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Dpends on the sort of system. Presidents in South America are for example at the top of the pyramid, whilst the president in Germany is as you say just a symbolic instance.
I remember voting on it in a General Election not to long ago. There was a very clear choice.
Do you remember voting in the European Elections?
Except almost all of the monarch's meaningful political powers are exercised through the Prime Minister. (In contrast to an American or French president). The Queen fulfils an important diplomatic role that a PM (in a parliamentary democracy) would physically struggle to perform. The only feasible alternative to the status quo without a massive constitutional overhaul would be to directly replace the monarch with an elected 'president.' However, I don't think there are many people better qualified than the Queen for such a role. And the Royal Family, not being party partisan political figures are particularly useful diplomatically. Republicans might not like it but many foreign leaders think very highly of the Queen.
Do I remember the point when the UK ever voted to give a European parliament any power?
This.
They're paid by the state to be the Head of State. And when you get the "rich lists" published it includes the Crown assets like Windsor and Sandringham. What's Lizzy going to do, turn into Kirsty Allsopp and turn Balmoral into luxury apartments?
My beer money gets paid for by the state too, so I really don't see the issue.
We voted for a trading partnership. We may voted to be represented at the parliament which has been set up around us, but no-one has ever voted to devole any powers to that Parliament.
I'd like to be shown different TBH.
I'm not talking about the UK's accession. I'm talking about the most recent European Elections. Did you vote in them?
When did we vote that the EU Parliament should be binding on us? We didn't.
I'm broadly in favour of the EU, but it really doesn't have the democratic legitimacy that it should. That said, though, most people are too stupid to vote anyway.
It is the point. Mok stated that the EU could legislate without our say, well that's not entirely true. I am merely pointing out that there is no difference from voting for your MP to represent you in Parliament and voting for your MEP to represent you in Europe. Simple as.
No.
Again, when did the citizens of the UK vote for the parliament to have legislative powers over us?
You right, it's not. I didn;t say that at all.
I said that we didn't vote to give the Parliament power, not that peolpe don't vote for representation there.
Yes there is.
One represents the nation and the wishes of that nation. The other... erm... represents are few different nations and the will of some of those nations can outweigh the will of that affected by a decision.
Funny how devolution is okay for Wales, N Ireland and Scotland but that a more centralised approach is being developed for part of the European Continent.
They didn't. It was our Parliament who sent the Maastricht Treaty through. Again, we vote for our elected representatives, they decide European policy. It's pretty simple. Meh. :yeees:
The UK can still exercise it's veto on many issues concerning the EU and their plans.
I think you might be worrying too much about the actual political power of the EU. It doesn't encroach National Sovereignty nearly as much as it's made out to be.
That's called treason
It's also worth noting the "our representatives" never actually raise th epossibility of Maastrict at any General Election...
At the moment the EU is undemocratic for several reasons, that is just one of them.
If Labour loose lots of seats in the European Parliament they may loose some scrutiny role of the commission, but the Government (the commission) stay in power.
Also whilst the Orkneys and Cornwell may not have the same interests, the interests of both are a lot more similar than the Orkneys and Bavaria.
Don't know what you mean by this? You state employed?
Issue is that most of us could only dream of spending 5 grand on shoes in the matter of 10 minutes.
Same with the wedding between the crown prince and crown princess here, in total it only equated to less than 3 quid per citizen here, yet think how much more useful those 3 quid could have been if pumped into education or healthcare. That's my problem.
In the same way that taxpayers don't pick up the tab for my bar bill.
It's also worth considering if you want a Head of State to look like they've just come out of Primark....
I'm sorry you live in a fantasy world where it actually matters which banner people unite under. If your theory is correct, then surely uniting behind the concept of Europe would have as much merit as uniting under Britain, Scotland, the North West, Lancashire, Preston, your area of Preston, your street in Preston, or any of the other identities that you might consider yourself a part of? Again, by your logic, a weakening of the concept of Europe, which people also identify with, would lead to similar problems. Why is this concept limited to Britain, but then when someone tries to apply the same idea to Europe, you jump on their back? And I think there might be something in your argument: 50 years, no wars - not bad going. Personally, I think it's bullshit, and don't see the point of changing the passport, but if that's what you believe, then the logical position would be to be in favour of this move.
