The royal baby greets the press – with a Churchill salute

I like his style already. Keeps the press waiting for two weeks, and then gives the press a two-fingered flick of a greeting. His parents had just a few minutes on the hospital steps, but played it perfectly. Prince William held the baby, joked about how his son has more hair than he does, strapped the baby seat in to the back of the car (anyone who has done this before will know how much practise the manoeuvre requires) and then drove off himself – rather than be driven off. It’s enough to soften the heart of the most ardent republican*. “I’m calling it,” wrote Helen Lewis, the ever-readable deputy editor of the New Statesman. “Kate’s not human. She’s too perfect.”  The BBC this morning inserted “as things stand” as a caveat before saying that lad was born to be king. Technically, it is justified – who can tell what the next 70 years will bring? But the monarchy’s approval rating is 80pc, the Queen’s is 90pc and  it seems to have regained – as an institution – its power as a unifying force.