I spit me of oaths of allegiance.

Wodehouse readers will get the ‘I spit me’. So: 16 year olds who can’t vote are to be asked to pledge allegiance to a woman they don’t know and can’t get rid of as a part of becoming British citizens. Swearing an oath to a monarch makes you subject not a citizen in my book, and balls to that.

A national identity develops, it cannot be imposed, especially in a country like this - an island that has fought hard for its own (and often other peoples’) liberties and has developed its identity through history, hardship, folk memory, language, literature, song, invasion, conquest, religion and myth.

For the sake of balance and accuracy, here’s the Guardian’s selections of the key points.

Asking a 16 year old to pledge allegiance to a wealthy, distant family with landed hereditary privilege will do nothing to foster a sense of Britishness, an increasingly devalued concept where devolution has caused a resurgence of nationalistic pride in Wales and Scotland (mostly a benign nationalism, too).

This stupid, stupid idea reminds me of Gormenghast where an out of touch ruling family govern a crumbling state, obsessed with obscure rituals carried out for their own sake and self gratification. If anyone wants to pledge allegiance to the Queen, they can wrote to her c/o Buckingham Palace and tell her so.

I’m a republican of the pragmatic stamp: I’d like to elect my head of state so I could have a go at booting him or her out should they prove to be useless or embarrassingly venal. But I think our political class are by and large poor, and I think the current Queen has done a good job. All the Royal pageantry is daft, but adds to the gaity of the nation.

But when young people with no recourse against it at the ballot box start being coerced into oaths - and that is what will happen - the pragmatism goes out of the window and it’s aux armes, citoyens! Vive la republique!

A few of my fellow Liberal Democrats don’t like it much, either.