What do Brits really think about the monarchy?

Where a country has a national anthem of "God Save the Queen", you can guess that the reactionary tabloids of that country will likely focus on 'em...

 

I'm sure its a hangover from our imperialist past, after all a large part of the world held allegiance to britain, amd is still in living memory.

 

united states is very interested in preserving the monarchy..................... in saudi arabia

 

Yes, I'd say it probably is a result of the Empire's legacy. The Queen remains head of the commonwealth and the head of state of a number of other nations....

 

Never liked the anthem. Aside from being the most tedious in the world, I don't believe in God or the Queen....

 

Lots of coverage of King Juan Carlos & Sophia DeBurbon in Spanish-American Mags.
My mother-in-law reads em.

 

my country is pro-monarchy in jordan too, mostly pro-monarchy in saudi arabia though... that's the one we care most about

 

Crosses my mind that it might be thought easier to deal with a long term head of state, governments can be a bit more difficult to predict.

 

true, but the us and a is able to work around that somewhat by fixing democratic elections in countries where we are really concerned about who gets elected although it seems like its getting harder to fix elections... we still have no problems fixing our own elections though... don't let the last one fool yah, when the next one comes for the big onion, the presidency, those black box voting machines will be working overtime

 

Sure they might like to think so, but I don't believe the hype.

 

agree...becoming more true everyday, the us' inability to fix an election but its been done in the past... still as in england and whales, there is media manipulation and so folks are programmed to vote on a candidate on what they percieve reality to be... premeditated rigged voting

 

I think the monarchy should be demoted to opening supermarkets and doing sofa adverts ...

 

They couldn't compete with Martin Kemp unfortunately....

 

It's my understanding that the monarchy can serve as a check on the power of the government, something I'm all for. It seems reasonable enough to keep the monarchy as long as its power is as severely restricted as I understand it to be.

 

The monarchy doesn't serve as a check on power. Although the Queen is not compelled by law to sign into law Acts of Parliament, she has never not done so. If she refused, there would be a huge uproar. It would be a situation similar to Iran if that was the case, with elected bodies making laws that unelected individuals can overturn at will. The House of Lords does serve as a check on power, but that's not a democratic institution. Strangely, as bad as I think the American government is, the American system of division of powers is actually quite a good model in theory....

 

Agreed on your last point. A society can only be governed by the interpreters of its constitution. Perhaps the USA hasn't descended into a theocratic society because of the function of its government.

On the balance of powers, I read once a while ago about the monarchy's supposed function in checks and balances. I can't recall the details, but it was about the same as the House of Lords: an undemocratic entity checking the powers of democratic ones, and vice versa. Perhaps I was overstating it. The democratic entities will always and should always have the greatest power, though.

I'm just not entirely convinced the total democratic approach in the best, however. The US sort of has its provisions against it, too. Modern-day American conservatives are notorious for their contempt of the Supreme Court. The electorate in theory has control over the justices appointed there, albeit minimal. The duty, though, is with the Executive Branch and is checked by the Legislative Branch. Wherever the greatest part of this power truly lies, I'm sure it can be stated that the Supreme Court operates less democratically than, say, the Senate does. But the Supreme Court has been an important tool in modernizing American law. Sometimes progress needs to be made in spite of public opinion.

Back on topic now. What it ultimately comes down to is that the people must retain control over their government. This must never change. What you said about a public uproar kind of compliments this concept. Any power the monarchy has is subject to public scrutiny even more so than that of regular legislators. The public has control over the institution because they have the power to dissolve it. Basically, if it has these potentials, and it would be extremely hard to re-institute should it be dissolved, I see no reason for its abolishment.

 

In terms of separation of powers in the American case, it was intially designed to limit democracy. The model for America to follow was not that of a democracy, but of a republic. Madison, against a background of a very powerful legislature, wanted to enshrine the separation of powers to prevent a "tyranny of the majority." He argued that if all power is held by the executive, such as in a hereditary monarch, a potential doorway is opened to tyranny and despotism. However, with a legislature that becomes dominant, filled with ambitious politicians, that same danger is present. And as Jefferson said "173 despots would surely be as oppressive as one”. The founding fathers never really wanted to give democracy to the people. What rulers do? Ruling by decree is just easier. But given the pressures of expectation meaning they did have to enshrine some sort of representative democracy, they sought to limit democracy so that the people would not gain too much control and that no one institution could dominate the others. Personally, I think I direct democratic system would be the ideal, though may be incredibly difficult to organise....

 

Well it may be a limited form of political power, but I was taught in my British Politics class that the Queen had the ability to choose the new PM in the case of a tie. I'm sure she hasn't exercised that right lately, and I'm wondering that when she did do it, what factors entered in to her decision, and how independently that she exercised her right to do so.

As far as the monarch's signature being required to enact a law after it's passed by Parliament, if she ever refused to sign a law, I'm sure Parliament would simply take away her right to sign laws into force in the future, like a few other European countries have done with their monarchs. This would probably do away with the necessity of the Queen going through all of the pomp and pageantry of opening Parliament every year.

 

I live in a remote community - no palaces, no royals, etc and non of our local economy is generated by any input from the Windsors. So it is only the South East of England that seems to be reaping any rewards - and Duchy Originals. In the meantime long live the crofters and communities who are using the land reform acts north of the border and taking the land back from landlords of the so called aristocracy ilk. More self sustainable communities and less of this dependency nonsense.

 

Have the Scots ever given alliegence to the crown?