Tony on Tony

I feel that many on the left regard Tony Benn as the thinking person's leftie. Despite, or probably inspite, of the times when he seems a little muddled, or just plain odd, the feeling he was always a little ineffectual and that whole nuclear power thing.

Every so often he'll pop up again to remind you why you like him, why you'll miss him when he's no longer here and to make you wonder where the politicians who didn't mind letting a little ideology get in the way of their popularity have gone.

This time he's having a restrained pop at Prince Charles, and his most recent gaffe:

This is why Prince William is now being carefully promoted, in case it is thought necessary to skip a generation and allow him to succeed the Queen and thus keep this absurd and undemocratic constitution safe for the next generation.

Britain is gravely handicapped by this medieval system of government which gives us a president without any checks and balances, and keeps the serfs firmly in their place. Any serious democratic reform of our constitution would give an elected parliament control of all executive powers, firmly cap the fount of honour, and arrange for the election of a small senate to act as a revising chamber, whose speaker could occasionally act as head of state for ceremonial purposes.

This would have the advantage of liberating the royal family, leaving them free, as citizens, to live their own lives, say what they like, and take part in elections like the rest of us. They could then safely vote for King Tony and his neoconservative courtiers, at No 10, knowIng that New Labour could be trusted to preserve privilege in Britain.