No. Royalists will try and convince you otherwise, but the truth is most British people don't give a fuck about the royal family. Far more important things to be thinking about

I prefer the Queen being our international representative, or anyone from the royal family over whoever we've elected. And because of this I don't mind paying taxes for this.

We don't all drink tea and eat crumpets either

The biggest difference is our class system is based on upbringing and not race.

>>3922214

Some of you may not have bad teeth either? Madness.

Anyway, I don't know, it's just that every contestant and the hosts, and every other fucking person is always going on about performing for the queen and all that shit; I just wanted to know if they were saying it so they don't look like dicks, or if they actually card about the queen. I see it's the former.

>>3922256
The show is trying to promote "britishness", whatever the fuck that means. They are told to say that shit

Most people don't care, but seem to like the queen, not counting the rest. But come on, how can you not like like old, mysogynistic, racist Prince Phillip.

>>3922256
> it's just that every contestant and the hosts, and every other fucking person is always going on about performing for the queen and all that shit

Think of it this way. Let's say you had to perform something in front of the President. You may not personally like him, but you can't really pass off an oppurtunity to do something infront of the most important representative of your nation as 'no big deal'.

Nearly every British panel show makes fun of the Royal Family at some point. It's practically a right of passage. You gotta be pretty damn naive if you think the general British public respect the Royal Family.

The Royal Family is an endless source of epic lulz, and all for less than a pound per taxpayer per year. That's brilliant value entertainment.

We hate them in theory, but they're mostly a pretty entertaining bunch, kind of like an incessant nationalistic soap opera. Also we'd rather have them than have to suck up to a President like Americans do. You won't find anyone calling Gordon Brown "Mr Prime Minister", I can tell you.

The average brit is simultaneously respectful and contemptful of the royal family, with a healthy side dose of amusement. Performing for the royal family is the respect side, and is part of what turns what would otherwise be a plain old train wreck into a national treasure.

The Queen herself? Generally fairly well respected. The rest of them? It's like watching retarded incest kids locked up in a cage with lots of sharp objects. Brilliant fun.

>>3922289

Actually, yes I can. I've never been big on the whole "this one person who has been designated as our leader is a god among us insects" shit that everyone else loses their shit for.

Lol at taking a bullet, or anything, for your president/king/queen/whatever.

>>3922272
>>3922304
>>3922322
>>3922341

I'm not big on keeping track of the news, but damn, it sounds like I should invest some time into reading about the royal family.

>>3922343
You're beginning to sound Red. And by that I mean you prefer a Hammer & Sickle over a Hamburger.

They're just a fun relic, they don't serve any real purpose anymore.

>>3922372
Start reading up on Prince Phillip, and "how do you keep the natives sober long enough to pass the test?", "do you still throw pointy sticks at each other?" and "if you stay here too long you'll get slitty eyes". Then, once you're done laughing, you may want to look into the antics of Prince Harry and the Nazi Costume, Prince Harry and the Cannabis Plants and Prince Harry and the Huge Amounts of Alcohol. After that, there's the epic lulz of the death of Diana and the general insanity of Prince Charles on environmentalism.

That's before you get into the extended family.

The only two reasonably sane ones in that whole bunch are the Queen and Prince William.

>>3922388
Actually, they do. If we didn't have a monarchy, all the power would be in Gordon Brown's hands. You wouldn't want that, would you?

I have absolutely no idea how a civilized country can abide an unelected group of out-of-touch elitist cunts, rich celebrities that are above the rest of the country because centuries and centuries ago they claimed to be ordained by God.

It's like if Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian became the honorary leaders of America.

>>3922372
They're great fun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8WdVBWp-yw&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjCU2VNQFNo&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuNKyC8v5CM&feature=related

>>3922411

Go fuck yourself, you conservative prick.

>>3922412
Because if we didn't, we'd have to have a president. Famous presidents include Bush and Berlusconi.

>>3922412
We don't abide by them. Parliament makes all the decisions.

>>3922423
Oh come on. I wouldn't like all the power to be in Cameron's hands either. And I definitely wouldn't want all the power to be in the electorate's hands -- have you seen some of the fucktards they vote in? For that matter, have you seen some of the fucktards that vote?

>>3922428
Fortunately, the Lords still bitchslap parliament every now and again. Unfortunately, they don't have enough power to be an effective check on the majority.

I like having them there. They may not have any purpose and not be elected on merit but I know that I would trust them more than I do New Labour.

>>3922481
But... Brown isn't New Labour! He's Old Labour! You can tell that from him having Mandelson in the cabinet.

