New photographs celebrate Queen and Prince Philip's 70th wedding anniversary

[Denzil_DC]

33. Oh yeah.

Last edited Mon Nov 20, 2017, 11:36 AM - Edit history (1)

You might have gathered from my tone above that I was partly joshing (think Yes, Minister).

In theory, everything I say is true. In practice, the Queen's role is more ceremonial and as constitutional window dressing. It would be unthinkable, for instance, for her to withhold royal assent at the last stage of passing a law, though it's one of her theoretical powers (it's not been done since the time of Queen Anne, in 1707).

As I said earlier, I have a feeling the next generation of royals are going to want to scale back their duties and lifestyle (possibly more along the lines of nordic royalty). But it is very hard to see how we could engineer a vote to remove the monarchy (and again, please don't suggest a referendum ...).