Elizabeth II has died

[DrZoidberg]

Yeah, what is Great Britain to do now when their most expensive social welfare recepient isn't feeling well? How is the country supposed to manage to keep going on now when she's stopped doing the job she doesn't have. It'd be a true tragedy if Prince Charles had to jump in and take over the reigns. Let us pray he's as capable of not having a job as well as his mother. Or perhaps he will make a break in the family tradition and make something of himself. Perhaps he'll be the first of his family who finds a way to support his famiily?

God bless the queen.

It seems to me anybody who gets a guaranteed weekly one-on-one meeting with Boris Johnson has a great deal more political power than the average Briton. All the more so since he can't replace her for disagreeing with him and is barred by protocol from putting on headphones and listening to his audiobook during their meetings. Unless she's using their private tete-a-tetes to discuss her concerns over the Buckingham Palace china, a person with that much power cannot reasonably be described as not having a job. You might as well claim our National Security Adviser doesn't have a job on account of Mr. Biden being free to disregard his input.

No. The power is with the people. The queen is only popular still because she has no power. You can't fuck anything up if you aren't given the chance.

It's just theatre. I think it was Tony Blair who had a super frosty relationship with the queen. It didn't make a difference.

She's dead weight

 

[Bomb#20]

No. The power is with the people. The queen is only popular still because she has no power.

If she advises Johnson to do something and he does it and it's a disaster, he'll take the blame. That doesn't mean she didn't do any harm.

It's just theatre. I think it was Tony Blair who had a super frosty relationship with the queen. It didn't make a difference.

She's dead weight

Suppose hypothetically that Denmark held a lottery and randomly selected one resident to serve a term as Minister Without Portfolio, with a nice salary, an occasional ribbon cutting ceremony, and a weekly meeting with Ms. Frederiksen. Suppose you won that lottery. What would you do with the opportunity? Wouldn't you educate yourself about some of the more interesting aspects of public policy, and then put at least as much time and effort into persuading Ms. Frederiksen to pursue what you think is the best course as you currently for no pay at all put into persuading a bunch of powerless IIDB cranks to adopt your opinions?

Mrs. Windsor's job is to persuade Boris Johnson to put the interests of Britain ahead of the interests of Boris Johnson and his party. That seems like an important job to me. I hope she does it well. If she did it poorly with Tony Blair, that's regrettable; but it was still her job.

 

[DrZoidberg]

No. The power is with the people. The queen is only popular still because she has no power.

If she advises Johnson to do something and he does it and it's a disaster, he'll take the blame. That doesn't mean she didn't do any harm.

It's just theatre. I think it was Tony Blair who had a super frosty relationship with the queen. It didn't make a difference.

She's dead weight

Suppose hypothetically that Denmark held a lottery and randomly selected one resident to serve a term as Minister Without Portfolio, with a nice salary, an occasional ribbon cutting ceremony, and a weekly meeting with Ms. Frederiksen. Suppose you won that lottery. What would you do with the opportunity? Wouldn't you educate yourself about some of the more interesting aspects of public policy, and then put at least as much time and effort into persuading Ms. Frederiksen to pursue what you think is the best course as you currently for no pay at all put into persuading a bunch of powerless IIDB cranks to adopt your opinions?

Mrs. Windsor's job is to persuade Boris Johnson to put the interests of Britain ahead of the interests of Boris Johnson and his party. That seems like an important job to me. I hope she does it well. If she did it poorly with Tony Blair, that's regrettable; but it was still her job.

I work with running huge projects. I report to a lot of stake holders. All of whom I need to keep happy. I very quickly identify who of the stakeholders really matter, and which are just included for political reasons, unrelated to the project.

Somebody who manages to reach the position of prime minster, will by necessity, have to effectively sort the people who matter from the people who are time-wasters. There will be time-wasters pulling at him arm all day. He'll have a team of staff working with filtering the time wasters out. That's how bad it gets. A big part of my job is to report to the stake holders, so the stake holders won't need to come into contact with the many time wasters in the industry.

