Word: bagehot
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...Queen's job? There is not much she can do entirely at her own whim. Technically, she could dissolve Parliament to get rid of a Prime Minister she disliked, but it would provoke an unthinkable constitutional crisis if she tried. The great 19th-century journalist and constitutional scholar Walter Bagehot said the monarch had the prerogative "to be consulted, to encourage and to warn" the government of the day, but it is one Elizabeth II never exercises in public (unlike her opinionated son Charles). Yet she still derives power from her twin roles as head of state...
...with allegations of homosexual rape among the Prince of Wales' staff and tawdry tales about Diana. (Leaving Kensington Palace to meet her lover in just her jewels and fur - who knew she took fashion cues from the Velvet Underground?) The royals can't say they weren't warned. Walter Bagehot, the great 19th century hack, once said: "Above all things our royalty is to be reverenced, and if you begin to poke about it you cannot reverence it ... Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic." But it is not for the crime of ignoring...
...daylight in upon magic, as Bagehot said of the monarchy. The post-election has scrambled the dynamic. A ritual transfer of power should go this way: We fight through a messy, noisy campaign, we line up in an orderly fashion to choose one candidate or the other, and then we reconcile ourselves to the choice and feel relief that we can forget about it. Now there is no relief. The mess that should have ended has followed us in to Thanksgiving dinner, and may be threatening Christmas...
...course, it is hard enough to be a decent and intelligent private person. In the late 20th century, when the media magnify every private witlessness of public figures, then even the appearances of traditional majesty are at risk. Walter Bagehot wrote of the monarchy in the 19th century: "You must not let daylight in upon magic." You must not let daylight in upon Dracula either. Relentless public exposure is the death of grandeur, especially when there are tapes from the phone conversations. The tabloid is to the House of Windsor as a summer dawn to the Transylvanian count...
...their trials and tribulations on BBC-1. In many ways the royals do satisfy our need for instant gratification--so why not acknowledge it and give them their own television series? "Melrose Place" and "90210" will finally have some stiff competition. After all, as the Economist points out, even Bagehot conceded that to expect the sovereign always to be "virtuous [is] not rational...