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Comment by chris_wot | Hacker News Reader

It's only stupid if you don't like the monarchy.

I think the vast majority of people in any country would prefer a Head of State that is chosen by popular vote rather than by Royal Sperm.

Changing an icon may cost a bucket, next to nothing, although monarchies are usually very opaque (regardless of what they pretend, we still don't have an account of all European monarchies properties and investments). However, the entire coronation pantomime is bizarre in a country still suffering from the Brexit fiasco.

That does not seem to be the case in the UK. Nor does it seem to be the case (yet) in Australia, which has rejected the move to become a Republic.

Everywhere else, I'm sure that may be the case. Except Norway. And Thailand. Maybe Bhutan. etc.

I did not know Bhutan, or Thailand had referenda on the composition of their government and decided to stay monarchic. Last time they asked in Norway it was roughly 120 years ago, around the time the Model T was all the rage. Things have change a tiny bit since then.

Most countries where a referendum has been held (particularly in the last 100 years) have decided to go with an elected head of stated, not a monarch. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchy_referendums)

I never mentioned anything about referenda. Popular opinion in those countries is they are largely happy enough with their monarchy.

From what I can tell, in Norway it does seem that things have changed only a little bit.

Note I'm not a particular fan of any monarchy, but you did state that "I think the vast majority of people in any country would prefer a Head of State that is chosen by popular vote rather than by Royal Sperm." That's an easily falsifiable statement.

As an Australian (and for most directly part of the four lions in the UK) the "Head of State" part is viewed as highly symbolic and there's no love at all for having an actual active King or Queen that meddles beyond the purely ceremonial (swearing in new Heads of Government, etc).

Australia barely accepted keeping the former Queen as head of state the last time this went to a referendum, and that was a member of the Royal family who served in WWII driving ambulances in London and stayed a steady constant since.

It's questionable whether there'd be any love for King (formerly known as Prince) Big Ears should it come to a vote again.

The part that is strongly liked is the notion of something constant and greater than day to day government, a sense of continuity of country.

Day to day meddling in details is strictly for the people we elect and hire to debate policy and pass that on to others that enact it.

The problems with that vote last time were that neither alternative was particularly palatable (each designed to help someone be the first president, long term be damned) and worse, that there were two republican choices at all, in order to split the republican vote.

So we still have a “constitution” that’s simply a law passed in Westminster.

I despair that the country will become a republic in my lifetime.

I've no great love for the monarchy, I'll vote for a Republic if it comes up "clean" as a no strings attached kind of question, ..

but I don't "despair" .. the last time UK lackeys meddled in AU affairs ( The Dismissal : https://www.thedismissal.com/ ( bless the little bleeder ) ) goes back a ways and didn't go down well.

Should that kind of stunt get pulled again it'd likely trigger a Republic.

I hate to say this, but after Australia watched the utter chaos of the Trump presidency, I think the likelihood of us switching to a Republic is unlikely for now.

Just one mad king like George III and people might change their mind.

Very true.

We're ambivalent on whether we want King Charles, but we're adamant in not wanting a President Sunak.

Don't vote for him then?

That won't actually make much of a difference in countries like the UK. The prime minister is not an elected role. In the UK there are so few parties that you'd have to either not vote or vote against your conviction to keep a party's prime minister candidate.

Technically you don't even need to be on the ballot in some countries to become the prime minister. Granted it would be weird, but ministers are appointed by the party or parties in power in parliament, so there's no rules that says that any minister needs to be elected or even on the ballots. It happens not to infrequently in parliamentary countries that ministers are pulled in from outside. Normally they'll the run in the next election, otherwise they'll have no voting power in the parliament.

I can see the argument that it's not democratic, but it avoids the issues of a presidential election as we seen in the US. In the end, the prime minister is "elected" by the candidates the people voted into the parliament, it works best if you have more than the four parties you seen in the UK.

Nobody votes for the PM directly unless they're running in your local constituency. Beyond that though, we have gone through various PMs since our last election, so nobody did vote for him.

For those that will vote for him in the upcoming election (directly or indirectly), they still do not want him to be president either.

Strange that he's the PM then, seems undemocratic...

What is so strange about it? Nobody directly elects the UK Prime Minister. It's the Westminster System, and it's been around since the 13th century.

The monarchy still has a plurality of support in the UK, possibly because the only suggested alternative is an elected head of state.

The monarchy is an silly institution, but there’s something nice about having a (mostly) apolitical symbolic head of state. People look at it and think instead of Liz and Charles, we could have had someone like Trump, Macron, or President Boris, and that scares them off republicanism.

Germany is perhaps a bit better with their elected but mostly irrelevant president, but nobody even knows who they are, and in the end the prime minister acts like the head of state.

The most absurd thing about the monarchy is that it does its job quite well.

I'm not a fan of monarchy system, but it's fair to say that Trump or equivalent as a "top" for both power and authority is nightmare.

> I think the vast majority of people in any country would prefer a Head of State that is chosen by popular vote rather than by Royal Sperm.

I think you are very wrong about that. The Danish royal family remains the head of state because no one want any of our politicians to become president. If feels like a nice safety net to have the king above the prime minister, not an effective one, but still. Politicians are short term, think short term and fickle minded, at least the royal family thinks generations ahead.

As long as the royal family is well behaved, polite and appear interested in the people, I think most countries will prefer to keep them as the official, but neutered figure heads.

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