A North London-born leftist in Portland reads Prince William’s three number plates as the most honest document of inherited wealth in years
Saturday, 17 October 2026. Portland, Oregon. A co-op cafe on Alberta Street, oat latte, rain against the window like it has a grievance, 10.15am.
The Most Honest Document Of Inherited Wealth This Year
I grew up in Kentish Town, where the class struggle is mostly fought over parking permits, and I now live in Portland, where it is fought over who gets to call themselves the first person to open a vegan doughnut shop. In both places, I spend a lot of time explaining to people that the monarchy is not, in fact, a charming tourist attraction, but the longest-running inheritance scheme in Europe with a gift shop attached.
This morning the monarchy made my argument for me. The report on Prince William’s three personalised number plates describes NOTYET on an Aston Martin for waiting to be King, NOTHARRY on a Range Rover for avoiding his brother and DISTASTEFUL on a Bentley for disapproving of almost everything. Three luxury cars. Three moods. One job that nobody else is allowed to apply for.
I read it aloud to the barista, a philosophy graduate named Sage with a tattoo of Rosa Luxemburg on her forearm. She laughed so hard she put oat milk in the wrong cup. Then she said, that is not satire, Megs, that is a balance sheet.
NOTYET As Economic Theory
The report has a line I would like to frame in the communal kitchen of my housing co-op. It describes the throne as a job that cannot become vacant through retirement, redundancy, poor performance or an unfavourable annual appraisal. An ordinary worker hoping for promotion can apply, interview or threaten to leave. The heir can do none of those. He can only wait.
As someone who did a PhD on precarious labour, I want to point out that this is the only job in Britain with genuine job security, and it is held by people who did not earn it. Meanwhile, my cousin in Tottenham has been on a zero-hours contract at a warehouse in Enfield for three years and has never once been allowed to know whether he is working next Tuesday. NOTYET is a royal number plate. For my cousin, NOTYET is a rota.
Three Cars, One Commute
The report mentions, with great seriousness, a Range Rover fitted with a satnav that excludes Montecito, a radio that changes station whenever anyone says Harry and Meghan, and a security package that heads for the nearest palace with a sympathetic courtier. I have never read a more perfect description of how wealth insulates people from uncomfortable conversations. Most of us cannot buy a car that drives away from our siblings. We have to sit through Christmas.
In Portland, by contrast, I commute by bike, in the rain, on a second-hand Raleigh I bought from a man in Sellwood who said it had a lot of history. I believe he meant it had been stolen at least twice. My bike has one mood, which is damp. If I want to express disapproval, I ring the bell aggressively at Teslas. This is called mutual aid.
A Brief Note On My Own Contradictions
I should be honest. I am a leftist who loves a nightclub, owns a phone made by a trillion-dollar company and has spent far too much money on vinyl at a record shop on Mississippi Avenue. I have been to Holocene on a Friday night and danced to a DJ wearing a vintage Thatcher-era miners’ strike badge he bought on Etsy. Every leftist I know is a walking contradiction. The difference is that we write long blog posts about it. The aristocracy just buys another car.
Why Satire Is A Left-Wing Tool, And Also Not
I keep a running set of notes on this diary, like my first week of notes on left-wing politics in Portland, and one of the ideas I keep returning to is that ridicule is a great leveller. The monarchy survives on reverence. The moment you can laugh at a prince who needs a Bentley called DISTASTEFUL, the reverence begins to wobble. That is why authoritarians of every stripe hate jokes. The left would do well to remember this the next time it tries to ban one.
My mum, still in Kentish Town, rang while I was reading and asked what I was laughing at. I explained the plates. She said the royals have always been like that, and that her own mother queued on the Mall in 1953 with a flask of tea and a folding stool to watch a woman in a gold coach go past for nine seconds. Nine seconds, Mum said, and she talked about it for fifty years. That, I said, is the real genius of monarchy. It turns nine seconds of somebody else’s wealth into fifty years of your own loyalty. Mum said I think too much. She is probably right. She also still has the folding stool.
My Proposal For A Fourth Plate
The report lists other plates the Prince considered: MYTURN, ASKDAD, NOJAM, STILLMAD, WRONGTIE. I would like to propose a fifth, for a car to be shared by everyone in Britain: OURTURN. It would be a minibus. It would be publicly owned. It would run on time, which, in both London and Portland, would make it the most revolutionary vehicle ever built.
Sage has just brought me a free refill. She says it is solidarity. I think it is because I tipped her properly, which is also solidarity, but the kind that keeps cafes open. The rain has stopped. Mount Hood is out, white and enormous over the east side. It belongs to nobody. That is the most beautiful thing about it.