“When there is a select committee on the Queen,” Walter Bagehot wrote in 1867, “the charm of royalty will be gone. Its mystery is its life. We must not let in daylight upon magic.” Yet as the Guardian’s reporting shows, the monarchy rests not on mantras and vapours, but on a solid financial foundation that has been deliberately shielded from parliamentary accountability. David Cameron was more servant of the crown than of the people when he drew a veil around the monarchy so zealously. In 2011, the then prime minister wanted to end what he described in his memoirs as a “painful annual discussion … about whether individual members of the family were ‘good value for money’”. At a time when Mr Cameron, an ardent monarchist, was inflicting painful cuts to public services, he made it a priority to accommodate the then Queen’s long-held wish to protect herself from scrutiny. » | Editorial | Wednesday, April 5, 2023
The Super-privileged.
