I'm not sure an elected head of state is likely to be anymore better than one in that position by an accident of birth...maybe if we need to be persuaded to vote that position is more open to corruption. However I would sooner be a citizen than a subject too and despite what my passport says I am sure there are members of that highly privilidged family who still think we should know our place.

Fancy dress parades might be OK for tourists and for children but they have bugger all to do with running a country...

I think ancestry is irrelevant to the position of head of state...America has not to my knowledge had native American president, nor Australia an Aborigine...most of us don't need to look too far back to see our folks came here from somewhere else it's just that the Windsors have hardly started unpacking.

So far in Britain we still have a Royal family, they do a job...some of them better than others, they are accountable to no-one, they can choose to work hard or disappear from public view as they wish their income seems unaffected.....they might be considerably richer than me but it does not make them better than me, or than you or worthy of the adulation no... worship we have witnessed over the past few days.

In Sweden apparently the king catches the bus...I bet the Swedes don't have discussions like this!

We are living in the twenty first century pretending it's the middle ages...my liege?...my arse!