The Queen is dead - Long live the King.

Magazine article relating to Prince Charles. All comments welcome.

It's quite possible that as you read this Queen Elizabeth the Second, or Betty 2 as I like to think of her is dead, and that the head of state of the United Kingdom is now Charles the Third. And it's also quite probable that many people in the overcrowded little island that Charles technically rules over have a number of misgivings about it.

Should you be one of these people you can be reassured that far from the nation that gave the world automation, democracy, free-speech and Bovril falling into anarchy following the death of the old queen, the succession of Charles to the throne will probably make the country a fairer and safer place to live. And if not fairer or safer certainly more interesting.

I should say at this point that I'm not a royalist, just in case some of you were thinking that this has been cobbled together by a junior government member or a palace flunky. I'm actually a dyed in the polyester and cotton mix republican. Not for me street parties with jelly and ice-cream, or mantelpieces groaning with commemorative porcelain nick-nacks. Oh no. For me the Royal family is an exercise in out dated feudalism with no more reason for existing than an hereditary cricket team or the latest D-list Hello magazine celebrity. And although in my low-born opinion the place would be marginally better off without state-funded royalty, I've no burning desire to see the dukes and duchesses and earls and countesses put in front of a wall and shot. Maybe stop giving them money and exile them to the Bahamas but no need to get too revolutionary about it all. I mean, this is England after-all.

A couple of years ago I visited Windsor in order to attend a family party that was being held there. As there was a few hours to spare, myself and my wife wandered around the town looking in shop windows and drinking cups of coffee in small cafes - the sort of thing that everyone does when they are in a strange place trying to waste a bit of time. Inevitably we ended up outside Windsor Castle where a crowd of four or five hundred people had gathered, all of whom appeared to be being shouted at by an overweight middle-aged policewoman with an enlaged sense of self-importance and a face that only a mother can love - and then not all the time. It turned out that all of these well behaved people with an average age of around seventy, had gathered in order to see the changing of the guard at Betty's surburban pad. Sure enough, ten minutes later eight guardsmen marched down the middle of the road from their barracks a couple of blocks away and wheeled through the main entrance of the castle before disappearing through a side door into what was presumably Windsor Castle's guardroom. And that was it! All of these people had spent some of their precious time hanging around on the pavement just to see eight lads wearing large furry hats walk past them. You could almost taste the disappointment in the air "Jeeze Nancy, we've come all the way from Hog Jaw Arkansas to see this!"

I actually found it quite entertaining as I imagined the eight protectors of the Queen high five-ing at the end of their two-hundred yard march in respect of another faultless performance. Still, for those tourists whose craving for pomp and pageantry hadn't been satisfied there was always the prospect of a tour of the castle itself to look forward to, and as we had nothing better to do we shuffled along in a crocodile of white haired ladies and elderly gentlemen in beige car-coats as they headed for the storming of the winter palace.

The fact that all of these people were heading for the castle rather gives the lie to the statement that the Royal Family is necessary for the torist industry, as I doubt that any of those good people expected to bump into the Queen as she settled down in the lounge to watch the racing on the telly, or Phillip running a bath. And they would have toured the castle whether there was anyone there or not. For myself, I'm sure that it would have been interesting to look around the place except that when we got to the entrance it was pointed out by the uniformed lackey behind the royal cash-till that this wasn't actually 'our' castle and if we wanted to look round it would cost fourteen quid to do so, and as it was unlikely that Betty would give me fourteen quid to look at my wallpaper and poke around the kitchen in my place I refused to go in and we spent our money on a very nice meal in the pub opposite instead.

And the point is that it should be our castle. It shouldn't belong to one family who inherited the place and then allowed fawning politicians to give them our money  from our taxes to continue an out-moded, anachronistic and unjustified lifestyle within a sanitised bubble away from the people that they represent, but that's what we've got. And the reason that the British monarchy, uniquely amongst European royalty still exists in the form that it does is because Queen Elizabeth the Second never made any waves or upset anyone.

When she came to the throne at the age of 25, Elizabeth pledged that she would serve her country to the best of her ability and that's exactly what she did for the next sixty-odd years. She signed papers, opened town halls, attended state functions and sat through more displays of folk dancing from every continent of the world than could possibly be good for an old lady with a passion for horses and no interest in the performing arts.

Elizabeth did exactly what was expected of her, no more and no less. And while her mother incredibly spent more money than she received, her sister drank Martinis and smoked f**s on Caribbean islands, her husband banded about racist quips and slaughtered Scottish wildlife, and her children went ski-ing, flew helicopters, organised the truly terrible It's a Royal Knockout, and married the wrong people, the Queen put her head down and carried on ploughing through the paperwork like the good civil servant that she was most suited to be. How could you possibly overthrow someone like that? It would be like taking Winnie the Pooh to the guillotine.

Charles isn't Winnie the Pooh. For a start Pooh didn't spend much of his marriage sneaking off to shag an old flame whilst pretending that everthing was hunky-dory in Ten Acre Wood. Pooh also didn't talk to plants or criticise buildings or get excited about human rights. They are the sort of things that Tiggers do.

Charles also hasn't had a good press. He, like his siblings had a disastrous marriage, in his case to a photogenic and media savvy young lady. He is a poor performer in front of the camera and he is also without the natural exuberance of Sarah Ferguson or Princes Harry and William. But the thing about Charles is that he does things, and this is important.

When his ex-wife Diana was killed in a car crash in Paris the Queen refused to have the body bought onto crown property. One would have thought that Charles would feel the same way about a somewhat highly-strung ex, but it was he who had the body of Diana brought to Kensington Palace which was the only royal building that he had control over. He alone did the honourable thing while the rest of the establishment were trying to distance themselves from a potentially damaging association. That time he got it right, although it wasn't reported in the media. He also set up the Prince's Trust, an understated but hughly successful charity that has helped an untold amount of young people avoid a life of drug abuse and homelessness.

He has also occasionally managed to get things wrong - He was responsable for the building of the village of Poundbury, which was an attempt to reproduce an idyllic community free of vandalism and social unrest. And while there is very little crime in Poundbury it never managed to get the community bit right, being somewhere that despite the nice architecture and well tended lawns feels a bit sterile, as though something is missing - possibly the graffiti, or kids hanging about outside of the chip shop.

The point I'm trying to make is tha Charles actually does do things, and the things that he does are in every case to improve the lot of others. He may not get it right, and the press will certainly ridicle this strange, earnest man with the funny accent and awkward manner when he slips up. And if he gets it very, very wrong we he may have the distinction of being the last reigning monach of England thus ending a process that's lasted over a thousand years. But all the same, he is that rarity; Someone who wants to change things simply in order to make things better for everyone, and he'll have the influence to do some of it.

Whatever happens he can never hope to rule as long as his mother did, if only because it will be physically impossible for him to live long enough. But I for one, as an un-loyal subject welcome him and should he and his wife ever wish to wander around my house pointing at the pictures on the wall and speculating if the heating system is adequate I'll waive the entrance fee for them.

Gos save the King.