[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/royals-vette...
For me this is a strength of a constitutional monarchy over an appointed or elected but mostly ceremonial head of state. The people have a relationship with the king, they’ve grown up together and there’s a connection there that’s hard to define. In times of crisis that connection could play a key role.
Johnson didn't want to go, so he announced (via a leak to a tame newspaper, another part of our unwritten constitution) that he would advise the Queen to dissolve parliament, in order that new elections be held. He hoped to bring rebellious Tory MPs in line by threatening those in marginal seats with defeat, and those in secure seats with the prospect of a lengthy spell in opposition.
The Palace put paid to this plan by informing the PM that the Queen would be unavailable to meet with him, in the event of him perhaps wanting to to her in order to dissolve parliament.
And the rest is history!
That relationship really is hard to define... As a Brit my defining memory of the now King was - as an 8 year old - learning of his desire to be a tampon in his then mistress and current Queen.
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a41913184/tamp...
Monarchy is absurd but it has been particlarly difficult to take him seriously since.
I mostly just feel sorry for him. No-one should have to live their life in the public eye like that.
Nationalise their considerable private wealth (which only exists due to their role) and let them live their lives in peace.
Ireland and Germany both show that we can enjoy the benefits of a ceremonial head of state without having to put up with the nonsense of monarchy.
The rest of the time, the check on the legislature is only theoretical.
It still counts as a coup if somebody in a legitimate position of authority uses the military to seize more power in a manner not permitted by law
I think a split premier/president system where they are democratically elected makes enough sense but having a hereditary monarch is bananas.
My country has been a kingdom for over a thousand years and has enjoyed unbroken sovereignty for five hundred. The current royal house has reigned for two hundred years, and they can trace back their ancestry to the ancient kings. There's value in that.
The purpose of a head of state is to act as a personification of the state, so what better symbol could you pick? Like it or not, it's an excellent source for national pride. Yes, it's ridiculous blood magic, but the pomp and circumstance and ceremonies of any nation state can be just as ridiculous.
I'll take that over an elected populist divisive asshole any day.
And also, of all the parts of my comment to rebut, you pick the part that isn't the bulk of it?
It is incredibly valuable to a nation state to be able to project longevity and stability. Are you seriously questioning the value of a thousand years of unbroken tradition? Every country has a founding mythos, and to be able to connect the current head of state to its founding has immense symbolical value.
Imagine that the US were to elect a president who was a descendant of George Washington. As silly as it is, Americans would cream their pants en masse at the thought. ...while vehemently arguing that they absolutely don't do that royalty thing, of course.
> In the UK, even with their hereditary head of state, they still had Boris Johnson who was definitely populist and divisive.
Yes? What? Boris was the elected head of government, of course they'd get a populist asshole now and then. Are you saying it would be better if both the head of government and the head of state could be populist assholes?
> you pick the part that isn't the bulk of it?
Well, the answer to that bulk was simply no, there's no contradiction, because you're conflating different kinds of power. And again, if your country has always combined the two roles and their powers, it might be hard to understand the separation of and difference between them.
There's no universal answer to that question. It depends on what you think the state represents.
In your case you attach a lot of importance to your state's longevity, in which case your rationale for the monarchy is consistent. But the defining feature of republican states (US, Ireland, France, most of South America) is definitely not their longevity. It is the idea that the state is a creation of the people, and that all power - real, ceremonial, even trivial - derives from the power of the people. In this case a monarchy is the wrong symbol, and the correct symbol is an elected head of state. (The head of state doesn't need to have power, e.g. Ireland's president.)
And yet the first line of the constitution of this constitutional monarchy is that "all power derives from the people". These things are not mutually exclusive.
Rex dei gratia hasn't been a thing for centuries, it's rex populi gratia these days. If any royal family fucks up too much, they're out on their asses, and they know it.
The Continental Congress thought about ending the anarchy of the early years of revolution by getting themselves a Prussian as their new King. To make it worse, Hamilton argued to have a President for life and Adams argued to address the President as "His Majesty".
Those early years are fertile soil for any fiction writer interested in alternative realities.
This is basically what happened in the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. King James was unpopular due to being Catholic and a set of unpopular decisions, so the upper class wrote to the Dutch stadholder William of Orange and invited him to stage a coup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invitation_to_William . Which succeeded without resistance.
This (and subsequent incidents with the Georges) is an important part of how the English monarchy is effectively "leashed" by requiring a certain minimal amount of consent of the governed.
As a Canadian, the whole thing is so bizarre because he is the supreme leader of our country. It literally says I must pledge allegiance to him on my citizenship certificate. Yes, of course I understand the whole thing is theater and he has no actual power, but that's why I think the whole charade is bizarre to begin with.
The comment I was responding to, which makes no sense, made the non sequitur that "Americans seem to think that constitutional monarchs are like the president of the US" because he only read the first half of my sentence.
QE II wasn't a bad monarch, and that was probably a big factor in the UK keeping its monarchy during the 20th century where democracy was the big trend.
Sorry, it wasn't meant as a direct comment to you, more of a comment on the thread in general.
Still though, using the words "supreme leader" about any constitutional monarch in a liberal democracy sounds so weird to me, that's a title for dictators, which is the complete opposite of what they are. They're heads of state, and they are completely dependent on popular support for their reigns.
> As a Canadian, the whole thing is so bizarre because he is the supreme leader of our country.
I agree, I don't understand why any former colony would want to keep that.
The case for the UK is that they've been doing the king thing for 1100 years now, it's an integral part of the land and the people and the history, and that gives it symbolic value that contributes to the power or cohesiveness of the nation state.
> I don't understand why any former colony would want to keep that.
Me neither, but Canada was specifically formed by people who wanted to keep that. Otherwise they would have just joined the USA at the start...
The US is one of few countries where the head of state and the chief executive is combined into one office. I wonder if that contributes to Americans always having weird takes like this?
The purpose of the head of state is to act as a check on the legislature and the chief executive, that's typically the only real power they have, the rest is just ceremonial. And yet many Americans seem to think that constitutional monarchs are like the president of the US and has executive powers?