Orb and Spectre? The Future of Britain's Monarchy [30min]

What is the British monarchy? Since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, scrutiny of this extraordinary institution has been thought to be distasteful and unnecessary. But the need to think imaginatively about the monarchy is more urgent than it has been. In "Analysis", Richard Weight asks how the monarchy can represent us individually and collectively. Our society changed so much -- with the endemic questioning of the legitimacy of elites and those in authority; the veneration of transient celebrity; the widespread assumption of urban values; and the marginalisation of the hereditary principle in politics -- that it poses searching challenges to an inherently backward-looking institution like monarchy? Can the old approach of mixing tradition with modernity do enough to inspire loyalty? But the monarchy does not exist in a vacuum. We all superimpose onto it our own values, ideas, nostrums and prejudices. It is as much a reflection of us as of a peculiar institution and its history. So what do we need and want from a contemporary monarchy and what is it best suited to provide? And how are we going to communicate with one another if the spectre of popular indifference to the monarchy is not to haunt the institution?