Over the years, usually when some passing story comes along involving Britain, one thing that has puzzled me is why they still have royalty. Not a completely serious question, more like in the sense of pointing out how weird it is for a modern, western, major “player” of sorts to have Queen/Prince/Princess blahblahblah. Politically they haven’t meant anything in forever, since Britain has a parliament, so that family is just title-sanctioned old wealth. Considering where that wealth originally came from — that is, various state-led armed robberies during the time when they did actually rule — voiding their property titles and turning Buckingham Palace into a squatter village would be quite justified.
So, really, what is their purpose? This story has a suggestion: “someone for the angry populace to throw stuff at other than the Prime Minister”.
