by Nathan Hook

Created on: October 17, 2007   Last Updated: November 10, 2010

Abolishment of the British monarchy would have a detrimental effect on the British political system and trash centuries of tradition and history whom thousands of tourists flock to see every year. Love them or hate them, the world's love affair with kings, queens, castles and royalty, is wrapped up in the British Royal family.

One of the wonderful things about the political system in England is that it is relatively free of singular interference in the due process of its operation which limits corruption. That is, the Queen's constitutional powers theoretically allow her to interfere, but centuries of tradition mean her duties are mostly ceremonial and interference becomes more theoretical than real. There are sufficient checks and balances within the adversarial parliamentary system to prevent megalomaniacs or the truly incompetent from creating too much chaos. Contrast that to the President of the United States' powers of influence and veto rights, and the Queen appears almost constitutionally impotent.

Nevertheless, she can be a representative for significant good and possesses tremendous political influence just the same. Just recall the Queen Mum, who refused to move out of London during the Blitz and Hitler labeled her the most dangerous woman in Europe. This is more of a title than he labeled anyone else in government circles of the time, including Churchill.

In thinking about the traditions of England, nothing is more quintessentially British than the Royal family. Why would you remove such a treasured institution? No other monarchy in the world is more synonymous with a country and no other monarchy generates as much interest, or is steeped in as much of the world's history than the British monarchy - just take the spread of the English language for example.

There may be issues in terms of supporting the Royal family financially, but I should think that significant subsidies are off-set by revenue generated from the thousands of people who flock to see the various buildings and institutions, historical sites and so forth as tourists. Many people dislike the idea of Charles, and more importantly, Camilla, from taking the throne, but this will only allow William and Harry - who are wildly popular around the world - to be groomed and mature for the subsequent positions they will inherit and learn from mistakes. We have learned in recent decades that the Royals are mere mortals, apt to make stupid mistakes. This is hardly a new thing, but shouldn't be cause for a total abolishment or abandonment of a country's traditions.

The politically correct police will have us believe that such steps are in tune with progress in a changing world, but this is short-sighted and clinically unsentimental. They are frequently people who have no sense of history and its importance to the present. How many other countries have removed - violently frequently - their monarch's and are they better off as a result? The French? Russia?

Britons should be proud of their traditions and cling to the institutions which represent them with passion. The abolition of the Monarchy would be a backward step with insidious repercutions for many institutions across the country.

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