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Chris Bryant, MP, has drawn up plans for first-born women to succeed to the throne and Catholicism to no longer preclude ascension either. In theory, his plans mean that Prince William could pass his crown to a Catholic eldest daughter. Changes are also planned for the powers of the Privy Council over relations between Scotland, Wales and the Privy Council.

Certain aspects of the UK Constitution require a monarch to publicly reject Catholicism before Parliament upon becoming King or Queen.

The 1688 Bill of Rights , the Act of Settlement in 1701 and Act of Union in 1707 — reinforced by the provisions of the Coronation Oath Act 1688 — exclude Catholics or their spouses from the line of succession.

Geoffrey Robertson, QC, a constitutional lawyer, said:

“This arcane and archaic legislation enshrined religious intolerance in the bedrock of the British constitution. In order to hold the office of head of state you must be white, Anglo-German Protestant … down the male line on the feudal principle of primogeniture. This is in blatant contravention of the Sex Discrimination Act and the Human Rights Act.”

Mr Robertson also supports a challenge to the concept of inherited title.

The Age reported:

Dozens of people have been barred from taking their place in the order of succession by the Act of Settlement. In recent years the Earl of St Andrews and Prince Michael of Kent lost the right of succession through marriage to Catholics. Any children of these marriages remain in the succession provided that they are in communion with the Church of England.

In 2008 it was announced that Peter Phillips – the son of the Queen’s daughter, Princess Anne – would marry his partner, Autumn Kelly. It emerged that she had been baptised a Catholic. She was quickly accepted into the Church of England before the marriage and Peter Phillips kept his place in the line of succession.

However, if you are going to remove the principle of an inherited Crown, religious provisions and gender caveats, why not just admit that monarchy itself is an irrational and ill-conceived method of heading the government. Instead of taking it apart piece by piece, get rid of it all-together and put something else in its place.

The whole concept of having a ruling family rests on the idea that the ties of tradition, the privileges of wealth and a history of ruling will engender a particular family with peculiar gifts and talents for leadership and roles as figureheads. The civil list allows one particular family to take £60 million of taxpayers money and use it for the purposes of becoming powerful. The idea is the people will behave because Queeny is watching them like a severe Grandma of Britannia.

I’m sure that all this is unneccessary as evidenced by the way that Harry and William have behaved like any other well-to-do young men of their own age: getting drunk, getting stoned, having long-term relationships outside of marriage and disrespecting the institutions of religion and state. They don’t demonstrate anything special when compared to other Eton graduates. The same opportunities could be given to many more able and deserving candidates for leadership or the resources devoted into more practical methods of governing the country.