in the UK they have an unelected upper house of individuals representing themselves and a PM who can always bully or pack the house to get his way

The purpose of an upper house is to act as a break on parliament and to represent various interests of the state, such as we have in Ireland where senators are elected by to the various panels - industry, farming, education etc.There is no constitutional court - a citizen can't take the government to court to force them to conform to non existent constitution.They are supposed to be a constitutional monarchy in a country with no written constitution! The constitution is whatever the government of the days says it is and this is explained away to the plebs as a feature - it's very flexible!.They are made out to be benign but they're a malignancy that costs the country far more than can be measured per capita. Costs are always put into the perspective of per UK resident, so a funeral only cost £1 per person, a coronation £1.50, 'they bring in X in tourism' etc. There is a reason the narrative is these people are a tourist attraction anachronism. People underestimate how powerful repetition is. It is this same wanting to belong they're tapping into.

The left wing or liberal equivalent is British people that say the 2012 Olympics was the last time the country felt great etc. To anyone with any sense of self worth the queen's funeralpalooza was Pyongyang levels of crazy but to a lot of the population of the UK it was finally a way to be British. Then there is the everyman on the street desperate for a sense of nationalism, who has to hark back to his great grandfather fighting in WWII in order to scratch this itch. The system maintains itself pretty impressively. A good number of those who are successful and influential that are not born into it are brought in via honours, 'Sir Keir'. There can never be true equality with a royal family, this suits those paying 40k a year to send their offspring to Harrow or Charterhouse. There is a cohort of land owners, media owners, filtering down to your Nicholas Witchell types on 250k a year, that know this is all BS but also realise that this institution is at the top of a system with its hand on the scale working in their favour. There are several things at play here, not just one guy or a family that have convinced everyone else they are superior beings.

Astonishing x men by joss whedon