Distractingly Dignified

Almost fifty thousand public institutions have courted controversy, accusations of un-Britishness and possible terrorist status by snubbing the king as if he were an actual public servant. Whoever was leading the Conservatives at the time of the accession charged the taxpayer several million to provide pictures of the old duffer wearing resplendent Ruritanian togs and a constipated expression, to be displayed for the patriotic edification of local council workers, university staff and students, hospital staff and patients, and the shirkers and idleness police at employment emporia. According to one Conservative sycophant, the idea was to remind the great unwashed of the "example set by our ultimate public servant," in the hope that they would go and do likewise on a slightly smaller budget and with slightly fewer personal attendants. A little over two-thirds of institutions showed a sensible degree of interest, viz. none whatever; and the current administration is very charitably refusing to disclose which organisations did and did not take up the offer, on the grounds that justifying a decision either way would distract them from their work.