Monarchy

Mr Steerpike is no Middleton fan, but it has to be said that the Duchess of Cambridge has maintained her composure remarkably well in the wake of topless photos of her appearing in the foreign press. Keeping her chin up while continuing the royal couple’s tour of the South Pacific, she even managed to keep smiling when greeted with open arms by a topless women in the Solomon Islands. This would have been prime gaffe territory for Prince Phillip, but there wasn’t even a hint of an a joke despite the unfortunate timing. For shame!

Martin McGuiness will meet Her Majesty the Queen and shake her hand in Northern Ireland. This is a seminal moment. It does not change McGuiness’s commitment to a united Ireland, but it is a strong statement from the Republican side that bygones are bygones. It is also a sign, perhaps, that the sacrifices Britain made over the Bloody Sunday Inquiry where worthwhile, because McGuiness is making a brave sacrifice by doing this: there will be those who condemn him for it. It is also significant that the Palace has achieved this. The conflict in Northern Ireland and the dark historical relations between Britain and Ireland are causes close to the Queen’s heart; and she has made peace and reconciliation a mission of her reign.

This article appears in the latest issue of Spectator Australia. We thought that CoffeeHousers would like to read it. The trick to monarchy is not queening it. In The Radetzky March, Joseph Roth’s great novel of the Habsburg twilight, the Emperor Franz Joseph has it down to a tee:  ‘At times he feigned ignorance and was delighted when someone gave him a longwinded explanation about things he knew thoroughly… He was delighted at their vanity in proving to themselves that they were smarter than he …for it does not behoove an emperor to be as smart as his advisers.

One of my objections to monarchy is that it is a vulgar institution that encourages verbosity, prurience, sycophancy and banality. I was not therefore surprised that the BBC’s jubilee coverage was vulgar, verbose, prurient, sycophantic and banal. Others were, however, and the papers are full of condemnations of the corporation. You should always remember that the BBC’s rivals have a commercial interest in doing it down, just as the BBC has a commercial interest in doing down News Corporation at the Leveson Inquiry. No journalists are as compromised as writers who write about their employer’s rivals. As a rule, you should never believe a word they say.     That said, no one can deny that the BBC offered itself as a target to its enemies.

The rain makes today's Jubilee celebrations a truly British event. We didn’t want any of this continental sun, anyway. The flotilla is making its way through the drizzle, and as we have to celebrate indoors due to the weather then there's the perfect accompaniment: the new Spectator double issue, out today, which is overflowing with holiday reading. We have Robert Hardman saying how – policing aside – the bill for these four days of celebrations has been £1 million which works out as half an Olympic volleyball pitch. The queen is remarkable value. At my church this morning, we heard from a parishioner a little older than the Queen who was involved in making the dress for her coronation.

My Government’s legislative programme will focus on economic growth, justice and constitutional reform.   My Ministers’ first priority will be to reduce the deficit and restore economic stability. Legislation will be introduced to reduce burdens on business by repealing unnecessary legislation and to limit state inspection of businesses. My Government will introduce legislation to reform competition law to promote enterprise and fair markets. My Government will introduce legislation to establish a Green Investment Bank. Measures will be brought forward to further strengthen regulation of the financial services sector and implement the recommendations of the Independent Commission on Banking.

  What is the Queen’s secret? She seems to defy political gravity. Right now, an English monarch is in Australia being feted by her subjects, who seem delighted by this very un-modern constitutional arrangement. Paul Keating, the former Prime Minister of Australia, recounts in The Times today the time he advised the monarch to let go. “I told the Queen as politely and gently as I could that I believed that majority of Australians felt the monarchy was now an anachronism; that it had gently drifted into obsolescence.” This was 18 years ago. There is no such sign of this now, with just 34 per cent of Australians being in favour of dumping Her Majesty – the lowest figure for 20 years. Why?