The Spectator’s Notes | 10 January 2013

Poor Nick Clegg keeps trying to change the constitution and keeps being balked (the Alternative Vote, Lords reform). At last, he believes, he will be able to fulfil his ambition to force the first-born child, of either sex, to ascend to the throne, and to be able to marry a Roman Catholic (though not, oddly, to be a Roman Catholic if she/he does actually become queen/king). Perhaps he is carried away by being married to the lovely, fascinating, Catholic Miriam, and is horrified that members of the royal family are deprived of such joys. This speaks well for his ardour. But surely the best constitutional changes of the past 350 years have been those which increased the power of Parliament at the expense of the executive. Mr Clegg wants his Bill, which involves amending eight separate Acts of Parliament, to be rushed through in a single day. Hot-headed with love for Miriam, like Henry VIII for Anne Boleyn, he is careless of our liberties.