“She is past-mistress of nothingness… a conveniently empty vessel into which Helen Mirren can imagine any amount of knowingness and intelligence.” So Guardian journalist Polly Toynbee once described the Queen. If only we “put an end to this royal infantilizing of a nation,” she added, the “sunlight of reform” would come out and Britain could take its place among the world’s republics.
I won’t bother to defend constitutional monarchy, because it’s looking pretty good these days, compared with the alternatives. Who wants to live in a tyrannous monarchy like, say, Sweden or Denmark or Norway when you can enjoy the delights of republics like Venezuela, Cameroon or North Korea?
But Ms. Toynbee put her finger on something.
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