MANY of us might jump at the chance to become king or queen for a day - but would you fancy the job for the rest of your life? If the answer is “yes” then you are clearly not a current member of the House of Windsor.

According to Prince Harry, the Royal Family regard the prospect of succeeding Queen Elizabeth II with the kind of grim fatalism that often precedes a dental appointment.

“Is there any one of the Royal Family who wants to be king or queen? I don’t think so,” he told US magazine Newsweek.

Harry is eager for the public to regard him as an ordinary bloke who does his own shopping, carries out worthwhile charity work, and dates a girl he likes rather than one who's been chosen for him by royal appointment. Good for him, but he is not ordinary and he never can be.

Like all of his family he has been forced to inhabit a gilded cage under a fierce media glare. They will never know what it feels like to struggle for cash, or to worry about everyday concerns, such as jobs, pensions, care costs, let alone whether the tower block you live in might be a potential death trap. Nor will they have the freedom to choose their own career path or to walk the street without a phalanx of minders. 

It comes as no great surprise to hear Prince Charles’s youngest son sound ambivalent about the burden of royal life - he has hinted as much in the past - but his assertion that all of The Queen’s heirs will reluctantly take on a position of privilege and status because they have to, not because they want to, raises important questions.

Chiefly, if the job carries such a huge personal toll that no one wants it then is it unfair in a modern democracy to expect people born into one particular family to take it on? 

If Harry is correct then it looks as though The Queen has become an impossible act for any of her family to follow.