enormous amount of their time directly involved in charity work.
We'd get the tourism anyway - people got to Stratford Upon Avon and Shakespeare has been dead for years.
What we get from monarchy is an ever expanding line of spongers and hangers on who we're expected to support.
Someone will no doubt be along in a minute to say we don't support them financially as they are the crown and generate wealth that way but I'd argue that was all stolen from the common man anyway (plus there's lots of hidden costs such as policing and security that don't come out of the royal budget)
The French had it right with Louis XVI.
We need a non-political president like the Irish, German and Israeli's have.
people got to Stratford Upon Avon and Shakespeare has been dead for years.
There was only ever one Shakespeare. There have been hundreds of royal families- the British one is notable because it still exists today. Take that away and they're just one of many, and tourists would be far, far less interested.
I respect that such small charities are bigged up by royals. Who else would? They are important in a small way. Big celebs and politicians go for the big charities, knowing they will get great PR, and they do great.... Both the charities and the celebs. That's cool, but here are our royals looking out for the little guys. Well, frogs...
This is exactly one of the reasons I approve of them. Again, no bias, no selfish PR reason, they can just help out.
They do have a good life, but I don't think they just "sit"- they do a huge amount of charity work, as well as a lot of the kind of soft diplomacy work that few others heads of state can- if Obama visits a country it has immediate political implications. If the Queen visits, it's just a feel-good "enhancing ties" trip.
I've been living in the US for the last five years and have come to appreciate the Royal Family more than when I was in the UK- their apolitical nature means that they are more internationally appreciated than most other world figures.
I don't see why. Making those trips is likely not very relaxing- just because it doesn't involve hard manual labour doesn't mean that constantly moving from city to city and politely gladhanding hundreds of people in a day isn't work.
But you're right, nothing good comes out of charity work, it's all just a bunch of rich people eating caviar. Glad your exhaustive investigation into the topic was successful.
>But you're right, nothing good comes out of charity work, it's all just a bunch of rich people eating caviar. Glad your exhaustive investigation into the topic was successful.
Oh, I did investigated it exhaustively, and yes, nothing comes out of charity work.
It's just a way for people to feel good and situations to perpetuate.
The only work that matters and improves things is doing structural improvents and proving infrastructure.
Charity just make people dependent.
Not to mention that, in say Africa, it is estimated (by charity workers themselves) that the vast majority of charity money go to official's pockets.
Complete rubbish. Royals, and other celebs bring publicity. That bring money. Money solved problems. Take a silly frog charity. Money increases and more frogs are saved. Structure and infrastructure doesn't help frogs much. Sorry people feel good about that.
Honestly, I don't believe you investigated anything beyond reading some bias newspaper. I also think you confuse small local charities and massive charitable attempts to solve world wide poverty. Two very different things. But if you investigated, you would know that, right?
Usually people get involved in charity for ego reasons, and dependence is a problem, but I believe that quietly doing a good deed now and then is fine.
To me personally the royals don't seem super-great or anything, but the alternative of having a career politician as president doesn't sound any better.
And an elected council would be better than an elected figurehead in what way? Just sounds like yet another platform for groups of people to disagree with each other. Fantastic.
Besides, the councilors set the policy that council are supposed to follow. If the council is rubbish, its the fault of the councilors. That is supposed to be the point of electing them, or booting them.
It doesn't quite work like that. Councillors and the council are separate entities. The council is usually a private list of subcontrators these days who work on behalf of the councilors and the directors, nothing more.
It's not that they're crap, but they're powerless due to the contracted out power they have had to accept due to the budgetary constraints that the government have forced on them. They can deal with individual issues fine but there are problems bringing in full scale accountability when you have to shift 99% of work onto other people.
You've probably experienced the subcontrators, not the councilors who due to the low budget are crap.
Next time you get an issue, call your local councilor - you might be surprised!
I value the non political aspect of our monarchy. It is cheap, has only one power for extreme use only and that is to dissolve parliament, and is not part of the nasty political punch up. I value the stability and depth, leading to a decent adviser to an elected PM.
Next, if the monarch asked something of the country as a whole, most people would take their word for it, because there would be no political motive or bias. If a PM did so, it becomes partisan and a debate. We had Blair take us to war twice on his say so. As such, most of the country opposed it and saw it was willy waving or macho-ness, or sucking up to the Americans, and so on. Had the Queen believed in it and come out and said something like, "Look, Im sorry, but with 60 odd years of experience, we have no choice", I think the country would have backed her, if only reluctantly. But the Brits would have thought, "bloody hell, she speaks, and well, OK". And that would be because of the huge constitutional risk doing so would have caused.
Finally, we could in the UK vote in something like a Nazi party. We could then take to the streets and have a violent revolution and kill the nazi's. After all that, the Monarch would still be there as a shield of stability for both us internally, an as an external sort of front. Having won our revolution, Queenie would still be there, and ask the winner, "Ok, now what?"
I prefer all this to every other presidential system, most notable the insane US presidential race. I don't want out head of state to be in that cesspit. I like that it just sits there, all nice and stable.
I care not for all the pomp and ceremony. I hate all the silly gossip. I dont think they need so many homes and hangers on. All that can be up for grabs, no problem. But at it core, I personally, prefer our monarch to any other alternative.
Sorry, but I do not believe that a vote is a universally good thing. Mostly, yes. But not an absolute. Here in the UK I firmly relive we have the two almost perfectly balanced. Democracy can do anything it likes, under a safe shield of our monarchy. If it ever got real nasty and extreme, the monarch can shut it down. We would have a crisis in that case, but we would not go Nazi, or something. I believe that externally other countries and cultures can see we are a thriving powerful democracy, but we also have depth and stability supplied by our monarch head of state.
Not OP, but the typical justification is to have a human being overseeing the highest form of power (the monarch can dissolve the parliament) and that they cannot be as corrupted as an elected or appointed person.
"Monarchy is indeed a government which requires a high degree of civilization for its full development ... An educated nation recoils from the imperfect vicariate of what is called a representative government." -- Benjamin Disraeli
The British system of government is far less costly than that of the US.
You pick how you are goverened according to your ethics, not according to how much it costs. I am pro-democracy and I am not a hypocrit. This fact prevents me from supporting a political system based on inherited political privilege, like Monarchy. I am English. I think most British who support the Monarchy do so because they don't want to admit to themselves that there is something wrong at the core about the way their country is governed. If we'd gotten rid of the Monarchy in the past, we'd probably have yearly celebrations about it. But no, we still have them, so we celebrate the opposite instead.
I think you missed the point of my reply - I did not raise the matter of costs, and I agree that they are not the overriding factor.
The Disraeli quote is to the point: the "representational" part of representational government is thorny, and pretty much ensures that a ruling clique is put in place whose interests do not mirror that of the electorate very well.
The constitution of representational democracies always put in place a watchdog over the powers of parliament: in the US, it is the legal system. In Turkey, it is the army. In the UK, it is the monarchy. Many people seem to think that law courts are an obviously superior guarantor of democracy than monarchies, few are able to argue the point well.
It's 2013. Why would you be that?
You like paying money for some blood-line family to sit and have the good life?