For the most part, I try and adopt a ‘live and let live’ approach to things that I don’t enjoy or understand, if I know they mean a lot to other people.
You’ll never catch me watching a football match but I get that, for some, it is a game they feel an intense emotional and personal connection with.
I feel this way about religion too. As a lapsed Catholic, I don’t follow one myself.
There’s no doubt a lot of people derive comfort and spiritual fulfilment from their faith and that can surely only be a good thing.
But I draw the line at the Monarchy.
During the coronation, my ‘live and let live’ ethos crumbled to dust.
Far from being a moving celebration of the UK’s ancient traditions and values, I found the whole spectacle quite grotesque.
‘Waste of money’
The day before the coronation I had my volunteering shift at the foodbank.
In recent months, it’s not uncommon to see a queue already formed outside in the street, over an hour before we actually open.
But on this day, it was unusually quiet.
I asked one of the long-standing volunteers why that might be, and she said that the foodbank is always less busy in the weeks after the government’s cost-of-living payments hit people’s bank accounts.
Despite what some right-wing newspapers would have you believe, people don’t go through the process of seeking a referral to a foodbank for the fun of it.
If people have enough money to buy food, they will buy food.
They don’t queue outside in the rain, explain their circumstances to a support worker and wait to receive their provisions because they’ve spotted an opportunity to obtain some free pasta and tins of beans.
They do it because they have to, because humans need food to survive and they don’t have any.
The reported £250m the coronation cost was a colossal waste of money when so many ordinary people are hovering on the edge of total destitution.
There is no justification for spending tax-payers’ money to celebrate a new King.
Especially when that man’s bank account is already bloated and fit to burst after decades of being in receipt of public money.
‘Met unfit for purpose’
That so many peaceful protesters were arrested for demonstrating their opposition to the Royal monstrosity is a disgrace.
On Saturday, we saw pre-emptive arrests of people who had done absolutely nothing wrong.
They were arrested for holding opinions that – during that one, ridiculous day – were deemed too controversial to be aired publicly.
The Met Police continues to demonstrate why it has long lost the trust of ordinary Londoners.
Their heavy-handed approach will have solidified in many people’s minds the belief that the force isn’t fit for purpose.
Who can forget the scenes in the aftermath of Sarah Everard’s murder?
That was when officers pinned women – who had gathered peacefully to show their fury and disgust at the murderous actions of one of the force’s own – to the ground.
The UK government’s Public Order Act that gave the green light for the anti-democratic arrests we saw during the coronation wouldn’t look out of place in any despot country.
The coronation was a desperate – expensive – attempt by the UK to show its strength.
The UK government cheerfully handed over our money to pay for it because they hoped it would serve as a distraction from the dire state the country has fallen into under their watch.
But no showy display of solid-gold carriages and crowns adorned with precious diamonds can disguise the fact that poverty is on the rise and living standards are falling.
If we can’t afford a social security system that provides dignity and security to all, then we can’t afford our new King either.
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