ONE year on from the death of the Queen, it is becoming increasingly clear how lucky we have been with our hereditary monarchy.
In her never-to-be-repeated 70-year reign, the Queen made monarchists of us all.
But Her Majesty did not guarantee the monarchy would exist for all time.
Because with every generation, the bond between monarch and people must be renewed.
Would the future look different if Andrew rather than Charles had ascended to the throne?
Oh, you bet.
And would the future be more uncertain if Harry and not William had been the firstborn?
Goodness me, yes.
But we are a lucky nation.
There will be no King Ginger the Whinger.
And although the longest-serving and most beloved monarch in our nation’s history can never be replaced, the removal men will not be turning up at Buckingham Palace any time soon.
King Charles III has made a sterling start to the job he was born for.
After all the bitter divisions of Brexit, the King’s tour of Germany was a triumph.
Charles’s upcoming visit to France will be another timely reminder that, in a world that contains Vladimir Putin, the UK simply cannot afford to be enemies with the democracies next door.
The King is healing wounds as no here-today, gone-tomorrow politician ever could.
The long-held fear about Charles — that he would be as mouthy a monarch as he was an heir — has not come to pass.
He keeps his strongly held opinions to himself.
History has given him a higher calling.
Republicans gleefully predicted the death of the monarchy after the passing of the Queen.
It hasn’t happened.
The monarchy has survived a year without her.
Camilla is now a well-liked queen — something we were assured was unthinkable.
The Crown has survived more bile from Mr and Mrs Markle.
Harry’s memoir, Spare, was probably peak Montecito poison.
Yet many on the Left still dream that the end of the monarchy is within their grasp.
Graham Smith, of campaign group Republic, reckons his cause has prospered during the reign of King Charles.
But for all the big talk, Republic’s membership is still in four figures, with high hopes to rise to 10,000 by Christmas and 15,000 in 2024.
“That’s a strong membership for a non-party organisation,” insists Mr Smith.
Mate, it’s really not.
Such a teeny-weeny membership shows that British republicanism remains an endangered species.
The polls say the vast majority of our people think the monarchy is good for the country.
Support drops among the young, it is true.
Only 31 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds believe the monarchy is good for Britain.
But give them time.
Let the young learn how predictably fallible the political class will always be.
Let them see how politicians break their promises.
Corgis and Paddington
Wait until they grow up.
The young might even realise that King Charles III was banging on about many of the causes they hold dear for decades before they were born.
In William and Catherine, the next generation is secure.
But the once seriously suggested idea of skipping a generation — the throne passing from the Queen to William and his wildly popular wife — already seems absurd.
When people talk of the Queen, I know I will always immediately think of the lady with the hats, the corgis and Paddington Bear.
But with one year already gone, King Charles has proved the doubters wrong.
Our Royal Family refuses to be cancelled.
George put the super into modelling
AS much as any brazenly heterosexual heavy metal merchant, George Michael loved having beautiful women in his videos.
Club Tropicana, I Want Your Sex and, above all, Freedom! ’90 – featuring Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista.
In new Apple TV+ series The Supermodels, Naomi reckons that glossy, lip-syncing video was the launchpad for the unprecedented level of celebrity that models enjoyed in the Nineties.
Those supermodels certainly owe George Michael a debt.
But he also benefited from his association with Naomi, Linda, Christy and Cindy.
The red-blooded Freedom! ’90 video drew a discreet veil over George’s private life, hitting our screens around eight years before he came out as gay after his arrest for public lewdness in 1998.
George was the loveliest of men.
A truly beautiful soul. Funny, generous and kind.
But he was also intensely private.
And I have always believed that if the fates had allowed, George would have preferred to keep his sex life out of the headlines.
And the hot supermodels in his videos.
Stones are on a roll
AS Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood promoted their first studio album in 18 years on the stage of the Hackney Empire theatre, here was the great lesson for bands who are younger than the Rolling Stones.
And every band on the planet is younger than the Stones.
The lesson was: you keep the band together.
I don’t know exactly what broke up Oasis, The Smiths, The Stone Roses, The Jam or The Beatles.
But I’ll bet my life that the reasons were relatively trivial compared to what the Stones have endured.
As Mick, Keith and Ronnie embraced for the cameras, you would never guess at the ructions of the past half a century or more.
The drummer punched the singer in the face.
The singer slept with the guitarist’s girlfriend.
The guitarist repaid the betrayal, then waxed lyrical in his auto-biography – Life: Keith Richards – about the diminutive dimensions of the singer’s “todger”.
On top of all that, there has been heroin galore, the death of the founding member and murder at Altamont.
And yet the Stones stayed together.
The brief excursions into solo careers fizzled out because the gigantic egos that are Mick Jagger and Keith Richards could never be content with the fact that their solo careers would be conducted on an infinitely more modest level.
And now that Jagger has turned 80, the Stones today are glorious – without question the greatest rock ’n’ roll band of all time.
They taught the world how to be young and now they are showing us how to grow old – with a smile, with an easy grace and preferably with a couple of quid in the bank.
And they are still the eternal rebels.
When Sydney Sweeney writhes and squirms all over that red Merc in the video for their new single Angry, she is not even wearing a seatbelt.
Jolly good, Sarah
VIEWERS of the National Television Awards were shocked and awed by Sarah Lancashire’s real accent when she collected a well-deserved gong for Happy Valley.
“Not proper Yorkshire,” gasped one.
Indeed. You would never guess it from Happy Valley, but Oldham lass Sarah speaks in a southern accent that is undeniably posh.
They were expecting George Formby.
They got the Duchess of Devonshire.
I think they call it “acting”.
Trashy Tommy
SOMETIMES trash talk sells a boxing fight.
Sometimes it makes you reach for the “off” button.
I nearly gagged on my Weetabix on Friday when Love Island’s Tommy Fury was on Good Morning Britain, boasting to Kate Garraway that he was going to put his YouTuber boxing opponent KSI in an ambulance.
Professional boxers fighting the stars of social media like KSI is not boxing.
It is not even entertainment.
Not to me.
As Tommy boasted of putting someone in an ambulance – to Kate, of all people – I turned it off, sick to my stomach.
But then I am a boxing fan.
UK in crisis, Rishi
MANY bookies now have Labour as ten to one ON to win the next General Election.
The only chance that Rishi Sunak has of beating Sir Keir Starmer is by demonstrating he is on the side of all of the millions having the life squeezed out of them by the cost-of-living crisis.
This does not mean ditching green policies.
It means green policies for the real world.
The Tories need to declare war on the cost-of-living crisis.
And if they don’t, we can conclude that Sunak and his tired and emotional Tory Party secretly do not want to win that General Election.