Snaga said:
We in Britain have a constitutional monarchy. It allows us to vote on some matters, but not others. In particular, we don't have an elected head of state. Does it matter? Perhaps not, you might think. On a day to day basis, it appears to make little difference, since an elected government makes key decisions and the queen doesn't. But in theory, the queen can dismiss a government on a whim, which would be wholly undemocratic. I suppose it is part of the constitutional settlement between the monarchy and parliament that she doesn't use this outrageous power. But it is still there.
The Queen has no such power. What the Queen can do is to dissolve a parliament at the request of the Prime Minister.
The one power that the Queen does still have is the ability to block legislation by not signing it. It is unlikely that this will ever be used again, the last time being three centuries ago.
The government itself is not exactly democratic. The British people cannot vote for the Prime MInister, we can only vote for MPs who can then choose the leader of their party who may become Prime Minister. The government is also more akin to an elected dictatorship in that it has the ability to pass any law it wishes without fear of it being blocked by the Lords. As mentioned above the only real check on the government's power is the ability of the monarch to block legislation e.g. if the government were to pass a Bill banning elections and used a sufficiently large majority and the Parliament Act to pass it then the Queen would be the only one with the legal ability to stop it becoming law.
Worse, I believe, is the corrosive power of deference, nostalgia and pomposity that often pervades the public life of Britain - this is the worst effect of a monarchy.
Those traits that you criticise so freely are present in all societies, arguably more so in republics. The economic and cultural gap between the rich and poor in America is far greater than it is in Britain. You will also find that the greatest supporters of the monarchy in Britain are chiefly drawn from the working classes. In fact, one finds that the upper class and the working class actually get on rather well, it is usually the middle class who cause the problems by trying to be upwardly mobile and look down upon others or fashionably working class and scornful of anything that may mark them out a snon-working class or 'of the people'.
What you pick out as being deferential others see as being a healthy respect for those leading our country. What you label nostalgia others see as remembering our past and realising that it helps define who we are. What you term pomposity others see as a British way of life, a love of tradition and and a determination to continue doing things as we have always done.
The monarchy may not be perfect and some of its members may cause embaressment, but it is an institution, which has worked well for Britain for over a thousand years. There is no great desire to get rid of the monarchy, even at its lowest ebb in the early 1990s, approval ratings were still around the 70% mark. Her Majesty has devoted her life to the service of Britain and she can never retire, until the moment she dies she will continue to serve this country; as did her father and his father before him and his father before him and his mother before him and so on.
Most Britons recognise the intrinsic value of having a monarchy in that it uniquely identifies us as being British and provides us with a link to that, which has come before our time. Only once in more than 5,000 years has Britain had any other system than a form of monarchy and that proved to be less than popular.
People are far to quick to look upon the negative aspects of the monarchy instead of appreciating its intrinsic qualities that help us define ourselves as a people. With an increasingly bland and postmodern world, in which people use 'celebrity' to define themselves, I am very proud to buck that trend and
bow my head to Her Majesty knowing that I my Queen continues to represent all that is British.