WHO IS THE QUEEN?
THE Queen, Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Windsor, is actually two people.
The first person, Queen Elizabeth II, is the Head of State of the United Kingdom (Ed - shouldn’t that be Queendom?) - an official position and legal entity beyond being a real person. In simple terms, the Queen is a political figurehead, which is why it is possible to say that the Queen is dead, long live the King. (we’re looking forward to the first bit, not the second). It’s a job, a role, a legal invention and is a fairy tale that gives authority to her symbolic political role.
As a real human being, Elizabeth Windsor is just a spoilt bitch who is no different to the rest of us, except that she is an incredibly wealthy woman who has never done a day’s work in her life.
The United Queendom is the last place on earth with an unelected, inherited, Monarch lords it over the rest of us, her Majesty’s subjects (that’s you and me). Its time we grew up and became citizens of the world - which is why we have to get rid of the English monarchy.
THE POLITICAL QUEEN
ALL Acts of Parliament are made by the Queen and criminal prosecutions are carried out in her name. As Defender of the Faith, she is Head of the Church of England and her role is to protect the Protestant religion.
She has the symbolic role of Queen but her real political power is often ignored. It is she who summonses the winner of general elections to invite them to become Prime Minister and she maintains close contact with the Prime Minister, with whom she has a weekly audience when she is in London, and with other Ministers of the Crown. She sees all Cabinet papers and the records of Cabinet and Cabinet Committee meetings and receives important Foreign Office telegrams and a daily summary of events in Parliament.
It is know that her views can be influential and she has always been opposed to devolution on the grounds that it would lead to the break up of the UK, (so she was right on that one!).
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