There’s been something of a royal flush this summer with not one but two of the younger members of our most elite family thrust, nakedly, into the spotlight. From billiards in the buff to the recent announcement that yet more gossip outlets, this time Italian and Swedish, are set to publish photos of Kate Middleton sunbathing topless, apparently we all want to see what our (unclothed) social betters are up to.
Of course, our archaic, expensive and, at times, frankly ridiculous monarchy is a symbol of so much of what is wrong in our unequal society. Bastions of class and race privilege, the royals demonstrate the painfully acute sense that in Britain, as it always has been, it’s not through your own talent or any hard work that you achieve success. Instead, your parent’s money dictates. It goes largely unquestioned that we have tens of individuals born into a life of luxury merely because they had the good fortune to grow in the right womb.
