REGULAR readers will know this column usually contains Monday morning musings on the state of the SNP and the independence campaign. Not this week.

The King deigned to visit his Scottish subjects as we marked the 25th anniversary of the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament. Such a visit happens rarely and deserves to be marked.

To make a personal contribution, I got myself to the foot of the Royal Mile at 10am on Saturday to join a small but purposeful protest against the monarchy.

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The event was organised by the Edinburgh branch of Republic and drew a couple of dozen people who made themselves highly visible and vocal. One or two onlookers were clearly upset by our presence. But very few. And then it struck me.

Most of the assembled public were neither republican nor royalist but visiting tourists anxious not to miss out on a promised royal spectacle. Typical was a group of five French visitors standing beside our protest with whom we got chatting.

They explained they had been told the King was visiting and were simply on a celeb hunt. They supported our stance, they said, adding with just a hint of national pride, that they had dispensed with their own monarchy some time ago.

The royal visit was ostensibly to mark the silver jubilee of the Scottish Parliament with a special event.

There were plenty of MSPs in attendance, a good few of whom probably wished they could be anywhere else. But the constraints of office mean you have to take the fun events with the ones that make you boak. I don’t envy my colleagues the task.

This was also an exercise by the palace in making it clear who is top dog. That the devolved Scottish Parliament exists as part of a constitutional framework that has the UK firmly in charge – and at the head of that sits the royal family, the ultimate vestige of Britain’s empire.

This does not mean we should not exploit every opportunity that devolved powers give us. On the contrary, we must. But it does mean we need to have our eyes wide open about the potential and limitations of the Holyrood assembly.

Indeed, making afresh the case for political independence means explaining how those limitations will always constrain the aspirations of the people and the capacity of their representatives to act on their behalf BUT back to Charles III.

His visit took place at the end of a week which saw the publication of a new report on the cost of the royals. When the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall are added in, and massive security costs covered, we now have a half-a-billion-pound monarchy.

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The British royals are now by far the most expensive monarchy the world has ever seen, with even some loyal supporters arguing it’s time to slim down the “Firm”.

This level of public funding to the wealthiest people in the country would be a matter of concern at the best of times. But these aren’t the best of times. The new Labour Government is cutting heating support to all but the very poorest pensioners this winter. It is no exaggeration to say that many will face extra hardship and the risk of hypothermia as a result.

And why? Because they say the public purse cannot afford it. You could almost forgive King Charles a quiet smirk when he hears Keir Starmer say we are all in this together.

A chunk of that taxpayer support was spent on Saturday on what seemed a pretty over-the-top security operation. There were a great number of police officers at an event that attracted only a few hundred people. Surrounding roads were closed with no inconvenience spared to allow the royal visitors an uninterrupted drive along the 200 metres from the palace to Parliament in armoured vehicles.

Snipers on the roof of the Parliament seemed a particular piece of overkill given the royal personages were never exposed to the actual public. As an aside though, the police community support officers delegated to watch our protest were courteous and professional.

There were remarkably few people present on Saturday to show support for the monarchy. If that’s the case in Edinburgh, you’ve got to assume it would be even fewer elsewhere. Which somewhat explodes the myth of their popularity.

This is not the 1950s. The deference and uncritical compliance of loyal subjects can no longer betaken for granted. Public opinion towards the monarchy in Scotland is turning with a majority favouring abolition.

And little wonder. It represents with knobs on a class-ridden unequal society most of us want to escape. And it is a constitutional outrage that the head of a state in what purports to be a 21st-century democracy should be unelected by and unaccountable to its citizens.

The times are they a changin’. The monarchy won’t last forever. The only question is if Scotland will get rid of it first.