Fairytale Queen's jubilee versus grown-up public ethics and a constitution

Even so, the jubilee parades revealed something of the ­Pythonesque nature of the United Kingdom. So much of Monty Python’s humour depends upon the awkward disjunction between doing silly things in a very serious way and doing serious things in a very silly way.

The jubilee was a silly thing – a tremendous waste of public time, effort and money – done in a very serious way. Much of the rest of ­government policy deals with serious things – Brexit, energy prices, child poverty, inflation – in a very silly way.

There is perhaps no harm in a bit of ­innocent pageantry. Quaint traditions and arcane ­ceremonies have their place. At their best, these things are more than a mere spectacle. They are a carefully choreographed and highly symbolic drama – a morality play that tells a story about who we are, where we have come from, what we hold in common and how we should behave.

The Queen’s part in the drama is to be a ­totemic character, important not for what she does but for what she represents. We are ­supposed to see an incarnation of civic virtues – duty, service, integrity, courage, stability, ­moderation, peace, order, good government.

Perhaps, once upon a time, the fairytale ­monarchy really did stand for all that. But it no longer rings true. When we have ministers who lie about lying, and no one stops them, it reveals all that to be a sham. The Queen is ­supposed to be the “fountain of honour”, yet she presides over a state where dishonour runs rife. She is supposed to be a “fountain of justice” but ­presides over injustice everywhere. It all jars. It just smells and feels wrong.

The jubilee celebrations say more about the fragility of the existing order than its strength. They are trying hard to put on a good show, but the cracks are massive. The old rituals are being performed as they always have been, but they are not working anymore. The mirror of trust has been shattered and the spell is broken.

Now – to quote Holy Grail – it increasingly looks like, “Hanging on to outdated ­imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and ­social differences in our society”.

Instead of representing public duty, it ­represents the self-preservation of the small clique of spivs, racketeers, oligarchs and right-wing nutjobs who have captured an increasingly brittle and dysfunctional state. Instead of embodying civic virtues, it embodies corruption and vanity. It is not impressive, but ridiculous; not reassuring, but pathetic and desperate.

All this state-sponsored rabid royalism and officially-endorsed monarcho-mania is reminiscent of the triumphal parade of East Germany in 1989 – just before the Berlin Wall fell. Lots of people were in the streets waving, but something had already changed. Their hearts were no longer in it.

I am not necessarily saying that the ­monarchy should be abolished. There are some very good arguments, in principle, to be made for a ­constitutional figurehead monarchy in a ­parliamentary democracy. Rather, my concern is with the widening gap between the ­symbolism and reality.

After all, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and other democratic ­countries we can look up to, have monarchies. The ­problem is much deeper than that – having an unconstituted and morally moribund state, which cannot use pageantry to cover up its ­failings forever.

A few days before the silly splendour of the jubilee celebrations, the Prime Minister unilaterally changed the Ministerial Code – the “rule book” that governs how Ministers are supposed to act – to remove reference to the “Nolan ­principles” on standards in public life.

This provoked widespread condemnation, but most of it missed the mark: the problem, again, is not that a naughty boy did a naughty thing then changed the rules to get away with it. The problem is that Prime Ministers have the ­power, for good or ill, to change the rules by which they are supposed to be bound. That is arbitrary power – the definition of despotism.

The unconstituted nature of the British state and its moral collapse are connected. There is no constitutional signpost to point us to ­principles when we lose our way, no constitutional barrier keeps us in line when the temptation is to cut ethical corners, no constitutional net to catch scruples when they are dropped.

A written constitution could include the ­Nolan Principles in a Schedule. It could ­require various codes of practice and conduct, ­including the Ministerial Code, to give effect to those ­Principles. It could empower watchdog institutions – including the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and Committee on Standards in Public Life – giving them a sure constitutional foundation, sufficient powers, and independence from the Government.

Constitutional and ethical renewal, not ­tawdry pageantry and empty cheers is the way ahead.

Olaf Stando, the SNP’s digital media officer, is our guest on the TNT show. Join us on Wednesday at 7pm