Analysis: Has Britian got the Diamond Jubilee celebrations right? No

I have been in hiding for two days to escape the fact that most of my fellow countrymen have briefly taken leave of their senses because our beloved monarch has managed to survive a reign of 60 years.

Can’t we just say a disceet “well done” and leave it at that? Do we have to indulge the country in an orgy of red, white and blue, street parties, pageants and jubilee dances?

The progress along the Thames – paid for by you and me – marks the final stage of the Disneyfication process the Royal Family has been undergoing since Diana, and using other people’s money to reinforce their places at the head of society is what the royals are particularly good at.

It just so happens that we have had a particularly efficient monarch for 60 years. But that is not an argument for a hereditary monarchy – and the web of hereditary lords and ladies that inevitably goes with it: a dead hand on the levers of power, so it seems, for eternity. Who benefits from this four-day festival of privilege?

The royalist sees the pomp and pageantry of hereditary royals – I see the enormous gulf between the haves and have-nots. There will be people going to bed hungry tonight, and they can’t eat a Union Flag T-shirt. That’s what I can’t forget.

• David Fiddimore is an Edinburgh-based novelist.