Ruth Wishart is a columnist for a major Scottish newspaper. She is not a fringe voice. She is not a social media agitator. She is a mainstream commentator with decades of experience.
And she just wrote that as long as we have a seemingly untouchable royal family, you could argue that we do not actually live in a democracy.
Let that sit for a moment.
She compared Andrew's situation to Al Capone. Capone was a mobster and gangster who was finally done for tax evasion rather than his various nefarious activities. Andrew has been arrested for misconduct in public office rather than for any knowledge he may have passed to Jeffrey Epstein. The arcane charge ignores the testimony of all the abused young women, reduced in the now infamous files to nubile pussy.
Her word. Yuck. Also her word. And accurate.
Meanwhile, the poor bloody taxpayer funds the current monarch to the tune of well over one hundred and thirty million pounds. Despite both Charles and William pocketing many times that sum from the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster. On which they pay no income or corporation tax.
She walks through the properties. Do not get confused by terms like lodge and cottage, she says. When the residencies belong to a member of the UK royal family, we are talking many bedroomed stately piles.
William and Kate have moved from Adelaide Cottage to the big house in Windsor. Not to be confused with their Norfolk home. Or Kensington Palace where they stay when in London.
Buckingham Palace has seven hundred and seventy five rooms and is not even lived in. Charles and Camilla prefer Clarence House. Or Birkhall in the Highlands. Or Highgrove. All permanently staffed.
Balmoral has more than thirty exemptions from laws that everyone else is expected to observe. The royals can dodge Scottish legislation covering environmental and wildlife issues. It is not subject to stamp duty. The police can only enter with the King's permission.
How many boltholes does the average family need in any calendar year?
The parliamentary bible, Erskine May, expressly states that elected representatives should say nothing pejorative about the royals. Though since Andrew lost his titles, a number of MPs have suddenly remembered they possess a backbone.
Are we witnessing the end of the age of deference? Wishart fears not. Not while the smallest utterance from a royal personage inevitably becomes front page news. The media is as guilty of forelock tugging as anyone else.
She asks a question that should make everyone uncomfortable. What other group of nations still believes in being ruled by a family whose principal achievement is being born in the right bed?
And she points to something crucial. Maybe the passing of the late Queen was the moment when we should have logically chosen to re-examine the succession and all its works.
But instead, we clung to outmoded traditions. We chose to continue to invest in a not very special, not very intellectually gifted family. One that seems more at home with horses and dogs than with real people.
That is a mainstream columnist in a major newspaper describing the royal family as not very special and not very intellectually gifted. That would have been unthinkable a few years ago.
She calls out the media directly. Royal correspondent is a ludicrous title. Several of them have been wheeled out to provoke sympathy for the royals. One MP asked us to feel the royal family's pain over the Andrew affairs.
Weep? I nearly started. Her words.
She notes that in Harry's memoir and in Andrew Lownie's book about the Yorks, it is clear that tips and prompts to selected journalists emanated from the royal households themselves. The briefing machine. The manipulation. The never explain never complain mantra that was always a lie.
And she asks the question that nobody in royal protection will answer. What did the royal protection officers see? Andrew's decade of jaunting preceded everyone having a camera in their phone. Never mind the butler. What did the officers assigned to protect him witness?
We will probably never know. Because the system protects itself.
The whole edifice should now be dumped, Wishart writes. Courtiers and all. The family should be subjected to the same scrutiny as everyone else.
We are in thrall to a system that most modern and modernising Europeans have long since ditched. You do not need bicycles to follow in their footsteps. Just get rid of the conventions that confer godlike status on members of a very ordinary family. Including the obligatory embarrassing uncle for whom special arrangements need to be made at Christmas.
The Crown Estate holds fifteen billion pounds worth of real estate. Nearly three hundred thousand acres of farmland and woodland. More than half the coastal strip. Most of Regent Street in London. Twenty five percent of its profits go toward the sovereign grant. The rest goes into the treasury.
The whole setup is the product of long standing arrangements that are well out of date in a modern democracy.
Then again, she writes, as long as we have a seemingly untouchable royal family, you could argue that we do not actually live in a democracy.
That is the argument. Stated plainly. In a mainstream newspaper. By a respected columnist.
The monarchy is incompatible with democracy. The deference is incompatible with accountability. The untouchability is incompatible with justice.
And the moment to re-examine all of it was when the Queen died. Instead, we chose continuity. We chose tradition. We chose to pretend that a not very special family was somehow essential to the nation.
Frankly, m'dears, include me out.
That is how Ruth Wishart ends her column. And increasingly, that is how millions of people feel.
The age of deference should have ended with Elizabeth. Whether it ends with Charles or with William, it will end. The only question is how much damage the institution does to itself before that happens.