Charlotte Elizabeth Diana: Bringing up a child in the royal family is tantamount to child cruelty

It is all very well to choose to be in the public eye, or to want to be a celebrity, but to be brought up as royalty must warp the mind

The Duchess of Cambridge and Prince William briefly posed for photographs with their new daughter outside the Lindo Wing (PA)

I am a republican on grounds of child cruelty. I don’t mind a monarchy in principle, as long as it is not allowed to exercise power. It is useful to have a figurehead and I quite like a bit of harmless pageantry. Accident of birth is a traditional way to choose the ribbon-cutter-in-chief, and the ties that link us to Britain’s history are valuable, and worth preserving where they don’t involve burning people at the stake or banning gay marriage.

But in practice a hereditary monarchy is unacceptable. It is a cruel and unusual punishment for a child to be condemned from birth to a life as peculiar as that of a member of the royal family. To know from dawn of consciousness that you are “in line for” the throne, or that you might succeed to it if some of your relatives die. To be drilled in duty and to learn to be on show.

What must it do to the forming mind of a child to read fairy tales and to think that they are about you? To be told to be careful who you talk to at school? It is all very well to choose to be in the public eye, or to want to be a celebrity, but to be brought up as one must warp the mind. It is like being a child star in the entertainment business – that almost never works well – only worse.

A monarchy could of course be reformed. They could live in normal houses and cycle everywhere. That might be a bit Sound of Music for this country, although you could imagine Prince William in a latticed helmet on one of Boris Johnson’s blue-painted cycle superhighways. They could not go to boarding school, which is bad enough for commoners, let alone for royalty. I may have read that William and Kate, who both “enjoyed” going to boarding school themselves, intend George and his new sister to go to day schools. But that may have been made up. And they could have normal jobs instead of taking their clothes off in Las Vegas casinos.

Or you could go to the other extreme, and dispense with the biological link altogether. I have always thought the way they choose a new Dalai Lama is fun. Monks could tour the country to identify a child born at the moment the previous Lama was reincarnated. That would be like drawing lots for membership of the House of Lords, a popular democratic idea, but for a lifetime role.

But no reforms could get away from the basic problem, which is the absence of informed consent. Decide to become a member of the royal family on your 18th birthday by all means. We could have system of national exams, or a year-long game of It’s a Royal Knockout. But to have it decided for you before you know the difference between light and dark is a monstrous injustice.

So I share the joy of the parents, of course I do, but as for the baby herself, I feel sorry for her.