By a rough extrapolation, Kate Middleton's son was just one of the 5000 or so babies born yesterday in the sixteen Commonwealth Realms that share the same monarchy. For all our sakes, we'd better hope that, by some extraordinary coincidence, he just happens to be better suited to the role of Head of State than all of the rest of those 5000 (not to mention the countless millions that will be born on all the other days between now and his accession to the throne). But it does seem somewhat unlikely.
On the plus side, Gordon Brown can sleep a tad more easily tonight. Apparently one of the twenty-odd things that's been troubling him most about the prospect of independence is that the Scottish Parliament might "take a different view on the line of succession for the monarchy" (although why the Scottish Parliament would be any more likely to do that than the Australian, Jamaican or Barbadian parliaments is something of a mystery). Well, now that males are clearly first in line to the throne for the next three generations regardless of whether they are given constitutional precedence over females, that seems to be yet another of the No campaign's "terrifying" imagined futures that we can safely stop fretting about.
When I hear the joyous news, by mistake late last night, the first thing I though was that Charlie Rothsay would be happy that this ghastly new fangled equality thing wouldn't have to apply.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice (for him) that he can go on living in the 18th century a bit longer.
Aye Tris, it might be a boy - but what if it's a Catholic?!
ReplyDelete