Quote:
Originally Posted by martyh
Because even in this day and age people will travel around the world to see a glimpse of a real live queen or princess .We have one of the oldest Monarchies in the world and people do come here in their millions to see where they live ,you only have to walk down around Buckingham Palace any day of the week to see the amount of foreign tourists and they don't just stop there ,most travel around the country spending money as they go
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Not just that but it's a great thing to wheel out for visiting Heads of State and other important people. I think we underestimate the appeal of a visit with the Queen at Buckingham Palace to people outside the UK. Trump wanted May to
pass on his regards to the Queen when they talked (although given it's Trump it's not entirely clear he knows the Queen is more of a symbolic position). Obama and
especially Michelle Obama seemed to be quite fond of their visit. The
Queen's visit to Ireland was very successful too.
The Royal Wedding was a big event for international news networks, took front pages across the world.
In purely pragmatic terms they're just good and useful ambassadors for Britain and have a level of status that can't be matched by Prime Ministers. Not to mention the fact they're not political means they can transcend that and represent the country in a way divorced from it's current political representation.