If Johnsson doesn't identify the queen as a time-waster, he's an idiot. If the queen hasn't learned that she's seen as a time-waster by the many prime-minister she's had to deal with she's the slowest retard ever to have lived.

The prime minister keeps the queen informed personally, because it's a ritual. It's too keep him humble, and to understand that he/she's not the main guy. It's a good ritual. But anybody could do the job of the queen. Anybody. A lottery would be good. I'd support that.

But to think that the person will have any pull with the prime minister is just stupid.

Boris Johnson has to weigh every decision on a knife's edge. No matter what he does he'll get shit for it. The queen is the least important stake holder for Johnson. He'd be a moron if he let anything she says influence anything he does. So I'm convinced that he doesn't.

 

[Angry Floof]

She is one determined crone. I think she's a bit of a control freak, but I also have always gotten the impression that she'll do anything to save the monarchy from Charles.

 

[bilby]

She is one determined crone. I think she's a bit of a control freak, but I also have always gotten the impression that she'll do anything to save the monarchy from Charles.

The monarchy has had far worse incumbents than the current Prince of Wales.

Hell, they've had two just called Charles who were far worse than he is ever likely to be.

Indeed, even three centuries since the last King Charles, the name is so poorly regarded that the current Prince of Wales is expected to take a regnal name so that he won't officially be King Charles III.

 

[lpetrich]

So he doesn't want to become King Charles III. I've seen speculations that he'll become King George VI.

Let's see what others. Edward IX, William V, James III, Philip II, Henry IX, Richard IV, John II, Stephen II, Harold II (after the last king before the Norman Conquest), ...

 

[jonatha]

So he doesn't want to become King Charles III. I've seen speculations that he'll become King George VI.

Let's see what others. Edward IX, William V, James III, Philip II, Henry IX, Richard IV, John II, Stephen II, Harold II (after the last king before the Norman Conquest), ...

He'd be George VII. George VI was his grandfather.

I thought he was restricted to choosing one of his given names (Charles III, Philip I, Arthur [II? - Can you count anybody before Alfred?], George VII) but perhaps not...

 

[lpetrich]

Oops. Thanx.

Edward IX and Henry IX would have certain associations with marital difficulties. In 1936, King Edward VIII abdicated so that he could marry the woman that he loved, an American woman named Wallis Simpson who had gotten divorced. Some centuries earlier, King Henry VIII went through six wives.

 

[lpetrich]

Those European-republic advocates mention Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, and Switzerland as parliamentary republics. Let's see how they elect their heads of state.

Iceland - popular vote, first past the post. Everybody votes for one candidate, and whoever gets the most votes wins.

Finland - popular vote, two-round system. Everybody votes for one candidate, and if no candidate gets a majority of the vote, then the two top candidates go into a runoff election.

Ireland - popular vote, instant runoff voting. Everybody votes their preferences for the office, and the count proceeds as follows. In each round, the top preferences among continuing candidates are counted, and whoever gets a majority wins. If nobody gets a majority, then the top-preference loser is dropped from the next rounds of counting.

Germany - the Bundestag and an equal number of appointees from the state legislatures get together and vote. If no candidate gets a majority after two rounds, then whoever gets the most votes in the next rounds is the winner. The Bundestag is Germany's lower house of its legislature, much like Britain's House of Commons.

Switzerland - the Federal Assembly elects the seven-member Federal Council by exhaustive vote, a repeated-vote version of instant runoff voting. The Federal Assembly then elects a President from the members of the Federal Council. The Federal Assembly is both houses of the legislature.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Historically, monarchies are more stable than republics. I'm on ideological grounds republican. But I'm actually in favour of monarchies, simply based on track record. I don't know what the secret sauce is. But I suspect it's something deep. A tribal instinct. We like when we know that our leader is a solid rock we can trust will never fail us. Even though we rationally know that that leader isn't really a leader. Or something like that.

