Treating celebs like human beings

With stunning topicality, the prime minister has rejected my petition, seeking a little more respect to be shown to royals by press photographers. He - or one of his people - says it was intended to be humorous. Well I am gutted. Couldn't he at least have said that it was humorous? At least that would give me some sense of achievement. And what is wrong with injecting a little humour to make a serious point? Do all petitions need to be po faced?

Anyway, this was the text:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to: 'permit members of the Royal Family to thump press photographers whenever they have the opportunity.'

With the supporting statement:

Without seeking to defend hereditary privilege in general, it is intolerable that after the paparazzi, the newspapers and their readers contributed to the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, the same industry can still hound surviving members of the family.

If royalty is to mean anything, it must be allowed to command the most elementary respect and dignity.

So we hear that "Kate and Wills" are splitting up. Boy has a girlfriend, boy stops having a girlfriend, big deal. At least after the Charles and Di fiasco, nobody could seriously try to tell him he has to marry her.

I saw The Queen on DVD the other week, and although it potrayed the royals as a bunch of emotional cripples, they still looked better than anybody else in the film - the PM and the press. Lots of people are excessively reserved, I probably am myself, and it is a human right to be so. Hounding celebrities to their death is not a human right. Let's get some perspective.

Defender of the defender of faiths

It may look like I've been asleep for a few days, but I've taken to watching Question Time a little. Until I see it I can be oblivious of what rot people out there are thinking and the need to put them straight.

So Prince Charles wants to be "Defender of Faith" rather than defender of the faith. Some people hate this, some love it. Paddy Ashdown on Question Time was emphatic that it is the right thing to do, that it better reflects one of the strengths of today's society.

I find the whole debate of what Charles ought to do, as putative head of the Church of England and whatnot, somewhat uncomfortable. I think Charles, like everybody else in the country, should be free to say what he believes in, and not be required ex officio to subscribe to particular beliefs handed to him on a plate. That is not how belief works, if we are honest, and if we want our king to be honest.

If that means the monarch and the church would one day no longer like to be so close, well that is fine. I don't see any reason for an obligation on either party to get, theologically, into bed with somebody incompatible.

There is a debate to be had about the role of religion in society, and about the pre-eminence of Christianity, or anglicanism. But this is not a debate that can be sensibly had in the text of a coronation ceremony. It is not one in which we should take a lead from the monarch. And it is not one that should be too political.

And if one day we get a monarch who follows the Bahai faith, or humanism, or Wicca, or a postmodern mishmash, or even Roman Catholicism we should not disbar them or demand that they lie. That would be a denial of civil rights. And hardline monarchists, in particular, should accept whatever monarch the hereditary lottery gives them, and like it. If you show any inclination to pick and choose your monarchs, or tell them what they ought to do, you are not much of a monarchist.

Tag: Prince Charles