This has never been used in modern days but apparently the threat of it has been used multiple times, even by the current monarch when he was still a Prince (look up the “black spider memos”).
There is no such thing in most other Monarchies in Europe.
Then there’s all the soft power that comes from how the Monarchy controls who actually gets socially highly prized symbols such as Knighthoods and Lordships - there are quite a lot of high level and highly paid positions in Britain (such as membership of the BBC board) which are de facto almost impossible to get without one of those.
Don’t confuse the intense and very extreme (certainly when compared with, for example, The Netherlands) Royal Arse Kissing of the British Press often in the form of whitewashing the influence and actions of the Royals and misportraying their anti-democratic priviledges as normal, with the actual reality of how the Monarchy shapes policy in Britain and helps support what would be an extreme level of class stratification in any Democratic European country.
The King in Britain has the power to stop laws.
This has never been used in modern days but apparently the threat of it has been used multiple times, even by the current monarch when he was still a Prince (look up the “black spider memos”).
There is no such thing in most other Monarchies in Europe.
Then there’s all the soft power that comes from how the Monarchy controls who actually gets socially highly prized symbols such as Knighthoods and Lordships - there are quite a lot of high level and highly paid positions in Britain (such as membership of the BBC board) which are de facto almost impossible to get without one of those.
Don’t confuse the intense and very extreme (certainly when compared with, for example, The Netherlands) Royal Arse Kissing of the British Press often in the form of whitewashing the influence and actions of the Royals and misportraying their anti-democratic priviledges as normal, with the actual reality of how the Monarchy shapes policy in Britain and helps support what would be an extreme level of class stratification in any Democratic European country.