What raised my eyebrow about the Prince Harry story was not that he went to a party wearing a Nazi uniform adorned with a swastika armband; nothing surprising about that in a social system that puts an irresponsible thick rich kid on a cushy lifetime sinecure, while thousands of much smarter poor kids will have to struggle very hard to escape their circumstances, if they do so at all. It’s also no surprise that someone who can go through the finest education in England and emerge with one GCSE would be oblivious to the horror of what the Nazis did, let alone the Nazi-friendly skeletons (Duke of Windsor; perhaps Queen Mother, though nobody’s talking about that) in his own family’s gold-plated cupboards.

No doubt we have plenty of similar entertainment to come from this quarter, as the Windsors continue to prove their complete disconnect with most of the rest of Britain, as the generations who can remember the generation who fondly remember the Queen Mum during the blitz begin to pass into history, and as it becomes ever clearer that the only reason for keeping their mummified presence in national life is the tourist dollar (or euro).

No, the thing that surprised me (though perhaps it shouldn’t have) was that the rump of the old English ruling class still has fancy dress parties along the theme of “colonials and natives” – and apparently thinks it normal, or fun, to live in the 21st century and be stuck so far up the back end of history….