A symbol of British democracy, "The Queen shows us who isn't boss"

It&#x27;s a great article and the insight into the symbolism of the event is fascinating.<p>I always wondered what the guy banging on the door of the houses of Parliament with the huge ceremonial stick was all about when I was a kid.<p>Nevertheless, so long as power is concentrated in an utterly unaccountable and inaccessible elite we&#x27;ll never know if it is indicative of the true state of affairs, an elaborate coverup or somewhere in-between the two.<p>Where I come from to question the British Monarchy is not only unpopular, it&#x27;s potentially offensive to the section of the community that considers themselves British. Compounding that, republicanism is a dirty word with violent connotations. Change is unlikely to come from this particular part of the world.<p>Yet with the Irish Republic right down the road we have context on what a Republic really means. One looks at the picture of President Higgins standing in line for an ATM [1] and makes a decision right away. It either fills you with pride or with scorn.<p>It looks like there&#x27;s a nascent movement towards Republicanism over in the UK but it&#x27;ll be a long time coming.<p>1: <a href="https://twitter.com/AwningsIreland/status/448436785220452352/photo/1" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;AwningsIreland&#x2F;status&#x2F;448436785220452352...</a>

The monarchy and the wider UK constitution is like the ultimate legacy system. Extremely hard to change because it has all grown organically and has tentacles and interdependencies everywhere. And there&#x27;s no authoritative documentation (ie written constitution), just a whole lot of observations about how it has always worked in the past [1].<p>Its worth reading about the duties of the &quot;Queen&#x27;s Remembrancer&quot; [2], who is a real person right now. All the bizarre stuff about knives and nails and horseshoes and tablecloths has been going on, year after year, for over 800 years. Like some kind of autonomous system that nobody knows how to shut down any more.<p>So I find the British constitution quite fascinating, in the same way that some really old software from the early sixties but still in use somehow, would be fascinating. Unless you power the whole thing down (revolution) all you can really do is change it slowly. I sometimes wonder if thats the point of it.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Constitution_of_the_United_King...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen&#x27;s_Remembrancer" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Queen&#x27;s_Remembrancer</a>

The mention of the civil war is the cue to where all this comes from. As usual after a civil war, what emerged was not a democracy but a military dictatorship. The UK was a Protestant theocracy for a while. This was sufficiently awful that there was no substantial opposition to the return of the monarchy after the death of Cromwell; however 20 years later a combination of desire for parliamentary power and anti-Catholicism resulted in deposing the monarch and replacing him with a <i>different</i> monarch imported from Holland, who would be under the control of parliamentarians.<p>Unpicking the constitutional settlement opens several extremely controversial cans of worms. For example, the role of religion in the UK; authority over the armed forces; land ownership reform; the House of Lords; the electoral system in general; devolution; and the strangeness of the Crown dependencies (channel islands, Isle of Man, etc).<p>There <i>are</i> people who are violently loyal to the monarchy, as well as a wide spread of society who are affectionate towards the Royal Family.

I actually feel sad for the lot of them. It&#x27;s not like they went looking for fame, it was thrust upon them. I, for one, would hate the continuous travel, smile, nod, shake hand, smile, move on.<p>Prince George&#x27;s future is all laid out, he has zero incentive and zero opportunity to make something worthwhile by himself. He will never be &quot;just another one of the team&quot;, at least, not for long.<p>I wouldn&#x27;t wish Prince George&#x27;s life for my sons.

&quot;which to this day contains no sailors because they are still in disgrace for their mutiny at Spithead in 1797. &quot;<p>Quite Right.

I see the monarchy as a technical debt from experimenting with government models. We ended up something similar to a presidency but also left withe a symbolic head of state.<p>Because cost of removing the technical debt is bigger than the cost of living with it, we just ignore it.

That&#x27;s a nice spin in the headline, but a homeless person could equally well fulfil the requirements.<p>In reality the Queen is a symbol of the glorious colonial times.

&quot;The Queen reigns, but she does not rule.&quot; - Walter Bagehot

&gt; The Queen reads a speech that is written by someone else, namely the government. They make her repeat excruciating political slogans. Her representative in the Palace of Westminster - we aficionados call him Black Rod - has the doors of the House of Commons slammed in his face to remind the monarch who is boss.<p>This part is very eloquently captured in the political thriller trilogy by BBC - &quot;House of Cards&quot; (UK version 1990) [0]. The part I am referring to is the second part of the trilogy and is titled &quot;To Play the King&quot; aired in 1993 [1].<p>[0] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(UK_TV_series)" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;House_of_Cards_(UK_TV_series)</a> [1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Play_the_King" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;To_Play_the_King</a>

You can ask the King of France how well absolute monarchy works out in the long run.

Stupid waste of time and money. We should abolish the damn monarchy once and for all, let them get a job like the government tells everybody else they must do.<p>Unfortunately I choose to migrate from one constitutional monarchy to another, which seems to have just as much fun with all the ceremonies, days off and drunken patriotism as back home. <i>Peer Netherlands</i>

Is there any sovereign who can still rule like king Geoffrey?

I don&#x27;t know about British democracy with David Cameron in power. There&#x27;s democracy and then there&#x27;s &quot;democracy&quot;.

The article reads to me like a crock of shait &amp; a whole lot of naval gazing. Why is this even on HN? Or perhaps that&#x27;s my somewhat biased non-british view of more useless crap left over from ages gone by, that nobody but the Brits really give a shit about.

Probably due to my setup with NoScript and RequestPolicy, the page kept reloading. Disabling Javascript for bbc.co.uk enabled it to load without problem.

And this is where we get the nickname &#x27;pom&#x27; from, which is short for &#x27;pompous&#x27; and usually associated with other appengages, i.e. &#x27;bastard&#x27; and so on.<p>Pomp and ceremony, with little substance, seems to be an essence of many a puppet state.