Royal family or a president?

Oh President please. One person to serve a fixed term, elected and allowed 2 terms. No hangers on No extended family doing nothing but accommodated in expensive housing. Let Queenie and Phil retire to Balmoral. Charles can keep Highgrove. The rest can find proper jobs and buy themselves somewhere to live. Buck House for President and opened to public regularly. Sandringham for country residence. Rest open to public.

Granny23, the last Prince of Wales was murdered

Monarchy for me every time. I think the family firm has been trimmed down and hopefully will continue in that way. The Queen has done an amazing job along with Prince Philip, theirs has been a life of service despite all the trappings.

I have always felt/known, deep down, that I was destined to be Queen.

Trisher, do you really believe there isn’t or wouldn’t be any hangers on or free accommodation for a President. Have you looked around the world.? Perhaps start with America & work your way around.

I gloss over inconvenient facts such as my DF being a second son and me being his second DD. I have no desire to be like Princess Margaret or Princess Anne.

I would be a very good Queen of Scotland, using what power and influence I had for the benefit of ALL my people. I would not require public funding or security, just live off the ill-gotten gains accumulated by previous Royal Families. I think I would sell off all the jewels, paintings etc. and use the proceeds to establish and fund in perpeturity, hospitals, hospices, refuges, roads and schools which could be named after the thing that funded them e.g Sceptre Hospice, Diamond Road.

I would probably hang on to Holyrood for formal state occasions, but would sell Balmoral (too many midgies) to a hotel chain and purchase a small, family sized Royal Yacht, where I would mainly live while sailing around to perform my royal duties.

There might be family Bridgeit but there isn't the extended family- aka as the hangers on. Grand children, G Grandchildren, etc. President, partner and children maybe, but not all the rest.

I would like to be Princess Anne. She is, mostly, well respected, works hard., has a lovely family and keeps quite a low profile.

Grany23 if I lived in Scotland and we had an elected queen you'd get my vote.

Just wonder could we do something like Warhol's "In the future everyone will be famous for 15mins"? In the future everyone will be Royal for....?

Great response Grany23. I posed the question in general terms really just meaning I suppose elected Head of State or non-elected, political or a-political. I thought the recent royal weddings showed the Queen as Head of State and the royal family, pageantry and “show” in a positive light, benefit to tourism and so on. It is a big subject but I wanted to keep it simple (although it is not really) and appreciate all the answers and views because they are so wideranging, a mixture of serious, fun and a bit cross sometimes. Isn’t that what an interesting discussion should be? There would be no point in asking the question if we all thought the same - in fact some people might even vary their answer depending on current events. Vive la difference!

Granny23, the last Prince of Wales was murdered
I was rather by that statement Anniebach, then realised who you meant

Granny23, if you become queen you can’t sell Balmoral, privately owned ?

It is always interesting to hear from charity workers about how Royal patronage brings awareness of their charities, however small, and increased funds to help the disadvantaged around the world.
A worker from the little-known Myna Mahila Foundation, who was invited to the wedding, was very pleased that the couple had chosen their charity to benefit and that the publicity will help their charity in the future.

As for selling off the Crown Jewels to fund services - well, once it's gone, it's gone as they say.
Hospitals, roads, schools etc should be properly funded from taxation anyway, not by charity.

Thank you Trisher for your vote of confidence. As a reward I shall appoint you as my Ambassador to the Court of St James's.

Annibach As a fantasy Queen I can do what I like. Perhaps a compulsory purchase of Balmoral for a few Bawbees would suffice.

Oo-er I am overcome...
Just thought when you are Queen will Scotland Brexit? And if not please can we move the border back down to Newcastle where it once was?

The French ( and other nations) manage to have lots of pomp and ceremonies and plenty of tourists without a monarchy. Just sayin....

The French President is not a-political.
The President, who is also supreme commander of the military, determines policy with the aid of his Council of Ministers (Conseil des ministres).

Trisher I will dissolve both the Union of the Crowns and the Treaty of Union. Scotland will henceforth be styled as the Realm of Scotland, as I will abolish the sexist term KINGdom. The realm will revert to the pre Union Boundaries and I will reclaim the Scottish Waters stolen by Tony Blair.

Scotland will not be able to BREXIT (the clue is in the initials) but I would not expect it to SEXIT as 62% of my people voted to remain.

Did I say the French president was apolitical? No. I just said they manage to do all the pageantry and have a lot of tourists without a monarchy.

it seems the royals aren't as popular as they thought ...despite the huge publicity machine thats been banging on about THAT wedding for weeks nay months.It would appear that around 70% didn't watch/weren't interested .According to figures released today and of course the not interested figures rose higher than that in Scotland.Granny23 you might have a battle on your hands I hear there are at least THREE Stewart prtenders to the throne .Not sure if most Scots would want them though .

I don’t get the impression the French do much pageantry. Have I missed something? They have tourists for many reasons.

My son, who leaves near Windsor, says the tourists are thrilled with the thought that they might see a real Queen who lives in the castle. It’s a big part of the appeal. Not the same at all as visiting unused palaces, however beautiful.

Well I am a bit of an anomoly. I am very left wing, but a Royalist none the less. I do baulk at paying for stuff they can afford themselves, but on the whole I am for them. I love the history, pomp and ceremony. However, a pared down Monarchy is the way to go. There seem to be less 'hangers on' now than there used to be. Yes Maryeliza42, we have had some very shameful history - along with most 'civilised' countries of that era. However, we have a lot to be proud of as well, and we now know better.

As so often happens the Monarchy don't always seem to be as appreciated here as by the rest of the world. I would rather have the Queen than a 92 year old President.

We now know better?

It would appear that around 70% didn't watch/weren't interested
Only about 18 million watched the wedding in this country compared to up to 8.7 million for the FA Cup and only about 1.9 billion worldwide.
Oh dear, not great ratings then
Terrible.