Why radicals should welcome a royal baby

"Those who pour scorn on the royal baby frenzy are being clever elitists who despise the feelings of the less clever …. and reductionists."

So says Bryan Appleyard, as ever hitting the nail on the head. Though in this case the nail he was aiming at was the head of the Archbishop of Reductionists, Richard Dawkins, who tweeted: "I’m patriotically proud of British achievements like Shakespeare, Darwin & DNA fingerprinting. But royal baby nothing to celebrate."

I agree with Appleyard.  Dawkins is being snobbish, but then the purpose of the Positivist wing in UK debate is to boil everything down  to its constituent chemicals and discover that there is nothing of significance about them.  Religion, royals, saints days, osteopathy.  Let's cling to our birthdays - they are next on the list!

Why are royal babies different from other babies, asks Appleyard rhetorically?  This is his answer:

"Because, I am afraid, of the use, derived from history, pragmatism, sentiment and sensibility, we make of the royal family as embodiments of the metaphysical – as opposed to the merely political – properties of the state. This is just the way we do things and it works..."

I am a monarchist for two other, rather pragmatic, reasons.  The first is that, not only do we need the metaphysical - it adds a vital spice to life - but we particularly need the trappings of monarchy in the UK, because it can be a bastion against extremism and intolerance.

You can't help noticing, over the last century, that former empires which lose their monarchy very rapidly became prey to fascist forces - the Germans, French, Spanish in particular.  Monarchies are safe conduits for intolerant nationalism.  They allow us to be patriotic without finding that the place has been taken over by proto-UKIP types dreaming of empires long gone and locking up those who look a bit different.  They are forces for inclusion and tolerance.

The second reason follows on from that, because monarchies are different.  When they work (and ours works), they are not symbols of privilege - they are symbols of equality.  They render everyone from bank CEO to prime minister equals under the crown.  They are a potential antidote to the widening inequalities, and against the rising power of the financial elite.

They are that because they represent an institution with its roots back to Alfred and Cerdic and possibly before.

In the European tradition, right back to the feudal system, they stand above the government as the guardians of the poor and powerless.  When the peasants rose in revolt in 1381, they were doing so in order to appeal to the king (a fat lot of good it did them, it is true).

That is why former Liberals like Hilaire Belloc became monarchists, because he felt that France (in this case) needed that supra-national authority.

In our own time, what this means is that we desperately need some supra-national institution that is not sponsored by corporations, or governed by political spin - and the monarchy is almost the last institution to have remained un-nobbled by Google or McDonalds or Barclays.  If you think a presidency would be immune from Goldman Sachs, I think you are dreaming.  The vampire squid has no depth.

All this world-weary snobbery about a royal baby seems to me to be upside down.  Or are these people really worrying about a symbolic deference, when the real source of inequality - the financial power of the new elite - goes untackled?

So there we are.  Call me old-fashioned if you like.  But a royal baby spreads a little magic, and by doing so, it inoculates us just a little against fascism and corporate control.