A message to the US from the Queen...

[Owain]

And, you know, I cannot help saying it:  Who else on the face of this planet can seem so completely, utterly unimpressed by a wall of gold bricks?

Probably thinking "If only that Mr Brown hadn't given all ours away"

[George Knighton]

I'd have liked to have seen the look on Gordon Brown's face when he realized he was locked into Balmoral with no chance of escape, and about to endure an hour long lecture on the evils of military interventionism in Afghanistan and the trap it had proved for every nation in history that ever engaged in such an activity.

[david@london]

I'd have liked to have seen the look on Gordon Brown's face............

[George Knighton]

It might've even been worse than that.  The Queen had a special guest she didn't tell Brown about. 

She bunked the Prime Minister next to an academic historian fully versed in the foolishness of Afghanistan.

It must've been hell for him.

Americans generally don't understand the constitutional power.  It's quite passive, but very obviously there when necessary.  You cannot hold one of the Great Offices without the fiat audience-in-Presence, and once you are in the Presence, you leave when it's the sovereign's pleasure, not yours.

The Australian constitutional crisis of 1974 was solved when the Governor General kept the Prime Minister's attention long enough for the government to be overthrown while the Prime Minister had to look at the Governor General.  That's probably not the best example and it's probably very lucky for the constitutional system that the general election that followed shortly thereafter proved that the Crown had its finger on the pulse of the people really rather effectively.

[Babybearjs]

LOL!!! you guys are great.