The Royals: they're just like us

Apparently, the Royal Family or at the very least the Royal Couple are just like us. That's good then. Apparently. Odd though. Odd that people who stand in their thousands to cheer at two strangers are doing so to celebrate them because they're just like us.

They are just like us, except they're better. William is not unlike anyone else who one day will become king. In fact, we are told, he willingly cleaned out toilets in Chile without a murmur of complaint. Not even a bloody hell these toilets stink like shit.

The point of this tale is two fold. Firstly to silence those who would wrongly accuse a lad of privilege of being stuck up. Secondly to show that he's just like us, only better. Come on, if you had to clean out a shit house you'd do it but you'd fucking grumble about it.

Throughout the wedding broadcast the stories of the Royal Couple being just like us flowed fast. The wedding cars and fairy tale carriages had been replaced at the couples behest by mini coaches. Which was charming fun because it's just like us, only bigger.

Unlike us they got wed at Westminster Abbey, had airforce fly overs and granny gave them gold to fashion into rings. And the whole thing was beamed live all over the world to 2 billion people, so we are told.

Why all the interest if they're just like us?

Because they're not. After all Prince William's new wife Kate, whose folks certainly aren't short of a few bob, is referred to as a "commoner". Starts to make those coaches sound a little like slumming it for kicks.

All the royal watchers and royal spin doctors seem to think that any republican stirring will be quelled by saying what downright ordinary folks these royal types really are. Because we all know that to be a republican you need to think the royals are all lizards from outer-space.

Not long ago the royals maintained their privileged place by claiming the divine right of kings. They couldn't help being better, they were just born that way. Chosen by god to rule. In fact even a modernising monarch like King Juan Carlos I of Spain claims to have been selected by god to guide his country. Franco before him of course, though not of royal descent, made a similar claim that god sent him to save Spain from poverty, presumably by offing a lot of his fellow citizens. Claiming your humble right to lord it over your fellow man by the authority of god was always a good way to keep the common herd from questioning the order of things.

So isn't their station in life based on the notion that they are not like us. Aren't they born to be kings by divine right?

Perhaps not since Victorian times, when Prince Albert recast the unpopular royals as a middle class family with great and lasting success. They were still our betters but now acting as a template of how to behave derived from their noble birthright and duty to serve as our rulers. It worked then and its working now.

The more flawed they are shown to be the more just like us they claim to be. If the future king's a Nazi then let him abdicate for a royal romance. If their marriages fail it shows how in touch with the common herd they are. Why shouldn't they be allowed to act just like us, we say as we pity them for the royal straight jackets they've been forced to wear since birth.

If they're just normal like many had suspected for a long time then do we need them at all?

One often given reason is that a constitutional monarchy saves us from electing a political head of state. Some scumbag who we couldn't trust. A slimy elected politico. The royals are not competing for our votes, they are instead prepared from birth to serve with grace and dignity. Whereas, the logic runs, an elected head of state might be ignorant of other cultures or hold objectionable views and make shady alliances with despots. What then explains the antics of Edward VIII friend of Hitler, or Prince Philip casual racist or his mother-in-law the well known supporter of Ian Smith. None of them were stupidly elected so sadly they can't be unelected either.

When non-royal normal types, like Posh and Becks or Peter and that other Katie called Jordan, throw their opulence at us by marrying on throwns they are derided as deluded and self important fools. Yet when a £50 million wedding has real royalty on board then it's exciting and acceptable because of how ordinary they are.

If they're not chosen by god, if they're not our betters, if they don't have to adhere to royal protocols, if we're saddened on their behalf by the burden they never asked to bear then why can't we set them free and do away with our monarchy?

After all they're just like us, give them a break.