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Geeks For Monarchy: The Rise of the Neoreactionaries
Third Position writes "Many of us yearn for a return to one golden age or another. But there's a community of bloggers taking the idea to an extreme: they want to turn the dial way back to the days before the French Revolution. Neoreactionaries believe that while technology and capitalism have advanced humanity over the past couple centuries, democracy has actually done more harm than good. They propose a return to old-fashioned gender roles, social order and monarchy."
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."
But "democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried."
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Except that countries didn't change all that much over 60 years, before the industrial revolution. So sons took over their father's work in many fields. Close enough for government work.
"However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results" - Winston Churchill
She serves as an important 'symbolic' head of state. This is a part of why we don't make a super-celebrity out of our prime minister, the way the US does with their president. When we need someone to patriotically rally around, we don't need to wrap a politician up in a flag and recognize him as the embodiment of our national values and virtues. We have a monarch for that.
In terms of actual powers? Lots, but by general convention these days she doesn't actually use them. In theory she appoints the prime minister (in practice, she simply formalises the election result), opens parliament (via representative, as she is personally barred from setting foot in the Commons), can close it again at any time, could (but won't) veto and law passed by refusing to sign it, is the ultimate head of the Church of England with the power to alter doctrine on a whim, grants titles and honors (rubber-stamps committee decisions) and is the legal owner of every swan on a stretch of the Thames.
In the event that she actually tried to exercise an of these powers, you can be confident parliament would quickly find a way to bypass and take them away. It's a simple deal: She gets to keep her vast country-ruling powers, on condition she never uses them.