Just over a year since the last jamboree and we’re at it again. Four days of flummery with the BBC leading the cheers. How any Tory can seriously suggest that the BBC has a left wing bias is beyond me.

It was a bit like the brouhaha surrounding Princess Diana’s death and funeral. We were being told what we ought to be feeling and no (or little) objection was being brooked. I think I saw only one interview with an anti-monarchist over the entire weekend. I’m sure the many who care little for the monarchy must have felt left out of the national discourse in the past few days.

I saw a bit of the Jubilee Concert on Monday night. Car-crash listening. Almost every artist I heard was way past their best; and the singing was excruciating. It was amusing when the orchestra struck up the second verse of the National Anthem. I could imagine the panic. “What are the words!!??” Still, the assembled entertainers were spared any embarrassment, only general crowd shots were broadcast. Faces saved all round there.

I’m pretty sure much of this enthusiasm is not so much for monarchy per se as for the person of the Queen, who has the sense to be bland and inoffensive.

Takes the mind off the economic crisis though, eh?

But what is the UK coming to? It turns out many of the stewards at the river pageant were unemployed people bussed in from Bristol, Bath and Plymouth, given no pay and told to sleep under a bridge.

Appalling.