# What's the Point of the Royals in Britain? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 13, 2010, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933 "2010-12-13T00:31:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/61 "2010-12-14T19:11:05Z")
And voluntarily. I’ve got no dog in this fight at all. But to discount the ability of someone like the Queen or Prince Charles to draw out more donations that Joe Blow is simply silly. Just by associating with a specific charity they bring more attention and money to it. It’s not like there’s a universe of ‘charity’ that remains constant. People WORK at getting donations for causes. Would people give to the Salvation Army in similar amounts if not for the bell ringers? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/62 "2010-12-14T19:34:03Z")
> [@Candyman74](#): > > Anyway, we can argue forever whether their charity work has value to the country; doesn’t sound like we’ll agree. I can’t help but see charity work as a net positive - otherwise there’s no point doing it. Certainly their charity work is good, and a positive factor. I just don’t think you need royals to do it, per se. If not Charles and Fergie, then whoever won _X-Factor_ and the Chelsea manager. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/63 "2010-12-14T19:34:52Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I would think it would technically be even more difficult to replace the Crown in the UK Constitution, since it is so amorphous. It might be somewhat harder, partly because it would involved institutions unique to the United Kingdom, such as the position of [Supreme Governor of the Church of England](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Governor_of_the_Church_of_England): a Republic Act would have to devise a new way of appointing bishops in the Church of England, and might involve disestablishing the Churches of England and Scotland. The biggest issue would be deciding, if there were a president as head of state of the United Republic of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, how that president got elected or appointed, and Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Australian states and other realms and dominions would face the same kind of problem. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2010, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/64 "2010-12-14T23:29:58Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Certainly their charity work is good, and a positive factor. I just don’t think you need royals to do it, per se. If not Charles and Fergie, then whoever won _X-Factor_ and the Chelsea manager. They’re not as famous or influential. They’d be less effective. Plus they have their own careers to worry about without doing a near full-time job on top of that. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/65 "2010-12-15T02:00:54Z")
Near full time? I don’t know how busy the rest of the royals are, but HM’s diary is public record and really isn’t that full. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/66 "2010-12-15T02:49:56Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Near full time? I don’t know how busy the rest of the royals are, but HM’s diary is public record and really isn’t that full. Compared to who, other octogenarians? ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/67 "2010-12-15T04:57:37Z")
> [@Stop proposing no-government-marriages](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-proposing-no-government-marriages/563742/90): > > What annoys me about it is that the proponents keep stating over and over as fact the opinion that the word “marriage” is properly confined to a non-government, religious sphere. It’s not a fact. It’s an opinion, and a decidedly minority one. Yet, this assumption forms the basis of this argument every time. If your basic assumption is so faulty, it’s annoying when you keep building the same rickety argument on top of it. :dubious: And how exactly does this relate to the monarchy? ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/68 "2010-12-15T12:10:48Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Near full time? I don’t know how busy the rest of the royals are, but HM’s diary is public record and really isn’t that full. The Royal Family has 14 public engagements in the next 7 days. I’m really not sure what your point is. Some of the objections you’ve thrown up are really curious. 1. \*Why can’t people like the manager of Chelsea FC do it instead? \* If the manager of Chelsea football club was inclined to, as you suggest, involve himself heavily in charities, no doubt he would be doing so. Even were he to do so, it’s not a binary choice; he can do so _in addition_ to the Royal Family. 2. _Their work has no value because somebody else could do it._ In that case, nothing that anybody in this world does has value, because somebody else could do it. It’s clear you don’t value the royal charity work (you’ve worked hard enough to make that clear!) and that’s fine. I value it, however, and I suspect that many others do. In my mind, their work has value. They work with nearly [3000 charities](http://www.royal.gov.uk/CharitiesandPatronages/Overview.aspx). ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/69 "2010-12-15T17:03:58Z")
