Diamond Jubilees come but once every 60 years: how to 'celebrate'

The weather this spring was so crap that flaming June seems to have snuck up on us and it is Diamond Jubilee weekend already!

I am a republican so I shan't actually be, you know, celebrating. I shall go to the protest called by the Republic campaign.

This is the only really visible republican organisation in the UK, but its politics are very limited. It basically confines itself to making the case for an elected head of state, as if the constitutional monarchy were the only democratic question to worry about in the UK's class ridden, undemocratic, social pyramid.

For sure, the Queen (and the egits that will succeed her) are at the apex of this pyramid and lend it a hidebound, mystical, spurious glamour... OK, Republic have more than a point!

But I don't favour having a president or a head of state at all actually. In fact, why have states? But one step at a time!

If you want to join Republic's protest it is on Sunday 3 June from 12 noon to 5pm close to City Hall on the South Bank. Details here.

In theory the protest will have a great view of the flotilla (!) as it arrives at Tower Bridge and will be visible to the Queen and her entourage as they alight from the royal barge. But I reckon we'll turn up to find they've erected a dirty great screen to spoil our view.

I suppose it would be fitting. After all, it's someone else's party and we didn't want an invite. But I do think the republican point of view needs to be aired in the public space. I think we do have that right!

There are lots of other things on this weekend, depending on your political bent.

Save Friern Barnet Library campaign, Sunday 3 June

If you are agnostic about the Jubilee, or a royalist, or just want to support this very good cause, Save Friern Barnet Library campaign have quite a programme at the Friern Barnet village green, from 12.30 to 7pm on Sunday 3 June.

More details here.

BAPS at the Diamond Jubilee festival, Monday 4 June

The anti-cuts and anti-privatisation campaign Barnet Alliance for Public Services (BAPS) has a stall at the Diamond Jubilee festival planned for Monday in Golders Hill Park.

The council website describes the festival thus:

Monday 4 June sees Barnet Council play host to the Diamond Jubilee Festival with the City of London Corporation, at Golders Hill Park. The flagship event in the borough starts at 2.45pm and ends at 10pm with a fireworks display and the lighting of a six-metre high beacon as part of the national beacon chain.

Even if, like me, you hate the monarchical system of government (!), please come to the park if you are in the area and say hello to BAPS, which is beginning to achieve real results!

A better use for 62p, Or: A Royal wedding? That's all we f***ing need

What would you do with 62p? It's not a lot, is it, but off the top of my head, I could spend it on a small bottle of water - although what's wrong with water from the tap? This is probably not the best way to draw your attention to the fact that in 2009

The Queen and the Royal Family cost the taxpayer 62p per person - a drop of 7p...

I gleaned this information from a report in the Daily Telegraph. I don't know why the Royal Family costs us anything. It's not like they need 62p more than I do. I can only guess at how rich the Queen is, but I think with some judicious sales of assets and better investment advice she could probably plug the £7.9 million gap in funding which British taxpayers provide for the Civil List. In any case, do we agree that we need everything that is paid for from the Civil List? Wikipedia says it covers

some expenses associated with the Sovereign performing his or her state duties, including those for staffing, state visits, public engagements, ceremonial functions and the upkeep of the Royal Households.

And, besides the Civil List, the Royal Family get further money from the state:

The cost of transport and security for the Royal Family, together with property maintenance and other sundry expenses, are covered by separate grants from individual Government Departments.

With everything else I do, I don't have time to be a boned-up republican, but I shall certainly spend time this year paying more attention to this area of national life.

It's not the angle I would choose to moan about, but the Daily Telegraph today has a story about business worries that the Royal wedding on Friday 29 April will cost the country £6 billion in lost productivity, as workers enjoy extra holidays. Only £1 billion will be generated by additional tourism and sales of commemorative knick-knacks.

And then we have to go through the whole rigmarole again, to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, in 2012. David Cameron couldn't ask for a more timely gift.

I remember the Golden Jubilee in 2002. People made a great fuss of the Queen allowing pop stars to posture on the roof of Buckingham Palace and the projection of pictures onto the front of the building. The whole thing was really tacky and didn't cost her a thing, except in lost dignity - which mostly went years ago. In return, she and her brood get to live the life they love and play a murky constitutional role upholding the power of the super-rich in this country and around the world.

Oh, yes, and hold a cherished place in the hearts of most of the citizens of the UK and many further afield.

For years, naturally, I was one of those loyal subjects. The first thing I saw on television (the set belonged to a woman my mother cleaned for in Finchley) was the investiture of Prince Charles in 1969.

When they got married in 1973 I had a poster of Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips on my bedroom wall.

In 1977 a friend and I celebrated the Queen's Silver Jubilee with a tea party for our toys.

In 1981, when Diana and Charles wed, I was on an archaeological dig in Gloucestershire run by republicans. My friends and I smuggled a radio in to listen to the wedding in secret. I was in London on the day in 1986 when Fergie and Andrew married and I actually waved at her carriage - shameful!

And, the thing I feel most ambivalent about, I was sad when Diana died in 1997, and went for a morose walk around Peckham Rye to share in the general mourning. (A dark period in my life in many respects.)

And now? I still feel that tug on my emotions; I still worry that there is something puritanical and miserabilist about thinking that I'd rather my 62p a year were spent on maintaining our public services. Or that the relationship of Wills and Kate ought to affect me not at all. Or that the Queen and her family should give up all their wealth in order to live like normal folk. They could donate it all to meeting some of the needs of the desperately poor around the world, like the people of Togo being treated by the Africa Mercy medical ship I saw on a television programme the other night.

It's shaping up to be a year for resisting those sort of sentimental pressures and cleaving to what you think is right.