Hiyo

[Wolhay]

Am I to take that you mean the royal family, as I heard a while ago that Blair wished to abolish the inherited rights some people have to sit in the House of Lords?

Yup. I meant the royal family.

Is not Empire a slightly dated word now anyway? I really don't want to get into a political discussion, and this I don't think is the place, but I am interested although not well researched.

Probably. The only reason to why I used it was because I wanted to include all nations in the United Kingdom and the rest of the nations that use the British monarch as their own, as I've heard at least Canada does and I can imagine that Australia does as well.