A political theorist reads about NOTYET, NOTHARRY and DISTASTEFUL and finds herself delivering an unpaid lecture on the British constitution between Euston and Camden
Wednesday, 14 October 2026. The back of a black cab on the Euston Road, my laptop bag on my knee, rain on the windows, a driver called Terry who has opinions, 6.15pm.
The Plates
I was reading the London Prat on my phone in the back of a taxi, which is the only quiet place left in my life, when I reached the report on Prince William ordering three personalised number plates. According to the Prat, the plates read NOTYET, NOTHARRY and DISTASTEFUL. I laughed so loudly that Terry, the driver, looked at me in his mirror and asked what was so funny. This was my first mistake.
I read the plates aloud. Terry laughed too, which was nice. Then he asked me why the royals were still allowed to do anything at all, since nobody voted for them. This was the moment when I should have said, I have no idea, Terry, how about this weather. Instead, I said, well, actually, and spent the next twenty-two minutes explaining the British constitution to a man who had only asked a rhetorical question. Readers of my diary at Dr Caitlin B. Moran’s diary at the London Prat will know this is a pattern.
Lesson One: The Constitution You Cannot Find
I began, as every first-year course begins, by explaining that Britain does not have a written constitution in a single document. Terry said, so where is it then? I said it was spread across statutes, conventions, court judgments and the occasional letter. He said, like my divorce settlement. I said yes, exactly like that, but with more horses.
I explained that the monarch is head of state but reigns rather than rules, that the powers of the Crown are largely exercised on the advice of ministers, and that much of the system works because everyone agrees to behave as though it works. Terry considered this as we waited at the lights by Warren Street. So it is a gentleman’s agreement, he said. I said, more or less. He said, well that is never going to go wrong, is it. I had no answer. Neither, I suspect, did Walter Bagehot.
Lesson Two: The Dignified And The Efficient
Bagehot, I told Terry, divided the constitution into dignified parts, which inspire loyalty and give the state its theatre, and efficient parts, which actually govern. The monarchy is the dignified part. Parliament and the Cabinet are the efficient part. Terry looked at me in the mirror and said, so which part is the number plates? It was an excellent question, and I have marked worse from students who had read the book.
The answer, I explained, is that a personalised number plate is the perfect symbol of a modern constitutional monarch. It is decorative. It costs money. It makes a statement. And it has absolutely no effect on how fast the car goes. Terry said that was the most sensible thing anyone had said in his cab all week, and that the previous passenger had been a hedge fund manager explaining cryptocurrency.
Lesson Three: The Succession
Terry was particularly taken with the plate that read NOTYET. Is that a joke about being king, he asked. I said the Prat appeared to think so, and that the waiting game is a familiar feature of hereditary systems. Heirs spend years, sometimes decades, preparing for a role they cannot begin until someone else has stopped doing it. The Prince of Wales, I said, is in a similar position to a deputy head teacher who knows the head will never retire. Terry said his brother-in-law had been a deputy manager at a carpet warehouse for nineteen years for the same reason.
The plate that read NOTHARRY, Terry understood immediately and without any help from political theory. Everyone in Britain understands the family dynamics of the House of Windsor. It is the only part of the constitution that has its own Netflix series.
Lesson Four: Why It Survives
As we turned into Camden High Street, Terry asked the question every one of my students eventually asks. Why do we keep it, then? I gave him the honest academic answer, which is that political scientists disagree. Some argue the monarchy provides continuity, a non-partisan head of state and a focus for national identity. Others argue it is an anachronism that entrenches privilege. Public opinion has generally remained supportive, though it varies by age and over time. Terry thought about this for a while and then said, so it survives because it is too much bother to get rid of. I told him that was, in fact, a respectable theory, and that he could probably get a doctorate in it if he expanded it to 90,000 words.
Closing Notes
When we arrived at my door in Kentish Town, the fare was nineteen pounds eighty, which is roughly what I am paid to deliver a lecture once tax, pension and existential despair are deducted. I gave Terry twenty-five pounds and told him to keep the change. He said thanks, Professor. I said I was not a professor, just a senior lecturer. He said, well, you are a professor in my cab. Then he drove away, and I saw him laughing at a red light, presumably about number plates. I went inside, fed Hobbes the cat and realised that it was the most rewarding teaching I had done all term. Terry engaged with the material. Terry asked questions. Terry did not once ask whether it would be on the exam.