• neanderthal@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    30
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    8 months ago

    Churchill: Americans will do the right thing after they have tried everything else.

    When do British monarchs do the right thing? You had your chance, Charles, to be a leader and do the right thing. You blew it. History will remember this moment in the way it remembers the cruel imperialism of your ancestors.

    • silence7OPM
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      8 months ago

      The standard is that the king does what the elected officials tell him to do, and holds no actual power to do anything else. The alternative is a king with actual power, which is incredibly damaging.

        • neanderthal@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 months ago

          Pretty much l, if they are just a formality, what is the point?

          Ideally, they would mostly defer to the elected officials, but use their royal stick when they try to do monumentally stupid things like this . I.e. act as a safety device. My guess is it would only happen once a decade or so.

          • JoBo@feddit.uk
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            8 months ago

            They are pointless. But not really much different to other parliamentary systems where the head of state is just a figurehead (eg Ireland and Israel, as opposed to the USA and France). An elected figurehead would be far preferable, of course.

            It would be a very fucking terrible idea to have a monarchy with actual power which actually used it. Almost all of the powers technically held by the monarchy are wielded by the govt on its behalf (eg the Royal Prerogative) and that is bad enough. Putting those powers directly in the hands of the hereditary monarch (a multi-billionaire with delusions of grandeur) would be much, much worse.

            There is a ‘royal stick’, as you refer to it, which is the only power they have to wield unilaterally but it is almost impossible for them to actually do so, and definitely not as often as “once a decade or so”. If they think the govt is becoming a dictatorship such that there is no other way to stop them, they can step in and force that govt out. But in practice they would need the backing of the entire British establishment to do so and, in reality, any British dictatorship would likely have the backing of the monarchy anyway.

  • skhayfa@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    8 months ago

    Also the irony of a Royal sitting on a golden throne with a diamond egg on his head and a leopard mantle talking about high inflation and poverty.

  • Dieguito 🦝@feddit.it
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    8 months ago

    The tide has turned (sarcastic) so His Majesty himself must withdraw his environmentalist good intentions and follow the people’s will.

    Imagine this happening while the UK was part of the EU, how embarrassing! Luckily they left earlier.