Monarchy

Driving up Royal Deeside last weekend, I spotted a harvest under way on that magical Hobbit-esque green/gold/purple hillscape. It all came flooding back. One year on from the death of Elizabeth II, it’s the sight of the tractors lined up next to the A93 which remains among the most enduring images. It wasn’t just that they all had their shovels dipped in tribute, like the dockers’ cranes saluting the Havengore as it carried Churchill down the Thames in 1965. It was the fact that they were all spotless. At the busiest time of the year in this lush agricultural belt of Aberdeenshire, farmers had paused their harvesting, taken their machines

New York At a chic dinner party for some very beautiful women, your correspondent shocked the attendees by quoting an even greater writer than the greatest Greek writer since Homer – Rod Liddle – and his definition of why royalty matters: because it is ‘anachronistic and undemocratic’. Hear, Hear! A particularly attractive guest, Alissa – on a par with Lily James – took me aside and asked me if I really believed what the greatest writer ever, Rod Liddle, had written and I had just quoted. She also asked whom I had in mind as the greatest Greek writer since Homer, and I answered: ‘Moi.’ I then sat down and

Privilege at birth displeases wannabe types, and the subject came up rather a lot last week, especially in the Land of the Depraved, where the Bagel Times regards monarchy as anti-democratic and the cause of most human ills, including the common cold, cancer, pimples, varicose veins and even athlete’s foot. In my own alma mater, the University of Virginia, founded by the greatest of all Americans, Thomas Jefferson, some physically repellent creeps have demanded his name be taken off the beautiful neoclassical buildings he designed. The trouble is that Tom, as we called him in my college fraternity, was a bit anti-monarchical himself, having sided with and advised certain colonists

Princess Elizabeth was 25 when her father died. She was on the first leg of a Commonwealth tour and she spent the night of 5 February 1952 at Treetops Hotel, set in the branches of a large fig tree in Aberdare National Park in Kenya. ‘For the first time in the history of the world,’ wrote the British naturalist Jim Corbett, who was a guest at the hotel at the same time, ‘a young girl climbed into a tree one day a princess and, after having what she described as her most thrilling experience, she climbed down from the tree next day a Queen.’ As interest in Queen Elizabeth II

Fourteen prime ministers; 18 general elections; seven changes of government. Even in a stable country like Britain it is remarkable how much political water has flowed under the bridge in the 69 years since the late Duke of Edinburgh became consort to Elizabeth II. Britain has gone from a country of outside lavatories to one of conspicuous wealth, from an independent nation to a member of the EU and back again, from an empire to a champion of global trade. Some see the past seven decades as a period of national decline, yet the quality of life has improved hugely. In 1952, life expectancy at birth for Britons was 69;

We often complain that our politicians are all bluffers who know very little about a lot. But is the very structure of our political institutions at fault? And speaking of bluffers, Theresa May is so far successfully fudging her way through the Brexit negotiations, but can she survive after March 2019? And last, maybe all this politics has made you long for the good old days of monarchy. With Prince Charles’s art collection on exhibit, we talk about how it reflects Charles’s One Nation Toryism. PPE – that notorious Oxford degree that ostensibly teaches its students Philosophy, Politics, and Economics – and apparently, how to govern a country. Or at

George Orwell famously wrote that an English intellectual would rather be caught stealing from the poorbox than be seen standing to attention for God Save the King. Such intellectuals must have had a terrible time last weekend when much of the nation’s gaze was fixed on the wedding of two young people who are part of an institution we think of as quintessentially British. The newlyweds have shown early commitment to those qualities we celebrate as particularly British: duty, charity and the service of others. Whether it is the two tours in Afghanistan served by Prince Harry, or the charity work that the couple has embraced, the hallmarks of the

In this week’s podcast, we discuss Meghan and the monarchy – is Meghan Markle good news for the Establishment? And what are we to make of her anyway? We also discuss the potential for Tory rebellion on the customs union, and ask, does economic research back up higher government spending? As the royal baby is born earlier this week, all eyes are on the monarchy. But he’s not the only new arrival to the family in recent times – Meghan Markle will be formally joining the monarchy in less than a month’s time. So what are we to make of the new Princess? For this week’s cover, Jenny McCartney thanks

Generally, I am the last person to advocate modesty, sobriety or duty. But then, I have been supporting myself financially, with no assistance from any other source – spouse or State or taxpayer – since I was seventeen years old, and am free to do as I please. The same, sadly, cannot be said of Prince William, who swerved this year’s Commonwealth Day service in favour of dad-dancing, Jägerbombing and high-fiving party-girls on a four-day jolly with his mates in Verbier. And this after spending a surprisingly modest thirteen days performing his official duties this year.  It’s no secret that I was one of the late Princess of Wales’ most