poliphilo

I dreamed- as British people so often do- about Her Majesty the Queen. I was her guest at a pic-nic and she was being frightfully merry- like my mother on a particularly good day. Afterwards (still in the dream) I was explaining to someone who could be bothered to listen that the individual Royals might be frightfully nice but the Institution they belonged to wasn't. I remember the difficulty of getting my sleeping brain to formulate anything approaching a reasoned argument.

I know what this is all about. I read an interview with Helen Mirren yesterday in which she was saying she'd been converted from grumpy Republican to fervent Royalist by meeting the Royals. She's particularly keen on Prince Charles and thinks he'll make a wonderful king.

Yes, Helen, but if you think Monarchy is an outdated, anti-democratic institution (blah, blah, blah) as I do and you once did, it doesn't make a hap'orth's worth of difference whether Prince Charles is a nice bloke or not. A good King is still a bad King because Kings are bad in principle. Yes? There's a case to be made for Monarchy and I'm happy to hear it and consider its merits, but it's got nothing to do with personalities.