Just in case anyone's unclear as to my position on this anachronistic bullsh:t pageantry.

#AbolishTheMonarchy

#uk #ukpolitics #constitution #monarchy

@fencoul
In a functioning democracy, how can a person acquire a job because they can show direct line of descent from a warlord roving around Europe almost 1000 years ago.
How did he get the job?
He was his mother's eldest child.
She got the job because she was her father's eldest child.
He got the job because his brother quit.
He got the job because he was his father's eldest child.
It goes back like that, with occasional detours, for 960 years.
@fencoul
No one voted for him, no one was allowed to vote for an alternative, the sole requirement for the job wasn't any actual ability but rather being the eldest son of the previous Monarch.
How is this possible in a functioning democracy?
Oh, wait...
@stuartb @fencoul he doesn’t have political power. The issue for most is about cost and privilege.

@markmason @stuartb @fencoul the Royal family have massive political influence. They can lobby parliamentarians and, according to an MSP yesterday, are protected from having that information revealed.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/08/queen-lobbied-for-changes-to-three-more-laws-documents-reveal

Queen lobbied for changes to three more laws, documents reveal

Road safety, heritage and private land leasing were all subject of pressure from palace, records show

The Guardian
@patrickhadfield @stuartb @fencoul they can ask for things and a complaint government will grant them. That’s privilege not power.
@markmason
@patrickhadfield @fencoul
Privilege and power are pretty much interchangable - they may not be exactly the same thing, but the end results are pretty much indistinguishable.
In effect, power is the ability to create a law, privilige is benefitting from that law, and they appear to have input into many laws, which they then benefit from.
Privilige or power, it doesn't matter -they benefit from laws, or exemptions to laws, that no one else does.
@stuartb @patrickhadfield @fencoul in effect yes but only because those with real power, the ones we elect, make it happen.