God, it feels like the end of an era in so many ways doesn't it?
I'm not a monarchist. I'm not a fan of great inequality. I'm not a fan of divine right or entitlement, titles, pomp and ceremony, or the weight of expectation. All these seem like recipes for human misery.
But I guess if you are going to have human misery, its better to have it in a castle than on a park bench.
This is the end of a Britain I have known all my life. A Britain of certainty. A class system in which I was brought up to know my place. And I hated it.
Elizabeth the second was the thing other countries didn't have. Entitled man children? they are ten a penny, available in every country. That 96 year old woman was the one thing the Tories feared - a constitutional crisis with a monarch beloved by the sort of people who vote Tory. One wave from that gloved hand, one glower, and they knew they were finished. 'Lying to the Queen' is the one thing the Tory faithful could and would not forgive Boris for and so those who would rule us bent over backwards to defer to the one who did.
If you think Charles has that degree of loyalty? You are very much mistaken. Not here, not abroad. There will be a constitutional crisis within a year.
That woman was ironically the thin silver haired line between us and them.
Here's what will happen now. We will be diminished on the world stage. We will lose the Commonwealth. Our nationalist leaders will drape themselves in the Queen like they already do Thatcher, to justify any action they take.
A civil war began a few hours ago, for the future of Britain.