War criminal Tony Blair to be given most senior knighthood in new year honours list

It's an overhang from a bygone era of a class system that they've just retained because it was never challenged properly.

I think in a way the British monarchy was quite clever in protecting its relevance and longevity by giving the plebs, and particularly those who might have challenged it little tidbits of pomp.

So some industry leader, political figure, trade unionist, loud mouth artist or wouldbe social stirrer upper, who might have say been calling for reform of the monarchy in the 19th century instead gets given some honoirific title and Mr Miggins suddenly becomes the Lord Blitherington and all of a sudden is "in" but not really "in" either. You can only be born in (or possibly married but only if from the right stock and you'll always be a commoner. See treatment of Meghan Markel and several others. See closing ranks around and protection of Prince Andrew etc)

A clever way of keeping the plebs on side, keeping politics benign towards the monarchy and the class system and everyone chasing the tassles of pomp.

It's like they bring them in, but just not too far. Keep them at a safe distance, playing court at some garden party - you wouldn't want them stinking up the palace...

Their adventures on this side of the Irish Sea are indistinguishable from their adventures on that side of the Irish Sea. Placing Northern Ireland into a little box and pretending it has nothing to do with them when it’s problematic is a bit like saying your living room is on fire but it’s nothing to do with the rest of your house.

Such is the bizarre set of paradoxes that is British national identify.

They ignored NI and managed to walk into a chaotic mess with Brexit as a result of being oblivious or intentionally blind to the fact that they have an EU land border, and a highly complex one at that.

Basically, when they say British politics they really mean English politics, which is seemingly all that matters in the U.K. anyway.

Well, they can’t seem to make their minds up. On the one hand you’ve PMs like Theresa May and Boris professing their deepest love of “our precious union” and on the other you’ve this notion that NI and it’s troubles have nothing whatsoever to do with them, other than they run the place and include it in their union.

Also you’ve got Scotland very likely to have another referendum on leaving the U.K., which would effectively end it as we know it and the rest of Ireland left it a century ago.

I wouldn’t think you could reasonably compare it with Switzerland. Also the Swiss didn’t run an empire. They’ve a totally different history. Their current wealth is a relatively recent phenomenon, having been mostly built in the 20th century. Britain’s history is largely one of militarism, pulling resources in through empire and colonialism in the past and much of how it is today was built on the back of that.

As for stable democracies, Ireland also features in that. It has been a continuous democracy all through those periods too. It went from the setup within the U.K. to probably being one of the longest, uninterrupted proportional representation democracies in the world, using the system for more than a century. Unlike most of Europe it was never interrupted by WWII invasions from outside, or by any rise of domestic authoritarian regimes.

As for pre 1900s democracy in the British system, it was a tale of expanding franchise. It would be difficult to describe it as a modern liberal democracy until the end of the 19th century and really probably after full suffrage, but very few places were.

18th century Britain wasn’t really a democracy. Barely 200,000 men (and no women) had any franchise. It was basically an oligarchy, not unusual at the time. The working classes had absolutely no voting rights. So really you’re looking at it becoming a democracy as the 19th century progressed, through a series of reforms and widening of franchise.

Switzerland was actually shamefully late in granting full suffrage - Swiss women didn’t gain normal voting rights until 1971.

Well being in the highly defensible Alps or on an island tends to help that quite a bit, especially in the old days when armies tended to invade by walking.