I hadn't really thought about it much before this weekend, but no, not really. Oh, I can see good points in the sort of constitutional monarchy we have, where the "head of state" does all the showy but useless opening of buildings and ceremony, while the real rulers spend their time on actually running the place - but without doing sums, the cost, even after you allow for business generated by tourism, is ridiculous. There's possibly some advantage to having someone who's known from birth that they were going to end up in charge, and been educated with that in mind, rather than the bunch of amateur economists we have screwing things up at the moment - though the unexpected can happen, and the person who gets the throne may not have been prepared for the job at all.
Trouble is, despite education, the way the person who gets the throne is chosen is effectively random, not by ability. You may end up with a complete lunatic, or someone "nice but dim", or a self-serving twat, or... far too many options, most of them bad. No, monarchy as a system only works if you get lucky with your monarch. To justify having it, you need to randomly end up with a monarch who's intelligent, ridiculously hard-working, a brilliant diplomat, preferably multi-lingual, brave enough to go out there making risky public appearances with next to no visible protection from attackers, weather, or being thrown by a horse, actually served in the army they claim to be the head of, and so devoted to duty that they can say things like “my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service”, and mean it, and do it. Write a character like that in a story, no-one would ever believe it, it's far too unlikely and unrealistic.
Then you need them to last in the job for a while - long enough for a diamond jubilee, say. What's the chances of all that?
No, I'm not a monarchist. But I'm very much in favour of having Elizabeth Windsor as our head of state.
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