Sensible lefty comment of the day 'it doesn’t matter whether everyone has a fair and equal shot at power; it matters that power is not abused. And constitutional monarchy is as good a guarantee of that as we have so far come up with'

For more of Tim Collard's reconciliation of left-wing views and support for the monarchy his Telegraph article is a good read.

'I am happy to live in a country where the highest dignities of the state cannot be acquired by anyone with sharp elbows and/or a lot of money. When people condemn the monarchy in the name of “meritocracy” my blood boils. The rich (who have the real power) don’t get rich on grounds of merit, and is anyone seriously arguing that democratically elected politicians get where they are by being particularly meritorious?

And what’s so marvellous about republics, which all the worst 20th-century tyrannies have been? Even amongst democracies there are two kinds of republics; those with an executive president and those with an honorary one. With the first kind, you get a Head of State who is viscerally hated by at least 49 per cent of the population (as in the USA); with the second, you get a superannuated politician tolerated for his/her harmlessness but commanding little real respect. You can make your own guesses as to who might become President of a British Republic. And shudder.

...

... Prince William, with every imaginable opportunity to turn into a ghastly Hooray and rich aristocratic waster, has got his head down, got some service in, and become the admirable and level-headed man he clearly is. And, mutatis mutandis, the same goes for the new Duchess of Cambridge.

God bless them both, and let us hope that the horrendous pressures of the job don’t drive them apart. Of course I know that the wedding isn’t the really significant occasion. That will be the birth of an heir, whose reign I hope I will never see; but, as an Englishman and a socialist, I will die happy knowing that one is in place.'