Can some please explain why we need a Head of State

[andrewducker]

Leaving aside the argument of whether we should have a monarchy or not* - the main objection to moving away seems to be that we'd then have an elected president, and OMG President Blair would be the worst thing ever.

I am confused by this. It seems to me that at the moment The Queen doesn't actually _do_ anything from a political point of view. Why, then, does she need to be replaced _at all_. What is the function that she carries out that actually needs doing? If she could be replaced by a robot that said "I hereby approve of this law that was voted in by the houses of parliament", "Well done for winning, you are now the government" and "I totally understand that you're fed up being the government, I accept your resignations" then do we actually need a head of state at all?

Can someone explain to me the need for one**?

*Seriously. Anyone turning the threads into "But they bring in lots of money from tourists" or "It's morally wrong to have two classes of citizens" will find their threads frozen/deleted. I'm looking for the answer to a question here, not a republican/monarchist flamewar.
**And by need I don't mean "Wouldn't it be lovely to have someone the whole population gets to vote on." or "They get to travel the world raising the UK's profile" - that's what pop stars are for.

Comments

[azurelunatic]

Someone to oust if it all goes terribly wrong?

[andrewducker]

But that's not how the system works! Nobody is going to oust Queenie because the current government fucked up.

[wychwood]

I think it's actually more the diplomatic stuff, isn't it? Someone to put on fancy dinners for visiting dignitaries, open impressive new buildings and facilities, that sort of thing. A lot of European countries seem to have an elected President who fits the same sort of role - little or no actual power, bunches of influence and status. They're supposed to be national symbols or whatever.

I think you can argue for the American model where that's combined with the head of the political system, but I do think there's a value in having them be separate - the national representative isn't tied to a particular political party, they're independent from your feelings about the government, and they can stand for the whole country without implying anything about what's going on in politics.

[redbird]

In that sense it's mostly a formality—because independent states generally have a head of state, established custom is that this is who foreign ambassadors first call on, and who handles certain ceremonial tasks. That said, if you didn't have one the prime minister could and would make it known that ambassadors should bring their credentials to someone in the Foreign Office (or a separately appointed head of protocol), and people who were opening new shopping malls could ask the local mayor or any random member of the no-longer-royal family, gentry, or retired athlete to cut the ribbon for them.

It's less that you need one than that certain people need to know, if you have one, who it is.

[davegodfrey]

I always wondered why the Speaker of the House of Commons/Lords couldn't do the signing into law, accepting resignations/etc. They're the people appointed by the relevant chamber to keep order, why can't they do it?

That said, I rather like having a head of state who isn't much more than a mascot, and is basically apolitical. While lots of people hate what the Queen stands for most people actually quite like the current one- even if they can't stand Charles or Phillip. An elected equivalent is going to be far too divisive. Unless it was David Attenborough.

[matgb]

Three models that work within democracies.

American model: Executive President, Head of State and Head of Govt combined. Advantages: simplicity. Disadvantages: Huge (biased, but, y'know, wrote a term paper on this more'n ten years ag0). Works in a limited number of countries that got VERY lucky with early holders of office and the prestige of the office keeps even idiots in check. As head of state is also commander in chief, an executive head of state is the person everyone "rallies" behind, see those who criticised Bush's incomptence post 9/11 being attacked as being patriotic as you don't attack the President in time of war.

(I can expand the above into many many pages if people want, there are some more advantages but I don't rate any of them).

British system: Ceremonial head of state, separate head of govt, normally drawn from within parliament. Used in large number of succesful countries and, last I looked, tends to be more succesful in transition countries, eg Czech Repujblic had Havel insisting on ceremonial role, Slovakia had power grabbing President, Slovakia has been mired in corruption scandals, etc (although Havel did do a lot to establish prestige of office as in 1. above).

French system: mixed, head of state is elected and has some executive powers but there is also a prime minister as joint head-of-govt, president tends to deal with overseas matters more and PM is more domestic, but there's overlap and there can be friction.

Head of state role: 1) don't let anyone ever con you into believing she does nothing, nor that she has no powers, neither is true. Ask any Australian (GG has same powers written down clearly, and exercises them on her behald, when Whitlam was fired that was officially by her). Plus, although veto is never used, that's in large part because Govt ensures legislation doesnt mean she'll ever want to consier it.

Technically she let Brown resign to early in 2010 and that was her judgement-she also "encouraged" heath to resign in 1974 and actually appointed one PM in the early years, chose the person out of an advised list, etc.

The Head of State/Head of Govt split allows for ceremonial matters to be carried out by someone unpartisan (not impartial, not even apolitical), and gives Commander in Chief status over the army/navy to someone who doesn't actually exercise political power (but does have a lot in reality, even if The Crown chooses not to use it).

State Occasions, including formal State Visits and similar are carried out by the Head of State, not PM-that's useful in many respects as it means you can have a visiting dignitary here without an overt political purpose (even if there's normally behind-the-scenes stuff).

Plus, the Head of State can fire the PM if needed, it's been done in Australia-Britain hasn't had the need for that to happen in a long time, but it's a useful court-of-last-resort, better that than, say, Egypt (or even Turkey) having a pronunciamento every time the executive presidency is held by an idiot.

Partially because the Monarch knows that if the power was ever used abusively it would be removed, so it's unlikely to ever happen but could happen if needed.

(I'm rusty on some of this, if you want me to look stuff up or expand I'll need to get books out or dig online-I am a massive fan of the ceremonial head/parliamentary PM model as is probably obvious)

[birguslatro]

"Plus, the Head of State can fire the PM if needed".

This I see as its main role - somebody (or bodies) to oversee the government to ensure it keeps within the constitution, or whatever. That said, an upper house could serve this role too, so why you'd need a head of state when you already have an upper house is hard to say. My feeling is all they should be able to do is force a new election, as apposed to creating a government of their own choosing. Meaning with regards to altering the government in some way. Preventing unconstitutional legislation from being made law on a day-to-day basis does seem a fitting use for the job.

(Incidentally, NZ originally had an upper house but did away with it - and it's never been missed as far as I can tell.)

I think the real question is whether the person or persons for the role should be elected or appointed. (You can ignore being born to the job - that's just silly and should be considered some form of abuse and so banned under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.) Appointing someone means they may not have popular support, while elections mean they'd have to put on a good show to get the popular support, same as the politicians.

Having a single person for the role though is just pandering to the human penchant for a leader. It's a job better performed by a small group of people.