I would be curious as to what those who live there think. For me I think they are more of a tourist attraction and a tradition. I don't know what will happen when Queen Elizabeth dies, if they plan on continuing that tradition or not but then I don't live there so I truly don't know what purpose they serve.

I live there. The Royal Family is very much played down as just a tourist attraction, but they still have quite a considerable amount of power. One example is Diego Garcia. John Pilger wrote a good chapter on Diego Garcia in Freedom Next Time. It is one of the old British colony islands, and until the 1960s it was inhabited. The British government decided it wanted to give the island to the Americans for use as a military base, so it essentially conned the natives off the island. A number of them fought through the courts for decades and eventually received a high court ruling that they could go back to their homes. This is when the Queen stepped in. Unknown to many in Britain, the Queen has the arbitrary power to overturn any court in the land and she doesn't even need to provide a reason.

It is true that the Royal Family do not have a tremendous amount of liquid capital, but what they do have is legal power and land. The estates of the Royal Family alone make them one of the richest families in the country.

Fair enough..................................................................