The monarchy is always evolving
By Mary Kenny
3 April 2009

The historian Andrew Roberts has said about the 1701 Act of Settlement - which bars Catholics from marrying any heir, however distant, to the throne - "it has been a success". The implication is that this is a reason for not changing it.

But I am with Edmund Burke on conservatism and change: in order to remain a conservative, you must change.

The British monarchy, I would suggest, is a success precisely because it has evolved over the centuries - often matching the mood of the kingdom with uncanny harmony. Victoria and Albert were absolutely right for an age of invention and industrial expansion: canny and steady-as-she-goes, George V perfectly cast to steer the kingdom through the period of 20th-century turbulence and revolution. George VI and his consort Elizabeth were exactly the kind of comforting family figures required during the wartime period.

And all of these monarchs evolved and adjusted: including tactful gestures when it came to healing the historic rift with Catholics.

Victoria, though always calling herself a "staunch Protestant", deplored some of the anti-Catholic bias shown by some of her Ministers - Sir John Russell, who presided over the lamentable Irish Famine, was one such - and, indeed, within the Church of England.

Edward VII argued with Lord Salisbury to be allowed to drop the "anti-papist" declaration which monarchs were obliged to make on their accession, including some grim epithets about the cult of the Blessed Virgin. (Edward VII was very friendly with the monks of Tepl at Marienbad and saw nothing amiss with the veneration of the BVM.)

Salisbury would not permit this change, saying there would be "riots in the country" by Protestants. When George V removed the anti-papist declaration in 1911, there were no such riots in the country. Most people thought it a sensible part of "modernisation".

That is how the monarchy has been a success. By gradual and incremental evolution, done in a way that maintains continuity. With respect, Andrew Roberts's implied conclusions are wrong: the monarchy will benefit from adjusting the Act of Settlement in a way that removes this last vestige of historic anti-Catholicism from the British Constitution.

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Continuing the saga of Pope Benedict's recent statement on condoms not preventing the spread of Aids: the director of Harvard University's HIV Prevention Research Project has stated publicly that he agrees with the Holy Father.

Speaking on Radio Ulster last week Dr Edward Green said "there is not a single country in Africa where HIV prevalence has come down primarily because of condoms". He was not a Catholic, and he didn't agree with the Pope on many issues: he was simply concerned with "what works". And reliance on condoms alone simply does not work in tackling HIV and Aids. He said: "We have for a number of years now found the wrong kind of association between condom-availability and levels of condom use. You see the wrong kind of relationship with HIV prevalence. Instead of seeing this associated with lower HIV infection rates, it's actually associated with higher HIV infection rates. Part of that is because the people using condoms are the people having risky sex." This was a phenomenon known as "risk compensation" where people think they are "safer" they may take more risks.

By contrast, continued Dr Green, where HIV and Aids have been reduced was in those countries where there was most emphasis on sexual fidelity; where people were reporting staying faithful to one partner, there was a decrease in the disease.

He had no "moral-ethical" position on the use of condoms, said Dr Green - who was speaking to William Crawley on the programme Sunday Sequence - but empirically he had to support the Pope in suggesting that condom distribution was in effect exacerbating the problem of Aids in Africa. Edward Green's interview deserves reporting because it should be on the written record.

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If the Home Secretary's husband, Richard Timney, watches porn television channels - well, it is hardly a hanging offence. In Continental hotels such fare is generally on offer on the television menu.

But it is what they used to call in my convent school "unedifying". Or, sometimes using the Hiberno-English prefix "disedifying". (An aspect of Hiberno-English is to replace "un" with "dis", as it seems to be softer: "disimproved" for "unimproved". Or the softest blow of all: "I disremember", for "I forget".)

That a holder of Her Britannic Majesty's great office of state should be claiming expenses for a cheapo porn entertainment is indeed unedifying.

Still, Jacqui has a long way to go before she matches the sex harassment conduct of Lloyd George, or indeed, the attempted - and sometimes realised - rapes of Lord Palmerston. But the electronic medium today which brings instant porn also brings instant exposure...