The Palace of Westminster

[Sorastro]

There comes a time when one has to make a [financial] decision, especially when it comes to "restoring" old buildings.

The Houses of Parliament is a recent, and classic example. Latest estimates say it will run to twelve £billion and that's only on what they've discovered what needs to be done so far. The fact that repairing one job and finding another six behind it is not uncommon in old building restoration, especially one of this size.
The time has come to pull the plug, switch off the buildings life support machine, look to the future and find alternative accommodation.

"WHAT ABOUT OUR HERITAGE?" they scream..... I say "What about it?" hanging on to our "outdated" heritage, pumping barrow loads of dosh down it's ever gaping hole and for what, just so tourists {very few British} can gaze upon it. Pumping billions into "our heritage" yearly is never offset by the money it's reputed to generate, especially over the last 18 months.

The Windsor castle fire in 1992 caused millions of pounds worth of damage, restoration completed 5 years later. Only down to pressure from the public did the queen decide to foot 70% of the bill {approx £36 million} and having shelled that out she didn't exactly starve to death.

What's the alternative to restoring the H of P.... bulldoze the place {I for one wouldn't miss it} and with the billions saved find a brown field site, possibly middle England somewhere, and build a smaller Pentagon style building, to house the government, that's got ALL the mod cons and moreover would be easier to access and more importantly police.

[Old Cruser]

A slight deviation - I reckon our Queen should retire gracefully. She isn't too well health wise and I doubt anyone would think badly of her and yes she deserves to hang up her Crown - but who should take over ?

[hifimad]

A slight deviation - I reckon our Queen should retire gracefully. She isn't too well health wise and I doubt anyone would think badly of her and yes she deserves to hang up her Crown - but who should take over ?

Nobody, i rather think that like the Palace of Westminster the Monarchy has outlived its usefulness.

[Fly]

Prince William for King.
Skip Charles. He's been in the limelight enough in his life time

[Sorastro]

So Barbados is now a republic, and already China is showing an uneasy interest in it.

My humble opinion:-
 Although I've never agreed to us having a "Commonwealth", I think history may show as soon as a Commonwealth country breaks ties with Britain they start fighting amongst themselves or at least very soon after and that's when exterior forces can start having an effect on the countries stability. This was all too real with India in 1947.
Another example {though not accepted by the British Government} was Rhodesia, later Zimbabwe. Ian Smith made a pigs ear of the country, but that was nothing compared to what Robert Mugabe did to it, look how he left the country and it's people, is on it's uppers. 

Keep a watchful eye on Barbados.