 

[lpetrich]

Historically, monarchies are more stable than republics.

What do you mean?

I'm on ideological grounds republican. But I'm actually in favour of monarchies, simply based on track record. I don't know what the secret sauce is. ...

Even a figurehead monarchy? A monarchy that acts like a republic most of the time?

 

[Politesse]

Oh yes, monarchies are so stable. That must explain why they're all going extinct.

 

[ZiprHead]

Oh yes, monarchies are so stable. That must explain why they're all going extinct.

Monarchies are just disctatorships by another name.

 

[Politesse]

Or ruthless class-based oligarchies, like all governments. The same kinds of turds tend to drift to the top of any system, the only thing we get to actually choose is our preferred aesthetic of distraction.

 

[lpetrich]

As to assessing stability, it's hard to find *any* preindustrial polity larger than a city-state that was a republic. I say "preindustrial" because the Industrial Revolution seems like a good dividing line. The Roman Republic and the Dutch Republic became monarchies, though the Swiss Confederation stayed a republic, and it is still a republic.

I checked on  List of current monarchs of sovereign states and I looked for when the monarchies got started. As far as I can tell, with one exception, every one of them has heritage in preindustrial or precolonial royal or noble families.

That exception is Vatican City, which IMO is a borderline case, a sort of republic with a president for life, much like the Venetian Republic with its elected-for-life Doge.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Historically, monarchies are more stable than republics.

What do you mean?

Constitutional monarchies have less risks of power grabs by generals. Just look at the statistics. Republics, historically, are more unstable. If you look at American revolutionary history you'll see what I mean. The US revolution managed to make it due to a pretty long chain of unlikely events.

Perhaps it's got something to do with the secular power will never have absolute power. The dictator/prime minister will always be someone's bitch. That could be psychologically powerful. But I don't know. I'm just speculating.

I'm on ideological grounds republican. But I'm actually in favour of monarchies, simply based on track record. I don't know what the secret sauce is. ...

Even a figurehead monarchy? A monarchy that acts like a republic most of the time?

Especially figurehead monarchies. They are extremely stable. More stable than absolute monarchies.

Constitutional democratic monarchies is the most stable form of government humanity has yet managed to devise. I don't know why.

 

[lpetrich]

I think that that is reversing cause and effect about stability, because many monarchies have fallen as a result of political upheavals, like wartime defeats and coups. Lack of such upheavals has allowed monarchies to continue, and being ceremonial has helped monarchs avoid being on the losing side of a political fight.

 Abolition of monarchy (has list for >=1900) - mentions three restorations, those of Spain, Kuwait, and Cambodia, alongside the numerous abolitions. Kuwait's abolition was brief, and a result of conquest by Iraq in 1991, but Spain was a republic for 44 years and Cambodia for 23 years.

 List of countries by date of transition to republican system of government
The oldest entries:

• The Netherlands: 1581, became a de facto monarchy, then a de jure monarchy in 1806
• Switzerland: 1648, from independence from the Holy Roman Empire
• England: 1649, as the Protectorate, monarchy restored in 1660
• The United States: 1776 (proclaimed), 1783 (agreed), from independence from Britain
• The Lanfang Republic in Western Borneo, a Chinese tributary state: 1777 - 1884

The next ones are Latin American nations in the early 19th cy., as a result of independence from Spain.

 List of countries by system of government - many of the monarchies in that list are former colonies of Britain, though many other ex-colonies have become republics.

 

[lpetrich]

 Democracy Index (Economist magazine) -  List of countries by Fragile States Index (Fund For Peace)

The top-rated countries are a mixture of ceremonial monarchies and republics with ceremonial presidents. They all have parliamentary systems of government, where the acting executive depends on the legislature.

