To all intents and purposes, the Queen is simply a ceremonial head of state with "powers" that can be exercised only on the say-so of the government. In principle I have no objection to that idea, but what I do object to is the whole swollen coterie of privileged hangers-on, many of whom inevitably descend into a sort of entitled disrepute (racist husband and mother, alcoholic wastrel of a sister, one son who consorts with paedophiles and who lies in his teeth, another who treated his first wife disgracefully with the Queen's connivance and who prattles on about homeopathy and who rakes it in via owning half the bloody Westcountry whilst doing no actual work there, a thickie grandson* who let himself be snapped giving a girl a standing-up one from behind and who's buggered off to foreign lands to be a non-royal after a start in life that most of us can only dream of, all the unearned wealth and the palaces and the country houses and the estates and the free luxury travel...And, of course, a few tens of millions for all of 'em from the grateful taxpayer...

Oh, and Fergie... :-) Oh, and the Nazi dressing-up...

To them that have it shall be given, saith the Lord...

*Unkind, you may say, but I know someone who actually knows him well...