THIS week Prince William is eighteen.

Officially, he is adult: able to sign contracts, join the Army (or whatever) and drink himself delirious in a public house.

The anniversary of this birth is the occasion for the tabloid newspapers to bring out the old royal chestnuts:

Has the monarchy a future?

Who would you like to be king?

Does it all really matter?

One newspaper has gone as far as to commission a survey of attitudes to the monarchy.

All the above questions were asked, plus a few more.

More than a thousand people were polled and, I suppose, the answers were vaguely interesting.

It would appear that Prince Charles and Prince William have equal popularity (but with different sections of the population).

The Queen, it seems, would please about one third of her subjects were she to abdicate.

However, I have to say that if this opinion survey had been done two or three years ago the results would have been entirely different.

For example, Prince Charles' popularity was about twenty points higher.

And before the Princess of Wales' death the situation would have been reversed again.

What I'm trying to say is that, very often, a person's opinion on a particular subject changes over the years.

That's why we have different governments and changes in local council, like fashion: it comes and goes.

But changing the country's constitution is not like changing a pair of jeans.

And changing the constitution is what would happen if the Queen were to abdicate.

True, Edward VIII deserted the throne to pursue a career of idleness and sloth; but then, he had never been crowned.

Our monarch is not constitutionally allowed to abdicate.

Even if Prince Charles were offered the throne he could never really be King as long as his mother lived.

Prince William could never become King before his father because the current heir to the throne is the monarch's son.

There is no serious republican movement in this country, so anti-monarchists are whistling in the wind.

Their voice carries no weight.

The people of this country have no history of electing a Head of State (the period of Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth cannot really be counted).

I, for one, would dread electing a Head of State every, say, four years.

It's bad enough having general elections. Consider, in the time that the Queen has reigned the Americans have had ten different presidents (some of them were a bit iffy), the French have had six presidents and the (West) Germans have had seven presidents.

For all that might be levelled at the Royal Family, the Queen has been an enormously influential and stabilising Head of State.

So, before you feel like a change consider the alternatives, words like frying pan and fire spring to mind.

Interestingly, on the same pages as this particular survey was an advert to take advantage of the annual summer opening of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace.

Someone's got a sense of humour, eh?

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.