>>3922412

From the looks of it, the majority of the US/ World seem to think they are...

>>3922412
It's like if a drooling retard like Bush were leader of America, except without any real powers.

I think we actually like the British royal family more than the British do. Every time one of them comes to the US we make a huge deal about it.

>>3922610
You don't understand that it's a joke. You treat them with respect.

Actually, that's part of the joke. Keep doing that. It's funny.

>>3922610
I do like how the USian media keeps inventing these weird rules about not touching the Queen and suchlike and then claiming that people broke them.

There is no such rule. It's just something you yanks pulled out of your asses to make it seem like the monarchy is magic.

>>3922531
Maybe 3 years ago. When anyone gave a fuck.

>>3922411
The monarchy doesn't have any real power you illiterate prick.

>>3922636

"keep inventing"? It happened once, and was in the news for five minutes. Amerifags are fascinated by any nation that still has a monarchy and tries to project itself like it should be taken seriously. It helps when that nation is our lapdog. Makes for a cute photo op.

>>3922542
>>3922426

Of course Bush was terrible, but the great thing is, we have laws that say he can't stay in power for more than certain amount of time. It's incomprehensible to me how you have a political figurehead family, indefinitely, without any way of getting rid of them because of some archaic tradition. How could this possibly be rationalized in modern times? Do people keep them around on the off chance they'll marry into the royal family, like winning the lottery, and become part of the exclusive upper class of society?

>>3922656
The Queen can force a general election, appoint whoever she likes as Prime Minister, refuse to sign laws, refuse to allow laws to be debated in parliament, has final say over appointment of Lords, can appoint a number of Lords without Parliamentary approval, has final say over the military, can refuse to have court cases heard and can remove items from the government agenda.

>>3922691
If we got rid of them, we'd have to have a president instead. Our experience of other people's presidents is that they're just as bad as the monarchy, but have a lot more power.

>>3922698
You mean someone you'd elect and would be gone in 4-8 years as opposed to lifetime tenure by aristocrats you pay to house? Oh, the horror.

>>3922692
lol Britain.

>>3922698

Then you don't understand what a president is.

Comparing presidents to the monarchy?

Must be summer time.

>>3922711
>>3922713
Examples of presidents include Clinton, Bush and Berlusconi. No fucking way we're having one of those. Much better to have a monarchy that we aren't expected to take seriously and that rarely makes use of any of its theoretical powers, whilst costing less in total per tax-payer than Obama's transport costs.

>>3922731
You're ruled by TWO unelected people - the Queen and Brown. I'd take Clinton over that shit any day, considering he was, you know, ELECTED.

Americans are just butthurt that they don't have 1000s of years of heritage.
Enjoy your stolen and raped land.

>>3922731

Stop getting your news from blogs.

>>3922754
When all you have to appreciate about yourself is the past, you might as well cease to become a country. Britfags have been butthurt for decades that the Americans snatched their empire away, and they could do little else but sniff about it and sip tea. If I was British, I'd be bitter, too.

>>3922746
Brown is as elected as Clinton was. You don't become leader of the Labour Party without getting voted in by a subset of the electorate, in the same way that you don't become the Democratic Party's presidential candidate without getting voted in by a subset of the electorate.

Of course, given the average voter, putting everything in the hands of the majority is a horrible idea. Having a couple of non-elected branches of government is a good step towards preventing two wolves and one sheep from deciding what to have for dinner by simple majority vote.

>>3922773
Yeah, great job you're doing on that front. The British Empire at least worked and made the world a better place. Let's compare, say, Canada and Australia to Afghanistan and Iraq.

>>3922789
>>Brown is as elected as Clinton was.
...Except that this simply isn't true.... are you a moron?

>>3922802
>The British Empire at least worked and made the world a better place.

>>3922773
When did America snatch the British empire away? I don't remember that happening.

>>3922789
Abstractly saying "a subset of the electorate" isn't going to let that slide and you know it. Brown was never up for a national election. Clinton made it through the primary cycle "subset" to become a national candidate, and was then voted on AGAIN by the entire electorate, for or against. Brown wasn't.

>>3922808
Clinton was selected by vote of Democratic Party members to run for president, and was then selected by the electoral college to be president. The electoral college was itself elected by state voters.

Brown was selected by vote of Labour Party members to be party leader, and was then selected by a majority of MPs to be Prime Minister (subject to the Queen not saying no, which hasn't been done in 150 years or so). The MPs were elected by regional voters.

>>3922214
But the majority of you do, which is why you're the biggest tea consumers in the world, even surpassing all of North America's tea consumption combined and that's total, not just per capita.