Nice column by Polly Toynbee asking why people are still so in thrall to the monarchy.

Maybe Shakespeare is partly to blame. The history of our monarchs is so profoundly embedded in us by our greatest writer that his plays on the rise and fall of kings elevates them in our minds, adding cultural depth and meaning to the absurdity of monarchy.

What an irony that the royal family itself seems devoid of cultural enthusiasm, preferring polo, corgis and shooting. But then, if centuries of privileged breeding and education produce dunderheads and philistines, that proves talent is genetically random, not inherited. A meritocracy would send the likes of Prince Andrew into the tender clutches of Iain Duncan Smith.