EDITORIAL: As King Charles arrived at Westminster Abbey on a $4 million hand-crafted carriage pulled by six horses, he would have been relieved to know that his citizens are flush with cash and doing things easy, otherwise the whole thing might have come across as insensitive.
If ordinary people were being forced to choose between paying an electricity bill and putting food on the table, then sitting on a throne while being anointed with oil poured from a solid gold flask could have seemed a bit gross.
But luckily for the King, stressing about how to afford groceries for the family or clothes for the kids is the last thing on people’s mind. So playing dress-ups in a gold-lined silk tunic and sapphire-encrusted ring while wearing a 2.3kg hat made from 44 separate gem stones, didn’t seem out of place at all.
Imagine how it would have looked if there were people out there facing homelessness due to the cost of housing, and there you are strutting about with literal fucking orbs and sceptres – mounted with clusters of emeralds, rubies and sapphires, and surrounded by rose-cut diamonds and rows of pearls!
Or think of the uproar if there were families going without heating over winter, and you’re there showing off your crown that’s got the largest rough diamond ever found sitting on top. The whole thing would be shut down! People would accuse you of being born with a silver spoon! (Which, actually, turned out to be more than just a metaphor when the Archbishop of Canterbury presented you with the silver-gilt ‘Coronation Spoon’ that you now own).
So, all in all, I think we can say the whole thing was a resounding success. The optics, as they say, were spot on. The new King will be relieved. Because if the people he supposedly represents were struggling to make ends meet right now, then the sight of people kneeling down in front of a throne to kiss his hand while trumpets sounded, would all look a little off.
The post Lucky There Isn’t a Cost-Of-Living Crisis, Otherwise Parading About With a Diamond Encrusted Orb Might Look Out of Touch appeared first on The Shovel.
