Crowning Glory?

Is the Duchess of Cambridge's pregnancy now being announced on a daily basis? And why stop when this baby has been delivered? Every day for the rest of her life, let Kensington Palace, and then Buckingham Palace, and then Clarence House, announce whether or not the former Miss Middleton was with child.

Some people have a monarchist heart, but a republican head. I am the opposite. I recognise that the monarchy keeps sweet the people who need to be kept sweet. I do not know why it does, since it has never done the first thing for them, from post-War social democracy, to social liberalisation from the 1960s onwards, to every EU Treaty ever (although they agreed with the early, important ones at the time), to all of the constitutional and ceremonial changes of the Blair years. But it does, and their sweetness makes other things possible.

If they cared about the other things, too, then they might do better if there were also some kind of republican institution in this country, such as a collective Presidency. It was tellingly David Davis who, in 1999, sought to transfer the House of Commons the exercise of the Royal Prerogative in many key areas. That might be one to revisit if, as the only candidate acceptable to the DUP, he soon enough became Prime Minister.