A right royal upbringing

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge hope to give their new born son a “normal upbringing” or so it has been reported. The world’s press gathered outside the hospital, rolling 24-hour coverage trained on a door, a photo-call 24 hours after being born and betting markets on the sex, hair colour and name of the baby is perhaps not the most normal of beginnings to life on this planet. At least the Home Secretary was not required to be present at the birth this time!

Despite Kate and William’s hopes for some sense of normalcy seven in ten Britons believe it is impossible for children of royalty to have a normal upbringing according to Ipsos’s latest polling on the royal family – and perhaps this week we have seen exactly why. Whatever the Royal couple may decide to do the public is all too aware that no child of theirs can really experience the average childhood.

However, there is a keenness among us subjects of the crown for the future King to experience everyday life, with two in three wanting to see him in a normal job prior to taking on full-time royal duties. I don’t expect we will be seeing the Prince of Cambridge behind the till at a local supermarket but nevertheless it shows Britons want him to have ‘real world’ experience.

Whatever the young Prince ends up doing he will need to be educated first. His father and uncle broke with convention and attended Eton, will he follow in his father’s footsteps? One might think that given the public’s desire for the heir to the throne to experience a normal job that they would also want the child to go to state school, but just three ten agree that Kate and William should send their child to state school while 48% disagree (although this may partly be a view that no option should be mandatory).

So, what do his future subjects think of the institution Prince George has been born into? Over three quarters (77%) of Britons favour the country remaining a monarchy while under one in five (17%) think it should become a republic. Ipsos has asked this question of the British public 26 times since 1993 and the 77% in favour of a monarchy is four points higher than the average of all those polls, with the highest point of 80% just before the Diamond Jubilee celebrations in May last year.  The 17% in favour of Britain becoming a republic is bang on average across those 26 polls.

That older people are more likely to be monarchists than younger generations is not news. Nine in ten of those aged 65+ favour a monarchy and seven in ten (still a majority) of those aged 18-24.

There are however some interesting patterns among the supporters of the three major parties. 95% of Conservative supporters favour a monarchy, no surprise there. Lower levels of support for monarchy exist among Labour supporters (69%), again no huge surprises there. It is the Liberal Democrats that are particularly interesting on the subject: 87% of Lib Dems support a monarchy now, which represents a significant increase from 2006 when only 66% were monarchists. Of course the Liberal Democrats have been through a great deal since 2006 but it suggests that those remaining Liberal Democrats are perhaps of a more conservative bent than was the case before the formation of the Coalition in 2010.

Support for the monarchy it seems shows no signs of falling away. The amount of column inches and twitter characters devoted to the Royal baby are huge, the viewing figures for the news networks over the last couple of days also suggest a public genuinely interested, waiting to catch a glimpse of the future King. We may know he can’t have a truly “normal” life but we really would like him to give it a go.