I was certainly surprised. I just got finished reading this article. And I had to share it with someone.
Tell me: did you realize she still had so many powers?
Thank you for letting me share this with you 
.
EDIT: BTW she also has the power to pardon (like the president). And aren’t some of these powers funny though (where’s my eel pie 
)?
"Technically, all unmarked swans in open water belong to the Queen, though the Crown “exercises her ownership” only “on certain stretches of the Thames and its surrounding tributaries,” according to the official website of the Royal Family.
Today this tradition is observed during the annual “Swan Upping,” in which swans in the River Thames are caught, ringed, and set free again as part of census of the swan population.
It’s a highly ceremonial affair, taking place over five days. “Swan uppers” wear traditional uniforms and row upriver in six skiffs accompanied by the Queen’s Swan Marker."
So she owns the unmarked swans but her swan markers are marking the swans to show she doesn’t own them? Is that right?
She has a lot of theoretical legal powers.
She has a lot of influence.
She does not have a lot of political power and she sees it as her constitutional duty that remains the case.
She has lots of powers and is due tributes which at one time were important, but has since ceased to be so. And in some cases its misrepresentation, its stuff the Crown holds, not the Queen.
Some of which in the OP’s article.
Her owning all unmarked swans doesn’t equate her not owning any marked swans. From a quick reading of this it appears the swans on the Thames are marked as belonging to one of three owners, one being the Crown.
Since swans and dolphins are “protected” by law. Ownership is pretty moot.
Quite. A lot of this is ceremonial and pretty well all of it depends on the expectations of those who want to keep traditional ceremonies going, or on the “advice” of whoever takes the substantive decision, often a government minister (since the sovereign power is “the Crown in Parliament”, with Parliament the dominant). She’s just there to rubber-stamp whatever it is (but there might be an enquiry, usually from her private secretary to the minister’s, as to what it’s all about, is it really necessary, and had they considered XYZ).
The one that’s caused some contention recently is the prior private consultation as to whether some likely new legislation would impinge on her or the family’s personal financial/business interests: and that, AFAIK, comes out of excessive caution in the Civil Service, to avoid drawing the Palace into a public/parliamentary argument later on.
The queen has the power of wearing the hell out of silly hats. She’s also a pretty good car mechanic although I’m guessing she hasn’t kept up with the latest developments in electronic fuel injection and computerized engine control.
Stranger
@Stranger_On_A_Train Yeah, hats. I’ve always wondered about the queen wearing hats. I know women must wear hats when meeting the monarch. It’s a sign of respect, as you all must know. (Men of course show respect by removing their hats.)
But what does it mean when the queen wears the hat? Is she showing respect in some way? To people? To herself? She’s always wearing hats at official functions (as your link clearly shows. ) So there must be some logical reason for it.
(After you answer my question, you can go back to the original point .)
Yeah, in almost every one of these articles, it’s confusing the Crown with the person wearing it. Which is probably a fine distinction for a lot of people. I guess the closest example I can think of is the difference between the Executive Branch & the President himself. The reigning monarch personifies the Crown, but isn’t the Crown.
For example in Canada, there is “Crown Land”, which means that it’s public land owned by the “Crown”, meaning the government. Since Canada still recognizes Elizabeth II as the Queen, she’s the personification of the “Crown” as monarch, but it doesn’t mean that she personally owns the Crown Land.
And powers of the monarch are almost always exercised on the advice of the elected government, such as the pardon power, mentioned in the OP.
The power to buy off the accusers of her pedo progeny.
The power to make the taxpayers pay to repair the home of the richest woman in the world when she tries to burn it down.
…
Thanks.
I always wondered what moot swans were.
Think of it as a symbolic crown.
Dolphins, whales and sturgeons are protected by a 14th century Act of Parliament (17 Edw. II c. 11). They are "Royal Fish"
I read a book a few years ago about the thousand or so people in the world who “own” truly enormous amounts of land. Land may not be as powerful a form of wealth as it was centuries ago, but it is still pretty powerful and the percentage of world land still “owned” by the British Crown would astonish you. At one point it included much of Canada and was well over 20%, according to one book.
Buy that’s not land owned by Elizabeth Windsor or her forebears. It’s public land owned by the British government, the federal government of Canada, the provincial governments of Canada, and so on. It’s registered in the name of « Her Majesty in right of Canada », or « Her Majesty in right of Ontario », &c.
(kaylasdad99 gets changed out of his lead long johns)
Sorry, I read the thread title and thought it was about something else.
True. The book made these distinctions. But even the amount personally owned is very significant. The amount of land owned by CNNs Ted Turner might also surprise you.
Not really. I am aware that he started buying Wyoming(?) way back when he was still dating Jane Fonda.
