The Eye of Hindsight
PwnallthethingsA lot of my international friends have asked me--a Brit--if I’m excited for the #coronation this week, so I wrote this to roughly sum up my views on it https://www.pwnallthethings.com/p/long-live-the-king
Holden Richards@Pwnallthethings Oh you nailed this. I always thought the USA should have an ceremonial Uncle Sam who was the focus of all pageantry
Mary Ann Horn@Pwnallthethings . But you have to admit they have been slowly ending it well, with their heads still on
Brændꜵn Mollɔy 
@Pwnallthethings good article but as an Australian i have to ask, why so expensive relative to other monarchies?
Alex GranfordMost of it is spent on the refurb and official tours, and in grander scheme of things, in relation to UK budget is surely not much, compared to their visibility and contribution to a wider economy and country visibility.
John Mark 
☑️@Pwnallthethings ok great - but that's not the only way to separate the head of state from the head of the executive branch
@johnmark hopefully the author mentions that somewhere in the article
jane 🦅@Pwnallthethings Really enjoyed this Matt.
Caro 🇪🇺@Pwnallthethings I may have read your piece too quickly but isn’t a coronation about history and tradition and not as obviously about who wears the crown ? A way to pass the baton (regalia/tradition) and *show* it (for legitimacy and acceptance ) ? Oh and never look to the French when it comes to dealing with monarchs. Be careful what you wish for…
@iwillrememberu Right. It's fundamentally a legitimacy ceremony, not the notional transfer of title (which happens on the prior monarchs' death)
@Pwnallthethings @iwillrememberu yep, though I guess they need to modernise that a bit for William, with CoE being so much smaller now, this religious grandeur is a bit too much and risks repelling some of the younger watchers...
Elias Fox@Pwnallthethings this seems to hold fine; so long as the monarch ONLY reminds the PM that they're shit and never actually exercises the domestic powers they actually have. I find this pretty questionable, and Elizabeth certainly wielded a sort of soft power domestically that birth alone afforded her.
Are you okay with Charles being able to do this (and theoretically more) with zero remedy that doesn't involve French methods?
docslacker@Pwnallthethings “No other country has a person whose job is to remind the political leader of the nation once a week, to their face, that, despite everything, and no matter what, they’ll always be a little bit shit.” Damn, now I’m thinking my country might need to keep its king too, but only if it adds the weekly meeting.
Gerbrand van Dieyen@Pwnallthethings "My favorite comments have come from my Ukrainian friends, which roughly sum up as “we absolutely do not understand why Brits are doing this, but it seems to make you all happy, so we’re happy for you”. "
Thorjak@Pwnallthethings I didn't think I'd enjoy reading that as much as I did. Thanks
@Pwnallthethings "But his job is, ultimately, just to wear the crown so Rishi Sunak—and others like him—can’t." Afaik The Netherlands king is slightly similar. Although it would be nice if we had a max for a prime minister of 8 years. At least the current one.
tomtapp@Pwnallthethings And that the monarchy is blatantly illegitimate means the monarch trying to seize power would be, as you alluded to, a French monarch neck event.
NKT@Pwnallthethings an excellent explanation of why I was quite pro-monarchy for many years. However, the inaction of the Queen over the last 5 or so years - boris lying to her, the prorogation of Parliament being allowed, the stuffing of the House of Lords, removal of the ability to vote for many thousands of people, the effective abolition of all forms of protest - led me to the realisation that they don't and won't do anything, likely for fear of being destroyed by the tories, in the same way as every thing else the tories "bring into line".
Which means, what's the actual point in keeping them around? If they won't stop illegal acts by the prime minister, then replace them with a system that *will* speak truth to power.
Which means, what's the actual point in keeping them around? If they won't stop illegal acts by the prime minister, then replace them with a system that *will* speak truth to power.
Juggling With Eggs‘No other country has a person whose job is to remind the political leader of the nation once a week, to their face, that, despite everything, and no matter what, they’ll always be a little bit shit. No other country would tolerate it. Britain made it as its constitutional bedrock.’
JanisEWhitePhD@Pwnallthethings
Thank you for writing this.
Thank you for writing this.
Expat Vet Of Doooom@Pwnallthethings this is so awesome. Well done.
Mike@Pwnallthethings I think the political trajectory of countries like Turkey and Hungary recently also highlight the risks of not having effective guards against presidentialism. The British Monarchy may not be the best solution, but it’s been a very resilient one, and even extends throughout the commonwealth. That’s a pretty neat trick!
JamesWords@Pwnallthethings I enjoyed this, thanks!
In this former colony (Aotearoa NZ) the same person is technically our head of state, but physical and cultural distance means we find the royal pomp and palaces even less relevant.
We have a Governor General whose job is to represent the Crown, sign off laws and government formation, and be boringly uninvolved in political debates.
Finally, our ceremonies are increasingly benefiting from Māori perspectives and forms belonging to these islands.
Kenn White@Pwnallthethings that was a good piece. And you'll forgive me as a decades-long fan of the show if I couldn't help but translate this in my head into the opening lines of Law and Order: “The executive branch of every country has to juggle operating in two rather different domains at the same time: domestic and international.”
Prof Prachi Srivastava@Pwnallthethings Yes, yes, and yes. Right behind you.
__red__@Pwnallthethings I wrote something similar earlier this evening (abridged here):
The British public are world-class cosplayers. Nobody, and I mean *nobody*, not even the King himself thinks that the Royals are "better" than "commoners" - they play a role, we play a role.
Why do we play that role?
We have Religion in the Royal Family and the HoL so we never see Politics and Religion mix in society.
