Does anyone sane actually care?
Yes.
Harry and Megan have done incalculable damage to the British monarchy, both within the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, and more widely across the world. (If it were up to me, they’d be locked up in the Tower of London on bread and water, with no access to social media.)
Perhaps the gruesome twosome have finally decided to shut up and behave themselves. If not, their presence in Britain gives rise to all kinds of new risks.
Of course some people – republicans and so on – don’t care if the monarchy is damaged.
I do, for three reasons:
1. Our constitutional monarchy might, objectively speaking, appear to be an absurdity. You wouldn’t now invent it from scratch. But it works, and it gives us a centre of stability, which is particularly valuable in an era of much instability. (I suspect that many of those who would like the United Kingdom to be a republic might, if such a thing came about, very much regret it.)
2. The extraordinary history of the British monarchy is one of the most remarkable things about our country – and the fact that it has survived into the 21st century when so many other monarchies disappeared during the course of the 20th is more remarkable still. It gives our nation much splendour in a drab world. (Personally, I’m not a great watcher of royal pageantry, but I’m glad it’s there.)
3. Individually, the main members of the royal family are good, hard-working people whom I greatly admire and respect. (I wouldn’t do their jobs for all the tea in China.)
