The book also sets out a clear blueprint, not just of what kind of republic we should aspire to be – something that is often lacking in other republican texts – but also of the road to that republic. Graham Smith shows what fools our rotten constitution makes of us, with a monarch as emblem of a country beset by nepotism, backhanders, chumocracy and inherited privilege. The obvious problem with the moralistic approach is that any society, let alone one of sixty-five million people, will harbour a vast diversity of values, as is borne out by recent polls of public attitudes to the monarchy itself. Nevertheless, nobody should be arrested for advocating what should really be common sense in this day and age. They aren't accountable to anyone, and yet between them they are privy to more government secrets than many cabinet ministers.

I have been aware of the Privy Council and some of its activities as well as the power exercised by a Prime Minister which meets the criteria for the Quinton Hogg (Hailsham) assessment of their position as an elected dictatorship. On the question of government power, Smith likewise assumes that the existence of a strong executive is at odds with British values. If this book changes at least one person’s mind, then Graham Smith has indeed done what a real democratic President does - win over the people not because of the family they are born into, but because of the integrity of their character and consistency of their principles. I was startled awake with the familiar story of the forced evacuation of the Chagos Islands not requiring any reference for an overview from Parliament and how the process is available to be repeated.

Plus, there were always the arguments that the monarchy bring in huge revenues in tourism and that the British public overwhelmingly loved the royal family. Meanwhile the uglier institutional undercurrent is often, conveniently for the British Monarchy, left out of most conversations. As with many books, I imagine, the publication timing is selected deliberately because it might benefit sales.

Thus many of the pro-monarchy arguments mentioned sounded very familiar from discussions I've had, e.

When The Enchanted Glass: Britain and its Monarchy was published 35 years ago and until very recently, the British monarchy seemed pretty unassailable. With accurate statistics, primary source material and interviews where he and his team have faced up to the relevant authorities and gleaned the truth out of them, Smith demonstrates how all the classic excuses for keeping the monarchy are not just mistaken - they're plain wrong. Despite the scandal, the outrage and falling support, MPs and the wider establishment have turned a blind eye to this issue, just as they try to avoid other questions of wider constitutional reform.

If you were hoping that the fall of the Windsors would at least mean no more tampon metaphors, think again. I've never found Graham Smith particularly likeable, but I decided to neatly set aside my personal feelings and political convictions to read his much hyped release. There is no reference to Thomas Hobbes or Edmund Burke, let alone other, less famous, theorists of monarchy. Constitutional reformers who demand an elected upper house, or electoral reform, are often missing one of the main fault lines in our political system: founded on monarchy, we are still governed using the outdated toolkit of a monarchy, regardless of whether or not it is the King himself who wields power.Indeed, perhaps to burst any preconception that he is a Cromwellian killjoy, Smith spends the first few pages chronicling a tour of Buckingham Palace he took with his nephews. One of the stronger passages examines the prorogation affair of 2019 and the paralysis that overcame the queen as she struggled to reconcile her role of constitutional backstop with the expectation that the monarch do nothing to impede an elected government.