> [@Stop proposing no-government-marriages](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stop-proposing-no-government-marriages/563742/90): > > What annoys me about it is that the proponents keep stating over and over as fact the opinion that the word “marriage” is properly confined to a non-government, religious sphere. It’s not a fact. It’s an opinion, and a decidedly minority one. Yet, this assumption forms the basis of this argument every time. If your basic assumption is so faulty, it’s annoying when you keep building the same rickety argument on top of it. Disregard- **acsenray** told me he posted this in the wrong thread. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/70 "2010-12-15T17:17:21Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I’m sure the French still have a guillotine in a museum they could lend out. 😉 There is one in the police museum in Stockholm. It’s in mint condition, has only been used once. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/71 "2010-12-15T18:39:37Z")
Moved from IMHO -\> GD. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/72 "2010-12-16T00:38:46Z")
> [@Gleena](#): > > In any case, his power would be extremely limited, and he although he would have the power to prevent “unconstitutional use” of the military, the de facto power over it is with the Prime Minister in Parliament. So he could bluff and bluster, but all for nothing. > > The most he could do is dissolve the current Parliament, prorouge Parliament or summon a new one. I suspect if he were to go totally bonkers, dissolve Parliament for no reason and not summon a new one…well then…er…nothing would happen. He’d have no bills to put the Royal Assent to then, would he? And he could order people to do stuff, and they could look at him like he was off his head. That’s the stupid thing, though. Either the monarch is the head of the armed forces or the monarch isn’t the head of the armed forces. But to say, “The monarch is the head of the armed forces, but can’t actually tell the armed forces to do something without the consent of the Prime Minister”, then the monarch isn’t the head of the armed forces. The Prime Minister is. If you say “The monarch has to give royal assent to all bills”, but it hasn’t been done since 1707, and would cause a major crisis if it was done, then the monarch’s royal assent to bills is meaningless. Either the monarch actually has powers, or he or she does not (and don’t get me wrong, it’s probably better for Britain to be ruled by a representative government than an absolute monarchy), but it’s a marvelous piece of self delusion and hypocrisy on behalf of Great Britain to say, “The monarch has powers but may never use them independently.” It makes the monarch little more than the lenient host of a game of Mother-May-I. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/73 "2010-12-16T01:06:31Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > I wrote that from the perspective of Commonwealth realms like Canada and Australia, which have written constitutions, albeit with large portions of conventions tucked in. I would think it would technically be even more difficult to replace the Crown in the UK Constitution, since it is so amorphous. Sure, it’s a challenge, but we know it’s not an insurmountable challenge. Several commonwealth realms have transitioned into republics. In fact, there are more republics-that-used-to-be-commonwealth-realms than there are current commonwealth realms. So there’s plenty of precedent that Australia or Canada could look to. Or the UK. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/74 "2010-12-16T03:10:22Z")
Sure - but it would take a major constitutional re-organization. It’s not possible to just say, “Her Majesty is dead, so I guess we’re a republic now.” ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/75 "2010-12-16T03:43:33Z")
Well, it would require a _decision_, which might or might not involve a major constitutional reorganisation. At its simplest, with minimal constitutional disruption, the powers and prerogatives of the crown could pass to another office created for the purpose, to be exercised by the holder(s) of that office on pretty much the terms that they are now exercised by the Queen. The main issue would be how to choose, and replace, the officeholders. (There would, of course, be a separate issue for other commonwealth realms about how to address the implications of this for their own constitutional arrangements.) But presumably at least part of the case for replacing the monarchy might well be dissatisfaction with the current constitutional distribution of powers and prerogatives, in which case the idea of simply replacing the current monarch with someone else wouldn’t really address the perceived problem. Some wider constitutional reconceptualisation or reorganisation would be appropriate in that case. At its simplest, even if the monarch were replaced by (say) a president who in practice filled a very similar role, it is unlikely that the president would be viewed as the “sovereign”; he would merely be an _agent_ of the sovereign; the sovereign would be the republic, or the people. And, if nothing else, this view would tend to influence the future political and judicial development of the president’s role. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/76 "2010-12-16T05:55:26Z")
