One of the few jobs not being replaced by AI...

"The peasants? Are revolting?
Oh Charles, you are too wicked!"

-Princess Anne (actual quote)

Yet...Anway, in a move that is surprising to exactly no one, Princess Anne is against layoffs for members of the royal family: 

"Well, I think the 'slimmed down' was said in a day when there were a few more people around. It doesn't sound like a good idea from where I'm standing, I would say. I'm not sure quite what else we can do."

-Princess Anne, noted, uh, 

person who was born

Say what you will about monarchy,
that woman knew how to wave.

Princess Anne was referring to speculation that her brother, the soon-to-be-crowned King Charles III, might reduce the number of "working royals" from eleven down to seven. And when they say working royals, they mean people who represent the royal family at events. So going to parties, waving from a moving vehicle, that sort of thing. They're busy sure, but by no stretch would any of all call it "working." But who cares what I think? I'm not British, although I am a quarter Canadian. So maybe care a quarter? Doesn't matter, I'm don't really have strong opinion of the monarchy, as a thing to begin with.

What I'm saying is that I've won the
popular vote as many times as he has.

There was a time where I'd make fun of the idea of vesting power, however ceremonial, with someone who wasn't elected by a majority of the people, but then twice in my life time the person who got fewer votes was made the President. With disastrous consequences both times, so I don't know, hereditary monarchy might not be the craziest idea. They have been at it for over a thousand years and only beheaded one king. Although they do go through Prime Ministers like Doctors Who. Which isn't a bad thing necessarily.

Sorry, I'm out of the loop, we're still
making fun of Kardashians, right?

I don't know, back to Princess Anne. I'm a little unclear if she's saying that she's not sure what else they can do in terms of reducing the monarchy while still having enough royals to open malls or whatever, or if she's saying that she's not sure what else they'd do for a job. I mean, she's got a point. It's not like someone who's spent their entire life just being royal can pick up a trade. But on the other hand, she might not be aware that not actually doing anything is no longer a bar to being wealthy. Lots of famous people are famous for being famous. 

To be clear: not this.

I don't know, maybe I'm bring too harsh. We make the comparison between British monarchy and American celebrity and sure, there's probably a lot of overlap, but the monarchy has an actual constitutional function. And in a sense kind of is the constitution? Kinda? They form the government in the King's name and the King can technically dissolve Parliament. As in make everyone go home and elect a new government, not like, vaporize them or something. But still, it's kind of a thing. 

Damn, she knew her hats too.

He won't do this because it would almost certainly be unpopular and public approval of even having a King is lower than it's ever been. In fact, the whole tightening the belt of the monarchy idea is entirely about making it more palatable to the public that they're basically paying for these people to eat brie and wear giant hats to horse races. The King can't be everywhere at once, so they probably need people to pick up the slack, but how many is enough? 

I dunno. it's a small-ish country, and eleven sounds reasonable. But then I'm not a British taxpayer either. Anyway, Charles says that he has no plans to make anyone go get real jobs, so I suppose Anne's got nothing to worry about for the time being. But still, it seems inevitable that sooner or later people are going to catch on that maybe letting an entire family just wave and dressage their way through life isn't the most democratic thing in the world.

"But if we don't attend the galas, who will?"

-Princess Anne, making a point

just maybe not the one she thinks...