Well it’s a terrible photo, Charlie seems about as at ease as a cat on a hot tin roof, and yes it all seems a bit silly.
The other thing for the UK though is that its quaint royal tradition is worth untold amounts in tourist revenue. So again much as I find it laughable, I’m not sure it isn’t worth maintaining for that reason.
No, in a constitutional monarchy, the monarch has both influence and actual power, along with substantial unenumerated reserve powers. It’s an important institution and it will remain important until and unless more modern institutions might replace it. Until then I would prefer that its trappings be modernized and be somewhat less comical than the presentation of the Holy Hand Grenade.
I suspect @Smapti is familiar with the debate. The issue is whether power that is very seldom exercised - and might well be removed (along with certain heads) if it were used - is real power. There is no clear answer to that question because it is untested.
IIRC, the last time a British monarch actually used any of those reserve powers of their own accord was when William IV appointed Peel as PM in 1834, which wound up backfiring on him in the long run anyway, and it’s generally accepted these days that the king would only use those powers if the elected government advised him to do so. I expect that any attempt by King Chuck to unilaterally dismiss Parliament or have the Lord Chancellor beheaded for refusing to assent to the Act of Supremacy would probably result in an abrupt termination of his reign.
Depending on how you define a “reserve power”, it’s been used a lot more recently than 1834, for example by the Governor General of Canada acting on behalf of the monarch, illustrating how it does actually serve a vital function of apolitical impartiality …
A prorogation of parliament took place on December 4, 2008, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper advised Governor General Michaëlle Jean to do so after the opposition Liberal and New Democratic parties formed a coalition with the support of the Bloc Québécois party and threatened to vote non-confidence in the sitting minority government, precipitating a parliamentary dispute.
The Governor General, however, did not grant her prime minister’s request until after two hours of consultation with various constitutional experts. Upon the end of her tenure as vicereine, Jean revealed to the Canadian Press that the delay was partly to “send a message—and for people to understand that this warranted reflection” … Jean granted the prorogation on two conditions: parliament would reconvene soon and, when it did, the Cabinet would present a proposed budget, a vote on which is a confidence matter.
Prorogation in Canada - Wikipedia
Seems to me that that was a purely Canadian issue, where the GG exercised that power on the advice of the elected Canadian government. It’s not as if the Queen decided on her own that those colonials in Ottawa had gone too far and needed to be reined in. If Liz was ever actually consulted on the matter, I doubt it was much more than “This is what is going to happen, and here’s what we’d like you to say about it if anyone asks”. I’m not sure things would have happened any differently if Canada’s head of state were a ceremonial elected or appointed president rather than a Governor-General.
I think you misunderstand the concept of a constitutional monarchy, as many Americans do. It’s not about the Queen (at the time) or the current King of the UK. It’s about the concept of a Head of State with limited but reserve powers that are independent of politics, where the Head of State is not the same person as the elected leader of government, and who can provide impartial guidance in a political crisis.
Which was the point of my example.
That said, you’re not the only one who misunderstood the concept. Another was Elizabeth May, the former leader of the Green Party of Canada. She wrote to Queen Elizabeth about alleged election irregularities, asking Liz to get right on it, and got back the most elegantly polite “fuck-you” that has perhaps ever been seen in diplomatic correspondence:
Dear Miss May, “The Queen has taken careful note of the concerns you express,” writes Miss Jennie Vine, deputy to the senior correspondence officer. “Perhaps I might explain, however, that this is not a matter in which the Queen would intervene. As a constitutional Sovereign, her Majesty acts through her personal representative, the Governor-General, on the advice of her Canadian ministers, and it is to them that your appeal should be directed. “I have therefore been instructed to forward your letter to the Governor-General of Canada so that he may be aware of your approach to the Queen and may consider the points you raise.”
Elizabeth May writes to the Queen and gets a civics lesson in reply | National Post
I’m not sure I understand your objection, then. I believe the monarchy is mostly harmless because they don’t take an active role in politics, and you appear to be arguing that the monarchy is a problem because they don’t take an active role in politics.
Is there a problem that would have been solved if Ms. May had been appealing to a politically active head of state as opposed to a ceremonial figurehead?
For the record, while the role of a King or Queen may have certain technical limitations in a constitutional monarchy as to their ability to exercise direct political power, it should be acknowledged that the monarch’s position affords him or her a tremendous level of access and political influence in a soft-power sense. Recent example:
But this is getting rather off-topic for the thread, I think.
That’s not what I’m arguing. My point is that although the monarchy can be rightfully considered largely ceremonial, it’s an important part of the system of government in the UK, Canada, Australia, and the many other Commonwealth nations that recognize the monarch as their head of state. Their functions include giving royal assent to all legislation so that it officially becomes law, opening sessions of parliament, dissolving or proroguing parliament, and effectively appointing the prime minister by inviting them to form a government. These functions can be potentially discretionary. If a PM wants to prorogue parliament, the Governor General doesn’t have to agree. And the business of forming a government, while almost always decided by an election, can become interesting in a minority election outcome when several parties band together to form a coalition that outnumbers the party that won a plurality of seats.
No, because the alleged problem was imaginary. However, the Queen did make an interesting judgment call. She implicitly acknowledged that the monarchy had a legitimate interest in addressing such a problem, but in recognition of Canada’s autonomy, deferred to the Governor General – although everything the GG does is in the name of the monarch.
There was another interesting case that happened when Quebec was in the midst of a separatist referendum. The Queen got pranked by a French radio DJ pretending to be PM Chretien. At one point he put her on the spot by asking her to give a speech in support of Canada on the referendum issue. There was a moment of consultation and then she agreed, asking fake-Chretien to send her the text of what he wanted her to say, showing her willingness to get involved in a hot-button issue of Canadian politics.
I hope for William’s family that King Charles stays healthy for at least ten to fifteen years. Let William be a father and raise his children.
William will have additional responsibilities. It’s different from being King.
No - rather, showing her kicking the issue down the road by asking for written evidence that it would all be the (supposed) PM’s idea, so that he would take any flak.
It’s a standard Palace technique - there’s at least one recorded case of it happening in the UK, when Harold Wilson (for real) suggested asking the Queen to visit the then Southern Rhodesia in the hope of dissuading the white settler government from declaring UDI. HM’s private secretary asked the PM’s private secretary for formal advice in writing, and nothing more was heard of the idea.
In other royal picture news, I have acquired a book of stamps with Charles III’s picture on them. I ordered them off the Canada Post website, and they were delivered as a small parcel, which I had to pick up at the post office.
I mean, isn’t the monarch’s job basically just to say and do what the elected government tells them to?
I’ll grant that Governors-General seem to have a bit more autonomy than the monarch themselves, especially as seen in the 1975 Australian crisis, but even then it seems to me that Kerr was acting in accordance with the will of the people rather then on his own whim or on orders from the throne.
According to an online inflation calculator, 2 million pounds in 1953 would be worth 45,258,310.37 pounds today. Of course, these calculators are not very precise, but it does look like this king spent 'way more than his mom did.
It’s much more expensive to employ people in 2023. A do-over of 1953 would have probably cost billions.
Well that is the multi-billion pound question. That is what they have done in recent times, by convention. But legally, it is not quite clear what would happen if they did not.
That is certainly the figleaf he used although there is a good argument what the people wanted was not so clear that he should have acted as peremptorily as he did.
The purple robe is probably a holdover from the ancient sumptuary laws which forbade the wearing of ‘Tyrian Purple’ by anyone other than the monarch. Repealed long ago, of course, but the King still wears the purple when he has to.
At least they didn’t make him wear short pants, like his grandfather had to.
