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To: naturalman1975

Cannot the Queen dissolve the parliament at any time?
Who is commander in chief of the military?

Is the Royal Guard part of the military or a separate entity?

PS: Thanks for the answers, I don’t know squat about Dukes and Lords and all that stuff...

;-)


67 posted on 04/29/2011 6:18:34 AM PDT by djf (Dems and liberals: Let's redefine "marriage". We already redefined "natural born citizen".)
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To: djf

“Cannot the Queen dissolve the parliament at any time?
Who is commander in chief of the military?

Is the Royal Guard part of the military or a separate entity?”

I’m not British but I believe the answers are that no, she cannot dissolve parliament any time she likes. Only on the advice of the Prime Minister. In theory should a PM need to dissolve parliament and not ask her to do so, she could act but that would be a very unique situation.

The Monarch is comander in chief so in theory the military take their orders from her not the PM, but then she relies on the PM’s advise on this as other issues.

The Royal Guards are a part of the army.


70 posted on 04/29/2011 6:30:07 AM PDT by GeorgiaGuy
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To: djf
Cannot the Queen dissolve the parliament at any time?

Technically, yes - but the last time a King tried to do it when he shouldn't, Parliament eventually chopped his head off.

There are constitutional conventions that state under what conditions the Queen should do this. Basically, only if the Prime Minister asks her to, or a constitutional crisis has arisen.

Back in 1975, in Australia - which shares basically the same system of government and also shares the Monarch - a constitutional crisis of that nature did develop. But even in that case, the Governor-General (the Queen's appointed representative) dismissed the Prime Minister and appointed the Leader of the Opposition in his place, on the condition that the Leader of the Opposition would ask for an election. Dissolving Parliament simply on their own authority would only occur in a emergency - say, if there was a Prime Minister and government who refused to accept a vote of no confidence.

Who is commander in chief of the military?

The Monarch - the King or Queen.

Is the Royal Guard part of the military or a separate entity?

The Queen's Guard can be drawn from any unit of the British forces, or those of the other Commonwealth Realms (such as Australia). Most commonly, it is done by the one of five Army regigments - the Grenadier Guards, the Coldstream Guards, the Scots Guards, the Irish Guards, or the Welsh Guards (these are the regiments that wear the traditional bearskin hats and red coats) but there is always one other Regiment in the rotation, normally for a two year period - currently that is the The Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment (Queen's and Royal Hampshires). And on occasion, other regiments - British and Commonwealth - are given the task as a special honour - for example, 1988 was Australia's Bicentenniel, and in that year, the Royal Australian Regiment of the Australian Army mounted a guard.

The Cavalry Guard is the Queen's Life Guard, and is normally provided by the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment (the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals - these were both seen escorting the carriages today) occasionally relieved by the Royal Horse Artillery but again, on a couple of occasions, other units have done it.

73 posted on 04/29/2011 6:34:52 AM PDT by naturalman1975 ("America was under attack. Australia was immediately there to help." - John Winston Howard)
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