Nitpick: the Queen is H.M. (Her Majesty). The other members of her immediate family are H.R.H. (His/Her Royal Highness).
That’s a hell of a lot of what ifs and speculation, the answer to all of which is - Who Knows? More to the point is what difference dissolving the monarchy now would make? I would call myself a republican, but the point made by Lust4Life about the monarchy’s benefits to business is a reasonable one.
I personally would see no problem with an elected head of state. Make them purely symbolic and lacking any power, and also make the terms reasonably long (say 15 years). Then you just have to trust the electorate, which is surely better than trusting random genetics. QE2 hasn’t been that bad, but the rest of her gene pool is pretty dodgy.
FWIW, President Obama went out of his way to praise the Queen: The Sun
French spelling, sorry.
And I said Fiji like I would have said Timbuktu : a remote place of little international significance. But man, the art and the food there ! 
Here’s something I always wondered about – Assume that republicanism triumphs and the United Kingdom becomes the Republic of Great Britain. The monarch is no longer the official head of state – that role is shifted to a democratically chosen office holder. And the government ceases to recognize titles and privileges of royalty and nobility. Would it be possible for royalty and nobility to continue to exist as a social and cultural institution divorced from any governmental sanction?
ISTR that there are a number of members of noble houses and former royal houses of European nations which have since become republics who are gadding about in high society. They would certainly count as data points in favor of the proposition that the royalty/nobility will still exist as a social/cultural phenomenon. Their titles have no legal standing, but I think that they’re still passed on, and of course the families still have money and the social standing that comes with it.
Cheers,
bcg
That’s how it is in France as far as I know. We still have noble families, and they still pass their titles to their offspring (my SO is the sister to a future Viscount ;)) but besides their names having a “de” in front of them, and a family castle slowly crumbling somewhere in the country, they’re no different from any citizen. Many of them are in the hotel business, turning said crumbling castle into a tourist trap.
I was thinking of the German nobility in my post right above yours, but mutatis mutandis the same point applies.
Cheers,
bcg
Um, don’t you kind of anyway? I mean, you pay for the Queen, and you pay for the PM, right? Gordon Brown doesn’t pay his own way, does he?
Hell, here we gotta pay for the Pres and VP, so we’re not doing any better in any case.
hypothetically, if the UK abolished the monarchy, the most likely replacement structure would be a parliamentary system with a weak President performing ceremonial duties and having some reserve powers, but with real political power remaining in the Commons and the Prime Minister, much like the German and Italian systems. So they would have to pay for both the President and the Prime Minister.
Again, top notch information at the SDMB. Gotta love it. Thanks, dopers.
xo, C.
Well, you need a Head of State and a Head of Government. Put them both in one guy, and you get what we had here the last eight years. (Not necessarily a snark; I can point to intelligent people here who approved of it.) You can but either or both into committee – and you get the usual results of something being delegated to a committee. Britain has one check-and-balance America lacks – there’s somebody whose job it is to have the long-teerm memory and be there while the political head’s popularity waxes and wanes, and who has the final say in whether he gets to continue running things or not – though her say had better closely accord with the popular will if she goes against him.
On the other hand, Parliament is supreme, and unlike in the U.S., no court can declare one of its acts unconstitutional and strike it down.
Aren’t there some countries (Germany, perhaps? Or Austria?) where it’s actually illegal to make use of a hereditary title?
Don’t know about Austria, but I’m pretty sure that the use of hereditary titles is not illegal in Germany. See, Wikipedia, e.g.:
and
Georg Friedrich Prinz von Preussen - Wikipedia (who is head of that house)
Basically, the members of the family of the German Kaiser (who was deposed, remember, in 1918) still retain their noble titles and pass them on to their children. The titles have little legal standing, but they still exist.
I say “little legal standing” because, for example, since Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia is a descendant of Queen Victoria (a distinction he seems to share with just about every noble in Europe) he is in the line of succession to the British throne (deft segue back to the topic, eh?), so in some bizzare set of circumstances involving the death/disappearance of 150 other individuals, he could be crowned King of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Certainly stranger things have happened, eh?
Cheers,
bcg
I’m thinking not. Can you name one?
Hunting accidents, I swear. All of 'em. Even the one who fell down an elevator shaft. Onto some bullets.
I must admit, I’m wondering how titles actually get passed on. Since there’s no ruling body or authority to supervise everything, how does it actually work ? Is it a mere “my dad said he was the Duke, and now I am” sort of thing ? Do they still have titles or patents of nobility ? Do the nobles of Europe have a newsletter going around notifying everyone that so-and-so is the new Vice-Marquis With Frills of OompaLoompaLand, all hail the Vice-Marquis With Frills ?
Also, since no one’s making new nobles anymore, what happens when the Vice-Marquis With Frills of OompaLoompaLand dies without an heir ? Does the region end up forevermore noble-less, or is there no patch of dirt over which fifteen feuding and crossbreeding families hold some form of title ?
As Tevye might say, “Tradition!” Seriously, if one’s going to claim moble status in the first place (anywhere where it no longer has any acrual social, economic, or political value, anyway), one is a staunch upholder of the traditional ways of doing things.
And titles pass according to a rther intricate but theoretically definable process, according to the laws and customs of the (perhaps now defunct) regime which granted the title of nobility in the first place. For example, most northern French and western German titles follow the Salic Law, in which inheritance cannot be transmitted to or through a woman, keeping it in the same ‘family’ (presuming patrilineal names). Other titles may pass like the British crown by male-precedence primogeniture (in order of birth, except that all sons rank before any daughters). It may be restricted to heirs male (approximately the Salic thing) or heirs of one’s body (adopted children don’t count). A few titles pass to eldest living member of the noble house (Reuss is famous for this) or by ultimogeniture (the youngest child inherits). But there is an organized and logical sequence that can be referenced beforehand – and some aficionados of this sort of stuff can explain it in detail.
Noble titles still exist in Germany, but only as surnames. This means they can be transmited in ways not kosher with traditional nobility. Zsa Zsa Gábor’s husband,Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt, is an example. He was born Hans Robert Lichtenbe and at the age of 37 payed the elderly (& cashstrapped) Princess Marie-Auguste of Anhalt to adopt him.
Titles of nobility stopped having any real relationship to actual territory a long time ago.