It's one thing to expect a perfect world, it's quite another to oppose artificial systems that actively make it a less fair world.
Funny how people have no problem accepting this concept until their electd officials decide to do something they don't agree with. Then they go "well we never got to vote on it." Same with the Iraq war, same with the hunting ban, same with the smoking ban, same with tuition fees. You voted for the MP's, and they voted for what they believed was the best thing to do. Don't like it, vote in someone who will reverse the decision.
Of course it can be applied to anywhere. It may well be in a 100 years people feel a loyalty to Europe and it becomes our national identity. However it isn't at the moment, and doesn't look like becoming anytime soon. My point isn't that national identity is fixed or unchangeable, but that it exists, in the real world it binds people together and that in the UK the Queen is part of that national identity.
Forcing people into structures they don't feel any allegiance too, doesn't tend to work.
Very little to do with the EU though. After all the UK only joined in the 1970's and there was very little chance of it going to war against France between for the thirty years before that.
There's various reasons for that - the utter destruction of Germany and its subsequent occupation, the fear of an outside force (the USSR), the presence of the US in Europe, the rising cost of war vs its gains, etc, etc
The monarchy would perhaps be a tad more palatable if it was more down to earth, modernised institution. The King of Spain regularly kisses female friends and acquitances on the cheek in front of the cameras, even if they are 'commoners' such as journalists. I'm not aware of the Queen of England ever kissing anyone in public (other than perhaps Phillip on their wedding day), and if she actually kissed a journalist on the cheek I should imagine several thousand people would die of the shock.
Crown princes all over Europe are marrying commoners as well. Again, try to imagine the reaction if William was to say he was marrying a singer, or TV presenter. Fuck, even members of the upper classes like Kate Middleton face fierce opposition because her mother has the temerity to use the wrong word to describe the bathroom.
And when you hear that people are not allowed to leave the presence of the Queen like normal human beings (i.e. walking away forwards) but must retreat their steps backwards so not offer the Queen their back), or that Charles has his fucking toothpaste squeezed on his brush for him, you have to wonder what fucking planet those people are on.
They certainly don't do themselves any favours and come across to me and many others as good-for-nothing parasites.
Been reading the Express and the Mail have we?
It isn't the same as the Iraq War, the hunting ban or the smoking ban at all. People generally have no problem with that concept when their politicians are upfront about what their intention is, which they haven't been about the 'European project'. Most people aren't aware that the end goal is a superstate because it's a gradual process taken piecemeal, and at each important juncture you have our politicians assuring us that there's no real loss of sovereignty involved, when in fact each time a little bit of it is lost. It's a very deceitful way of going about it.
Yeh cos no politicians or parties never change their mind. :rolleyes:
Candidates and parties aren't deceitful about their intentions in Europe, they all have a mandate. You just don't hear it in the news, try doing some research into the matter.
Then surely it's up to the British people to vote in a new party. Also if they lose loads of seats in the European Parliament then that could sway decisions on legislation. They align themselves on the right and left there too.
Concerning what? I'd say an Orkney farmer and a Bavarian farmer who's struggling to make a wage have a lot more in common with each other than a Cromwell business man.
Again I think it's a case of people being overly paranoid about the power of the EU. Nation States still have the greatest say in the running of their respective States.
Take the new Treaty: it is deceitful for Brown to tell us we don't need a referendum on it because it isn't the Constitutional Treaty, when the leaders of other countries have been forthright enough to come out and say that the new Treaty is, to a great extent, that same Constitutional Treaty.
I think he probably has.
Certainly Prince Charles has done a huge amount of work for the people of the northern fells in the Lake District, helping fight the poverty and isolation that many people suffer from in the area. If it was his late wife doing the work it would have been plastered all over the papers, but as it's Charles nothing ever gets mentioned. Certainly the work he's done for the Northern Fells Rural Project, which provides transport and care to the poor and housebound in the northern Lakes, has been amazing, and not a word of it has appeared in the paper.
Oh, and he loves my favourite pub too, so I think he has excellent taste;)
I need to look for a written record of it but I thought the bit about people not being allowed to turn and walk away from the Queen with their backs to her was universal knowledge. There's weird enough similar protocol about anyway.
The only thing that could well be bollocks is the story about Brenda rejecting Kate Middleton's family because her mother had used the word 'toilet'. It's too surreal, really