From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Philip Welch
If people had WWJD (What Would Jimbo Do) in mind when they start fighting over stuff, a lot of this crap would just go away.
Actually I think the aura of the God-King has either faded
for a lot
of people, or they never had a sense of it in the first place (cf, Karmafist wheel warring with Jimbo). Our constitutional monarchy model has problems .
That may be because it isn't a constitutional monarchy. If the monarch's power is unfettered and he intervenes directly in minor matters that are otherwise the province of government, then it is a dictatorship. A benevolent dictatorship, I trust.
I'm sure that if Tony Blair decided to turn the UK into a fascist one- party state, Queen Elizabeth would come down and say "no, stop, you're being stupid."
This is a long established principle. Bagehot talked of three rights belonging to the monarch: "the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, and the right to warn"
She has far more experience than any current politician in the processes of government, and her advice would be valuable. But she can do no more than warn. If she dismissed the Government and selected another more to her liking, then without the support of the House of Commons, that replacement would soon run out of money.
If we are talking about doing things legally, that is. If Tony Blair decided to turn the UK into a one-party fascist state using illegal means, an exciting possibility that would raise many British eyebrows, then the Queen would probably find herself unable to intervene. It would depend on which side the military decided to support, I suppose, and the [[King's Own Queens]] regiment might find itself in an impossible position. Well, more impossible.
This is a big argument for constitutional monarchies being better than republics, incidentally.
Well, I dunno. What happens if the Queen decides to turn the UK into a fascist one-party state? It's not as if it hasn't happened before.
Peter (Skyring)