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!
