“Altruism, Neighbourliness, the Fruits of the Spirit”

David Starkey, whom I had always previously assumed to be the bad type of Tory, concluded his epic study of the monarchy with a splendid attack on the Thatcherite-cum-New-Labour privatisation of public services (he was a bit nostalgic for the private charity that preceded the Welfare State, but should consider that the latter would never have been deemed necessary if the former had worked), leading into the suggestion that the monarchy should embody the resistance to this in the name of “altruism, neighbourliness, the fruits of the spirit”. Quite right, too.