The highest semi-presidential nations are (DI) Taiwan 11, France 24, Portugal 26, (FSI*) Portugal 16, France 21 (Taiwan not listed)

The highest strong-president nations are (DI) Uruguay 15, Chile 17, Costa Rica 18, South Korea 23, US 25, (FSI*) South Korea 21, Uruguay 22, Costa Rica 31, Chile 36, US 37

I've subtracted the FSI indices from 180 to produce FSI*

Semi-presidential government is a hybrid between parliamentary and strong-president government.

 

[lpetrich]

Why do parliamentary systems score so high?

Steven Fish has noted a correlation between strength of democracy and strength of legislature in Stronger Legislatures, Stronger Democracies | Journal of Democracy - PDF at 1. Fish pp 5-20.pmd - Fish Steven - Stronger legislatures, stronger democracy - EN - Standards.pdf

Also this review: What Makes Legislatures Strong? | Journal of Democracy

spiring democratic leaders from many corners of the world are often surprised to learn that the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 did not begin the U.S. Constitution by creating the presidency and assigning powers to the holder of that office. Instead, after the famous Preamble, the first Article of the world’s oldest extant democratic constitution describes the powers of Congress; the presidency waits until Article Two. This order, moreover, is no accident: The legislature possesses considerably more constitutional power. It can impeach and unseat a president, after all, whereas the chief executive has no authority to dissolve Congress. Even the president’s power to name judges, military officers, and ambassadors to carry out executive policy is qualified by a requirement that the Senate must first give its “advice and consent” regarding such appointments.

Steven Fish and Matthew Kronig have written "Handbook of National Legislatures: A Global Survey", including a listing of powers that each legislature has.

Adding up all the “yes” answers yields a country’s score on a Parliamentary Powers Index (PPI) that measures the national legislature’s aggregate strength. Nine of the 32 questions are about the legislature’s influence over the executive: Can it select or oust a president, appoint or confirm ministers, can legislators serve in the executive, and the like? Nine questions ask about the body’s institutional autonomy: Is it free from presidential veto or dissolution, do members enjoy immunity from prosecution, and so on? Another eight examine specified powers: Does the legislature authorize war, ratify treaties, and influence or appoint heads of the judiciary, the central bank, and state-run media outlets? The final six questions examine the legislature’s institutional capacity: Are its members experienced, and do they have the staff and other resources to support their work?

Some of the book's scorings seem odd, as the reviewers note, and when one plots strength of legislature vs. strength of democracy by some measure, one finds a lot of scatter. But a correlation is nevertheless evident.

The PPI does not examine how a legislature relates to the voting public or political parties or the press or other aspects of democratic accountability, such as constituent services. It is a description of formal legislative power relative to the executive (and to a lesser extent other actors, such as the judiciary or the military or the crown).

 

[bilby]

I think that that is reversing cause and effect about stability, because many monarchies have fallen as a result of political upheavals, like wartime defeats and coups. Lack of such upheavals has allowed monarchies to continue, and being ceremonial has helped monarchs avoid being on the losing side of a political fight.

 Abolition of monarchy (has list for >=1900) - mentions three restorations, those of Spain, Kuwait, and Cambodia, alongside the numerous abolitions. Kuwait's abolition was brief, and a result of conquest by Iraq in 1991, but Spain was a republic for 44 years and Cambodia for 23 years.

 List of countries by date of transition to republican system of government
The oldest entries:

• The Netherlands: 1581, became a de facto monarchy, then a de jure monarchy in 1806
• Switzerland: 1648, from independence from the Holy Roman Empire
• England: 1649, as the Protectorate, monarchy restored in 1660
• The United States: 1776 (proclaimed), 1783 (agreed), from independence from Britain
• The Lanfang Republic in Western Borneo, a Chinese tributary state: 1777 - 1884

The next ones are Latin American nations in the early 19th cy., as a result of independence from Spain.

 List of countries by system of government - many of the monarchies in that list are former colonies of Britain, though many other ex-colonies have become republics.

The Protectorate of 1649-66 wasn't just in England, it was all of the 'Three Kingdoms' (England, Scotland and Ireland), with Wales considered a part of England (by the English, if not by the Welsh).