Liz or Lilibet?

Until her recent appointment as Foreign Secretary, Betty Gusset had been known for two things. One was her adultery. The other was that she had tried to persuade her then party, the Liberal Democrats, to adopt a policy of abolishing the monarchy. She is never asked about either. She ought to be.

The abolition of the monarchy is the logic both of Thatcherism and of Blairism, yet neither Conservative, nor right-wing Labour, politicians are ever asked about it. We now have a Foreign Secretary who has actively campaigned for it. She needs to be asked the Yes-No question of whether she had changed her mind.

And what if she had not? On balance, I would not abolish the monarchy. I do not want either a Bullingdon Club member, or a huge campaign donor to the likes of Keir Starmer, as my Head of State, and the former would beat the latter every time, with no one else on the ballot paper. But a lot of people take a different view, so there ought not to be the taboo that there is around this issue, anymore than there is around nuclear weapons, or around rejoining the EU, or until very recently around leaving the EU.

Ask her the question. The next time that she is interviewed, then ask her the question, "Do you still want to abolish the monarchy?" If so, "Why?" If not, "Why not?"