Timothy Garton Ash defends Britain's harmless crown

According to a survey carried out by the left-liberal British daily The Guardian, many Britons agree with the paper's demand for the abolition of the monarchy. Historian Timothy Garton Ash, however, defends the British crown in an article published in the left-liberal daily La Repubblica: "In practice, however, I believe [the monarchy] does these bad things only marginally, and far less than it did 30 years ago, when Charles and Diana celebrated their fairy-tale wedding. There are damagingly undemocratic elements in the British political system - above all, the House of Lords - but the monarchy is not high among them. If we are talking about the power of a single unelected individual, Rupert Murdoch is a far greater threat to British democracy than our hereditary head of state. ... As for the claim that the British monarchy cements the apex of an oppressive pyramid of class and privilege, that seems to me much less true than it was 30 years ago. In today's Britain, unelected bankers are more powerful than any hereditary aristocrats, football stars as famous as any 'royal'."

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