I bought the book because I am a member of Republic but felt that I should at least make the effort to read it although unlikely to be persuaded by the arguments therein. Asking a royal sycophant to read this would be like asking a devout Christian to read The God Delusion.

The operations of government under the monarchy are supposedly no less offensive to public morals than the transgressions of individual kings and queens.

He says that the attitudes of the royal family to race are contrary to the nation’s sense of fairness and equity. Having said that, I thought the book would be a bit more balanced and do more to try and win over people who are on the fence. I have been aware of the Privy Council and some of its activities as well as the power exercised by a Prime Minister which meets the criteria for the Quinton Hogg (Hailsham) assessment of their position as an elected dictatorship. He takes the opportunity to look through many honourable but too often unsung European examples including, but not exclusively, the presidencies of: Ireland, Iceland, Finland and Germany.

Of the approximately 1,200 charities with a royal patron, 74% had no contact with their patron during the preceding year. Making a compelling case for the various downsides of a constitutional conservation of inherited privilege, Graham Smith delivers a passionate and eloquent analysis of how monarchy impedes the full realisation of British democracy.There is no engagement with the writings of the German historian Ernst Kantorowicz, who exposed the sophistication of monarchical conceptions of the state. But it isn't that any of them did anything bad, per se - although Smith points out that at times they definitely did - it is that there is no moral, economic, political or even historical reason why we need to keep this corrupt institution in place. As daylight gets through, behind the curtains of deference and secrecy, we increasingly see an institution that is ripe for challenge and criticism. There is a growing appetite for answers to the questions that are raised when people turn away from the monarchy: what’s the alternative, how do I talk about this issue with other people, what are the facts I need to know about the monarchy, and can we really get rid of it?

His aspirational democratic principles stand in stark contrast to the way we are actually governed today. It just reaffirmed what I already think without being too revolutionary or bogged down in facts/figures.This is a book that is bound to upset and anger monarchists, but at the same time, I think there are valid republican criticisms of it to be made. But in most cases too, they accused him of offering no alternative - again showing they hadn't read the book - but also showing his outline for the future isn't a weakness at all. It has been long enough that monarchists and the democracy-averse refuse to engage with polemics that challenge their beliefs in hereditary rule and concentration of power in an secretive, corrupt, inbred and embarrassing bloodline. A book filled with myth busting, clear evidence of ridiculously bogus claims of fiscal value of the royals and proper grown up logic about governance - is the very type of book you need to avoid reading is you want to believe in something nonsensical .

If there is a weakness, in my view, where Smith can be attacked, it is in the presentation of an agenda for change and how our constitution can be prepared for a republican democracy. He offers up a familiar list of royal peccadilloes – King Charles’s petulance, Prince Andrew’s promiscuity, Prince William’s indolence – and slays sacred cows along the way: Queen Elizabeth II was a tax evader; her mother was a racist; their Tudor and Stuart precursors were slave traders. And the backend of the book title is also covered with process of removal of the monarchy and how a republican replacement can be introduced. As with many books, I imagine, the publication timing is selected deliberately because it might benefit sales.While Nairn's book is dense, academic, and fatalistic (still great though), Smith's is accessible, journalistic, and optimistic. Rather than take a values-neutral approach to issues beyond the narrow question of how the head of state should be chosen, Smith makes republicanism a vessel for his own values, which he dresses up as those of the British people. Too often we Republicans get stuck hit with the usual freak examples of presidencies, usually from the US, Russia and occasionally France. The obvious problem with the moralistic approach is that any society, let alone one of sixty-five million people, will harbour a vast diversity of values, as is borne out by recent polls of public attitudes to the monarchy itself.