> [@UDS](#): > > At its simplest, even if the monarch were replaced by (say) a president who in practice filled a very similar role, it is unlikely that the president would be viewed as the “sovereign”; he would merely be an _agent_ of the sovereign; the sovereign would be the republic, or the people. And, if nothing else, this view would tend to influence the future political and judicial development of the president’s role. In a bad way IMO. A lot of damage can be done & justified in the name of “the people.” If you tell someone that he’s acting as an agent of the popular will (as if there were such a thing) he may believe it, & then we’re all in big trouble. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/77 "2010-12-16T06:17:35Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > In a bad way IMO. A lot of damage can be done & justified in the name of “the people.” If you tell someone that he’s acting as an agent of the popular will (as if there were such a thing) he may believe it, & then we’re all in big trouble. > [@foolsguinea](#): > > In a bad way IMO. A lot of damage can be done & justified in the name of “the people.” If you tell someone that he’s acting as an agent of the popular will (as if there were such a thing) he may believe it, & then we’re all in big trouble. More likely to be the other way around, IMO. Currently the Queen is the sovereign. Any power of government for which no other explicit provision is made belongs to her. Even if there’s a convention under which she exercises it on the advice of her ministers, who are ultimately accountable to parliament, parliament has no direct involvement with or control over the exercise of the power, and may frequently not even be aware of an an exercise of the power. And of course if it’s a new or novel power, or a power arising in some new or novel situation, there’s always room for argument as to whether it’s covered by established constitutional conventions. By contrast, if a hypothetical president is not sovereign, powers do not default to him, with or without the advice of ministers. A president who is agent of the sovereign people only has such powers as the scope of his agency gives him. The default is that a power or prerogative does not exist/cannot be exercised unless the people (through parliament, or other constitutional mechanisms) have enabled this. We saw this, for example, in Ireland where state immunity from suit was junked by the Supreme Court on the grounds that the people were sovereign, and they had not, either in the constitution or through the parliamentary process, conferred immunity from suit on the state – an immunity which the crown had enjoyed when Ireland was a part of the UK. And the sovereignty of the people underlies a strong constitutional jurisprudence of human rights; for example, the Supreme Court cited the sovereignty of the people in rejecting a claim by the state that it could, as an exercise of the former crown prerogative, refuse to issue a passport to a citizen (so preventing him from travelling abroad). ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/78 "2010-12-16T06:45:20Z")
I was thinking of Roman consuls & US presidents, both of which categories have rather more experience with republicanism than Ireland. I don’t trust republics, as I have said in other threads. Ireland is pretty peaceful, having been only recently a colony itself. But democracies are scary rapacious things as a rule. The UK as a democratic constitutional monarchy conquered much of the world. If it had an elected “dear leader,” playing to his constituent electorate’s hope for glory & his hope to keep his job, I shudder to think what might have ensued. Granted, the more power a PM has, the more moot the difference between the UK & a republic is. ---
**Author:** ![Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/79 "2010-12-16T06:51:10Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > … but it’s a marvelous piece of self delusion and hypocrisy on behalf of Great Britain to say, “The monarch has powers but may never use them independently.” It makes the monarch little more than the lenient host of a game of Mother-May-I. Or, that isn’t what is said? The Queen vetoing a bill and dissolving parliament is a political nuclear option\*. Just because it is very rarely used (it’s not as if three hundred years is a particularly long period in a stable country’s history, is it? For instance, when does the US constitution expire?) doesn’t make it ineffective. Perhaps it is what has kept successive administrations within the bounds of reasonable behaviour. Sandwich - we haven’t ever used our literal nuclear option, but no one argues that nuclear weapons are inconsequential. ---
**Author:** ![Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933/80 "2010-12-16T06:55:18Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > The UK as a democratic constitutional monarchy conquered much of the world. Actually, Britain would better be described as an oligarchy during it’s conquering phase. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-point-of-the-royals-in-britain/563933.md?page=5)