@Pwnallthethings
cont…
We have a cosplay 'cult of personality' in the Royals so we don't end up with a cult of personality in politics.
This is the same cosplay that has been going on for over a thousand years.
We force the Prime Minister to meet with the Monarch every week so they can be reminded that they are temporary and just not that important…
The monarch has more access to Intel than the PM. The Monarch will outlive almost all of their PMs, providing a long-term apolitical view.
The pomp and ceremony has to exist or the politicians win.
Were I to form a new country would I choose a hereditary constitutional monarchy? Probably not.
But an apolitical Head of State is world their weight in gold.
I'm not sure how else you could find an apolitical Head of State other than that system.
I'm not married to it, but much like Brexit - I think abolishing it would have so many unknown and damaging downstream effects.
Ton Chrysoprase@Pwnallthethings I see the point, but parliamentary democracies in general split head of state and head of executive and there’s at least reason to consider whether that arrangement helps with HOS keep a lid on HOEs at a lower price tag.
ceesar@Pwnallthethings super fascinating op-ed, thank you for posting. As by-birth UK citizen, and a naturalized US citizen, I had never considered the monarchy quite like this; I love the perspective. Plus, the monarchy serves a purpose of being a tourist attraction, like the Space Needle in Seattle, lol!
WowSuchCyber@Pwnallthethings difficult not to see an oblique reference to Macron ;-)
Dr. Samuel Wein@Pwnallthethings thanks for this. It's the best explanation that I've had of the whole thing. I do think y'all could get similar benefits following @futurebird 's suggestion of using cats instead. I would have spent all day yesterday watching an elaborate ceremony crowning #larrycat .
GrahamCGlynn@Pwnallthethings Well put! As a fellow Brit I couldn’t agree with you more!
Misfitmovies@Pwnallthethings I really loved reading this, thank you 🙂
RisuToInu@Pwnallthethings I like how you tried to balance it but let’s not ignore the palace is stuffed with advisors from the Conservative Party, and right wing media. Even the Parker Bowles family are right wing politically active. France has a better model, cohabitation is a risk but this lot are actively enabling the government. We will see what changes next year
Martijn Grooten@Pwnallthethings #pwnallthekings
Good piece. Out of curiosity: has there every been a country that chose its head of state through some kind of lottery?
Good piece. Out of curiosity: has there every been a country that chose its head of state through some kind of lottery?
Martin Sundhaug@martijn_grooten @Pwnallthethings Probably. I mean, the Vatican is an elected absolute monarchy, so....
@martijn_grooten closest would probably be Tibet and the selection of dalai lama
@Pwnallthethings yeah, I was thinking that. I believe the Coptic pope is chosen by lottery among three candidates.
@martijn_grooten right, but that's not a general lottery; you still have to get into the collection of 3 to be considered.
@Pwnallthethings sure, but you've got to start somewhere. Democracy was originally an election among elites.
Claudius Link@martijn_grooten @Pwnallthethings
I think in Athens there was a period were the representatives were selected through a lottery
https://joyofmuseums.com/museums/europe/greece-museums/athens-museums/museum-of-the-ancient-agora/kleroterion/
I think in Athens there was a period were the representatives were selected through a lottery
https://joyofmuseums.com/museums/europe/greece-museums/athens-museums/museum-of-the-ancient-agora/kleroterion/
Kleroterion – Ensuring a Just Democracy – Joy of Museums Virtual Tours
Kleroterion – Because “Power Corrupts” This Kleroterion was a device used by the ancient Athenians during their period of Democracy, over 2,500 years ago, to randomly select citizens for state councils, offices, and court juries. Athenian Democracy developed in the 6th century BC and the process of Sortition was their principal way of achieving fairness and […]
Markus Hofer@Pwnallthethings Austria solves this by having a publicly elected president who has the power to dismiss the prime minister and their government. Works well enough. No need for snobs in costumes.
SensibleOtterBloody good article, that capture the essence of it all.
As a Brit living abroad, it’s impossible to explain this so anyone understands, and they only want to argue with their instantly found expertise on Britain, the political system and regency.
Tom Cole@Pwnallthethings Thanks for taking time to write about “what it is” instead of the currently-more-popular “how it feels”.
@Pwnallthethings What a fantastically shallow take, completely divorced from reality. "The monarchy is good because otherwise the prime minister might have more power or think they are untouchable." 🤦
Frank Reiff@Pwnallthethings @sinbad One pernicious effect of the British constitutional arrangements is that power appears to be well separated when in effect no such separation exists.
The King is the puppet of the PM, the Upper House has no real power, the judiciary is appointed by the PM.
In effect, the PM is almost an absolute ruler: s/he is the head of the executive, the leader of the legislative and chooses who watches over the judiciary.
Simon Brooke@frankreiff @sinbad this.
@Pwnallthethings's argument might be valid if the monarch had some effective freedom of manoeuvre, but as it is he is just a gaudy glove puppet for the prime minister to use to distract attention away from whatever atrocity is currently in the works.
A truly fabulous read.
Jacob T. Levy@Pwnallthethings HEAR HEAR!
herid@Pwnallthethings
"reactionary anti-monarchy takes" wut? this phrase is so absurd it's hurting my brain.
"reactionary anti-monarchy takes" wut? this phrase is so absurd it's hurting my brain.
Genghis@Pwnallthethings This is excellent.
secureisd@Pwnallthethings Thank you, this was brilliant.
Kevin Leecaster@Pwnallthethings
If I were British, my biggest regret would be that King Charles isn't younger so that this would be the last coronation I'd have to suffer through.
If I were British, my biggest regret would be that King Charles isn't younger so that this would be the last coronation I'd have to suffer through.