I'm gonna be mightily pissed off if it turns out that the Queen is rolling in money. I assumed she was on median wage with rent controls.

https://www.theguardian.com/business...-seabed-rights



Nice to have a little income in your old age.

Ordered. Thank you.

George III surrendered control over the Estate's revenues to the Treasury. In return, he received an annual grant known as the Civil List.
From 1 April 2012 the Civil List was abolished and the monarch was provided with a stable source of revenue indexed to a percentage of the Crown Estate's annual net revenue.

What is being discussed here is her separate 'private' income. It is worth a lot more than her income from the Crown Estate which all goes on 'official' spending associated with her duties etc.

Lots of not-political-at-all-only-a-figurehead messing about with legislation: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...queens-consent

I have ordered too. Thank you.

I downloaded this to Kindle May last year. Not sure if I read it or not, although I recall I did but haven't left a review. What is amusing is the way the Queen 'makes an appearance' and all the protocols leading up to it. 'And what do you do?' is supposedly Prince Philip's stock opening remark on meeting anybody.

What is entertaining is Baker explaining how most of the 'royal traditions' have recently just been made up as they go along.

Exactly the same thing happened with America's constitution they've even fiddled with it in the last thirty years. Outrageous.

Every tradition started somewhere

What about the tradition of having traditions?

Sounds interesting. I've just bought it on Kindle (Mr Baker owes you some thanks!)

Good old British democracy in action, no EU meddling.....

I'm all for a referendum on the monarchy, you ?

If the referendum isn't clear on what should replace the monarchy then I'm not in favour of it. We would run the risk of voting to abolish the monarchy and then spend years failing to agree what, if anything, should replace it.

If the alternative to the monarchy is clearly stated in the referendum then I would be in favour of it.

It is, I've met him - well I've stood next to a rather attractive female colleague that he made a beeline for, completely blanking me...

What would the question be?

Do you want to get rid of the monarchy?

We don't know what to replace it with, but if you vote yes we'll spend the next 5 years arguing about how to do it, and then have a botched up last minute ballsup of a deal.

Pease tick Yes or No.

A wise man.

Whatever it was would be designed to keep Boris in power.

Darat, have you considered an Amazon account so you can get commission?
:)

Feel free, I don't have a monarch.

Ah, the lesson of Brexit....

Check your pig before purchase. :)

How about an elected President, they're quite fashionable.
Elected by PR (i.e. numbered preference) for a seven year term. Immunity from prosecution for their time in office, unless voted on by Parliament, and removable by a super-majority of Parliament (or if convicted of a serious offense). Seven year term.
A fixed, but generous, salary, official residence(s) and transport while in office, plus pension and post-presidency security paid for by the state.
A ban on holding paid office afterwards, for the length of their service. Completely transparency of land, stock and investment holdings in a public register.

Me too.

Ok, but what power would they have?

Why would we need to replace it? It doesn't do anything even close to essential afaics.

Transpose the current monarchial powers.

Except consume money and resources and meddle in the affairs of teh elected parliament.

Quite: what exactly is the monarchy for? Except a constant reminder of how much power and wealth the aristocracy still have - even if you follow the "decline and fall" documented by someone like David Cannadine there is still a whole heap of land, power, money, influence and the rest in those hands.

And, why the need for any head of state?

I am all for the monarchy. Rather have a nice but dim monarch in place than some autocrat like Putin or some communist people's republic. Keeps out the fascists, too, as technically the Queen 'appoints' the Prime Minister once elected. Sure the 'men in grey' see to all this, but technically she could stop an incoming totalitarian regime in its tracks.

No she couldn’t - she would simply be ignored.

This presumes that somebody needs to be at least the nominal head of state. Why?

No, she couldn't. She has no say in the matter whatsoever. It's a meaningless ritual.

Because if we didn't, we'd be like the Swiss :p

Seems like a good idea to me

Lovely place to visit, not sure whether I'm temperamentally suited to living there. :)

Utter nonsense. The Generals, Admirals, Wing Commanders of the Armed Forces have all pledged allegiance to the Crown. Should there be some kind of peasants' uprising or a Dominic Cummings' far right attempt at a coup d'état, whose side do you think the armed forces will be on. They are unelected and there is nothing you can do about it, other than pass a Bill through Parliament to abolish the monarchy, which I doubt the Queen's lawyers will advise her to sign off.

If a party whose manifesto included becoming a republic was ever elected it would make for an interesting Queen's Speech. "I look forward to the implementation of my government's plans to abolish the monarchy".

I enjoyed a couple of years there.

Why would the Queen have to sign anything off?
Parliament outranks her.
If she ever refused to give 'Royal Assent' to any Bill she would be gone in the blink of an eye.
Do you think the army would attack parliament if the Queen ordered it?

You are naive if you believe all 'Boris' has to do is present a Bill with his 80-seat majority and voila, he is now General Johnson military dictator of the UK.

If parliament presented a bill and the queen refused to sign what then?
Do you think it would just not be implemented?

"Do we keep the Monarchy, or scrap the Monarchy ?"

If we scrap the monarchy, they lose taxpayer funding and legal status.

You could have a follow on referendum:
Should the PM become head of state, or the speaker of the house (of Commons) ?