Republicans should rejoice at the Royal Baby’s arrival

It’s a prince! Many congratulations to Their Royal Highnesses on the arrival of their third child and, indeed, their fecundity. The UK’s birth rate fell to a decade-low last year – 1.79 babies per mother – so the Duke and Duchess are picking up the slack for the rest of us. 

Yes, it’s a grand day for fans of babies, royals, and above-replacement fertility rates. But none are as jubilant as Britain’s republicans who get to joy-hate an institution that fills them with a rage and disdain the rest of us reserve for Isis or possibly the Labour Party. Anti-monarchists secretly love events like this because, for a few days, the Firm (or rather its most colourful admirers and royal correspondents with an excitable newsdesk on the phone) comes close to the half-circus, half-cult its most loyal antagonists sincerely believe it to be. 

The worst kind of republican – generally, those who identify themselves as such within three minutes of acquaintance – regards Britain as a tacky, forelock-tugging dystopia, one more commemorative Queen Mum porcelain range away from pre-modern despotism.