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Message: <blockquote data-quote="shady" data-source="post: 1542713" data-attributes="member: 13536">Actually it's really a later civil war, the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, that established that parliament trumps king ... the absolutist crown had made a bit of a comeback in the restoration period.   And the last time the crown directly intervened in British politics was in 1931, when Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government split. George V helped assemble the subsequent coalition which continued through the 30s. Theoretically in some other countries there has been more recent intervention (eg the whitlam crisis in Australia, though that was through the crown's proxy). And I think there is some island in the south pacific where the natives worship prince philip (not kidding).  It doesn't affect British life, but it does shape British politics ... the "head of state" role is non-political and non-executive, so the executive is (unlike the US) the head of the legislature (in the US this would make the Speaker of the House of Representatives the leader), and this person therefore depends on the majority in the legislature, so that in turn becomes and electoral college, and necessarily partisan/polarised, etc.   Plus the upper house was until relatively recently reserved for the aristocracy, and is still a combination of hereditary and appointed (not elected) members. As a result it lacks legitimacy and is extremely limited in the extent to which it can challenge the lower house. By the way, that aristocracy isn't the medieval one, which had pretty well died out by 1600, and for that matter the English monarchy only goes back in a direct line to 1700. The last "English" king of England died in 1066, after which the kings of England only spoke French for 200 years. Richard the Lionheart, hero of Robin Hood and Ivanhoe, only spoke French, you'll find his grave next to that of his parents (Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine) in a French church. Subsequent dynasties have been Welsh (Tudor), Scottish (Stuart) and the current line is mostly German in ancestry.  My point though, is that while we may believe that the crown doesn't affect us because it isn't allowed to intervene, its existence at the heart of the constitution shapes the way in which we are governed, and therefore has a daily effect. The net effect of the British constitution is that there would be no need to dissolve parliament to achieve a dictatorship, the PM effectively gets one through the parliamentary majority that makes him/her a PM.  The other point is that you don't need a monarchy to achieve this ... in some cases (eg Israel, Ireland) the president has a similar position to the British monarch, and the legislature has the power. Once you get a democratic system, there are various shapes in which it can be implemented but the ceremonials around it don't make it less democratic.</blockquote>

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