Anthony Barnett (London, OK): The Queen is worried and "distressed" even anxious over the Rowan Williams Sharia row, the Telegraph reports. There has always been a royal aspect to this. Charles was ahead of the curve, way back, when he said that he wanted to be "Defender of the Faiths". Although this sounded ridiculous at the time it showed that he grasped the central principle of traditional rule, once honed to perfection by the British ruling class. It was put succinctly by Lampedusa in his epic novel of aristocratic decline in 19th-century Sicily, Il Gattopardo (The Leopard): "If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change". The Archbishop was attempting something similar. If it isn't working, as indeed it seems it isn't, then the report of the Queen's concern may signal that Britain has entered that most dangerous and usually fatal moment for regimes everwhere. The point when its rulers decides that if things are to stay as they are, then things will have to stay as they are.
Hat tip: David Hayes
