Snarky the Seal, recently appointed the Royal Seal of Approval, may provoke a constitutional crisis if he cannot be found to give recently passed legislation the go-ahead. The RSA, usually appointed by the Queen, fulfils a hitherto secret role in UK law making.
It was always believed that the Royal Seal of Approval was a wax seal, but early in 2010 sources close to Prince Charles revealed that the British Royal Family used a privileged family of semi-aquatic marine mammals to endorse laws sent by parliament. The process, once shrouded in secrecy, involves a royal equerry carrying the legal scroll to the water’s edge at a secret location near Bude in the Duchy of Cornwall. The Royal Seal – from a long line of seals going back a thousand years - would then be summoned with official pilchards, or royal prawns in season, and if he sniffed the scroll, it meant the law would be passed. If he failed to sniff, the bill would be returned to the House of Lords for a second reading.
Since Cromwell’s days, it has been custom to smear the bill with fish guts, meaning the seal was almost certain to approve the measures, giving parliament automatic primacy over the monarchy. Buckingham Palace has denied leaving some bills that affected the Monarchy’s income unsmeared in order to delay them. Despite pressure from Buckingham Palace and Downing Street, Snarky has failed to enact a raft of legislation meaning health service and pension reforms may be delayed.
Republicans have criticised the Royal Seal of Approval system for being “archaic” and “unhygienic” with claims from The Lord Privy Seal’s office that there was “something fishy going on”. But loyalists have countered by claiming that the right mixture of democracy, tradition and seafood has stood our law making in good stead since Cnut’s time, when the tradition started in 995.
It’s understood, though, that Snarky himself felt the pressure was too great and he needed “time off to think about things” It’s believed Snarky may not want to have pups and thereby cause a constitutional crisis, paralysing parliament and endangering the British way of life. No Royal Seal has ever abdicated, although there were strong rumours that Eddie – the Royal Seal in the 1930’s – was enticing Nazi spy submarines into Ilfracombe after an ill-fated attraction to a former US Navy Seal.