ONE royal commentator described the Queen’s visit to the Cabinet yesterday as daft. Others suggested that it crossed a constitutional line, muddling the elected with the unelected.

Some have even seen it as a sinister takeover attempt.

The historic pictures from Downing Street should, though, remind us of a few truths about the monarchy.

The Queen sat there mute, while wars, cuts and even her own line of succession were discussed. She no longer has any real power over our lives, but her presence highlighted that the ones responsible for making those crucial decisions were the ones sitting around her – the ones we all shall have the opportunity to pass judgement on in a couple of years’ time.

She has refrained from attempting to meddle during her decades as our titular head, and she owes allegiance to no political party. Because of that, she looked so much cleaner than the politicians around her; politicians who renege on promises and brief against one another given half the chance.

This enabled her to give them some waspishly good advice: make the speeches shorter. If only she’d gone on to mention the boorish behaviour in the Commons and the inability to answer a straight question that give politicians a bad name As she sat there, it reminded us that while the hereditary principle is hopelessly outdated, it has somehow managed to place a female at the top of the tree for the last 60 years.

Compare that to our elected politicians.

All of them preach the virtues of equality, and yet the 22-person Cabinet contains only four women.