What do you think of the royal family?

[Lewis]

I really dislike the royal family. What are you views and opinions on them? My entire family have always disliked the royal family, so maybe that's just why I think that way. :P

[Calum0812]

Don't do anything really.... Bit boring if you ask me

[Daltron]

my parents love them, they always watch the tele and news when something about them is on
but I don't care much for them

[OldLoveSong]

welp tbh i dont know much about them nor do i really follow what goes on with them really.

[!x!dude!x!2]

don't know anything about it . truly don't care

[xxMATTGxx]

I think we need -:Undertaker:-; to reply to this thread. I have no problems with the Royal Family. You really need to look into their importance/history before hating/disliking them for sure. That's if you haven't already!

[Yawn]

boring
old

[Phil]

I don't really know anything about them, don't really follow anything they do. Don't think a lot of people here cared until The Royal Wedding :P

[-:Undertaker:-]

I think we need @-:Undertaker:-; to reply to this thread. I have no problems with the Royal Family. You really need to look into their importance/history before hating/disliking them for sure. That's if you haven't already!

Much obliged. :P

I love the Royal Family, both as people and as an institution. Here are the reasons in order of importance to me -

+ The Monarchy holds the position of the executive of the state, the body that represents the sovereignty of the realm. If the Monarchy did not hold the executive position, then either an executive Prime Minister or a President would hold the position. Do we really prefer a President Cameron, Blair, Clegg, Salmond or even Farage over Her Majesty? I certainly don't.

+ In relation to the point above, the Monarchy provides stability to the system. It's the constitutional overseer of the entire system and keeps it out of the hands of the politicians who cannot be trusted. So some examples of this would be the western European nations (which are the most stable in the world) of Britain, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark and Spain. If you take fellow European Republican countries (France, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Finland and Eastern European nations) - you can see that western ones are gifted with monarchies whilst the others are not.

+ The Monarchy provides a sense of continuity and nationhood. The British Monarchy as the key example being the popularity Her Majesty has (I believe polls show her popularity to be at something like 80% - a level never reached by one of her elected Prime Ministers). The other is that she's a worldwide icon just as the Emperor of Japan is or King Juan Carlos of Spain is - she's the embodiment of Britain and of the imperial realms of Canada, New Zealand and Australia among other nations. She's not only our Queen but Queen to many other nations along with being held in deep regard in former colonies which used to belong to the British Empire.

What else? continuity. Even in periods of extreme change, the Monarchy provides a comforting role in that whilst Prime Ministers may come and go, the Monarch of the day usually is around for a number of decades.

+ The Royal Family itself and the more personal roles it carries out with charity and so forth. I won't go much into this really as it is much self-explanatory - but for example in Victorian times the Monarchy was intended to portray the ideal of a normal family and everything good about that with the father figure of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria as the loving mother. Now sure Monarchy isn't perfect in this regard, but just look at reactions to pictures of Prince Phillip and the Queen - everybody wants a fairytale ending like that.

...so yeah, a lot of reasons and there's even more such as tourism - but again as i've stated before, my prime love of the Monarchy is the fact that it keeps a lid on the political class and ensures they don't step out of line. Long Live the House of Windsor!

[Liva]

Yeah, they're boring. I'm gonna dislike them if the royal baby is born on my birthday!
And also, try to imagine them toileting. I cant, haahaha.

[Matt]

Here in Australia they're obsessed with Kate lol. But seeing as i lived in uk i don't see them as overly special, apart from Kate being a nice addition.