So, Will and Kate are finally getting hitched. This, the world has decided, is a Big Deal. As the news was announced, the online community exploded in a rash of tweets and status updates. "Looking forward to buying a new tea towel, plate and mug very soon," tweeted SlinkyLynne. "Please, please, PLEASE let Harry be in charge of the stag do," pleaded fleetstreetfox. The BBC too dived headlong into the frenzy, devoting a Live Coverage newsfeed to the ‘events’ of the engagement - six hours of non stop royal gossip, providing the drooling public with vital news: “19:03: The prince described the pair as like ducks - calm on the surface but paddling furiously underneath”. Thank you BBC.

But of course, a royal engagement isn’t only about gossip. No, this is a serious national event; some new sites claim this marks a return to the golden age of Princess Di, when babies were kissed, hospitals opened, charities supported and we all had a bit of a soft spot for the Royal Family. David Cameron has stated that this is “a great day for our country.” Most importantly of all, it’s a big day for Wales. The couple plan to continues living in Anglesey after their marriage -  “It's very good news for the island in terms of raising our profile as a tourist destination," says Anglesey County Council. Wales has every right to be thrilled – they’ve pretty much milked Tom Jones and Charlotte Jones for all they’re worth now – but for the country as a whole is this really such an event? The couple have been dating and living together for eight years. Everyone knew that at some point he was going to pop the question – Woolworths even designed a Royal Wedding commemorative set, long before they went bust. Really, it’s old news.

Even if this were a surprise proposal (I think that’s more Harry’s style) I’m afraid I would have little sympathy with the gushing headlines of British newspapers. Instead, I rather agree with The Vancouver News’ take on the engagement. “As glamorous and romantic as royal weddings can be,” it warns, “in post war Britain they've often lurched along miserably before ending in despair or scandal.” Too right. Take Kate’s engagement ring, for example, the same used by Prince Charles to propose to Diana. As women around the country flocked to jewelers to pick up their copy of the diamond and sapphire knuckle-duster, I felt faintly confused and a little depressed. Everyone knows about the resounding success of the last marriage this ring was involved in… seems like the perfect way for the young royal to declare his love for his girlfriend of eight years. If I was Kate I’d rather have had a new one.

I hate feeling like a humbug. I would love to be one of those girls who believes that Will is Kate’s Prince Charming, who has a genuine interest in what dress Kate goes for, who cares whether it will be a Spring or Summer wedding, who delights in the fact that royal babies may be on the cards. But, sadly, I can’t. Maybe it’s because of the dark trail of divorce statistics which line up in my brain when marriage is mentioned, or maybe it’s because I didn’t watch enough Disney films when I was little. Mainly, I think, it’s because of Will’s description of the proposal. When asked how it went, he answered with all the passion he could seemingly muster – that it was “nice”. If any future fiancé of mine had the nerve to refer to anything about our relationship using as insipid a word as “nice”, he’d be gone in a flash.

My personal favourite comment on the engagement came from St Andrews’ University, where Will and Kate met. “One in 10 of our students meet their future partner here… our title as Britain's top matchmaking university signifies so much that is good about this community”. Damn. Should have gone to St Andrews – maybe then I’d be as lucky as Kate. MADDY LAWSON

 

Stop the press! Breaking news! Just weeks after the tuition-fee bombshell hit the higher education sector, the government has announced plans to axe Aimhigher, the program that for years has been helping working-class adolescents secure places at university. Proof that the ConDems are waging class war!

Wait, what’s this? You’ve already got your front-page story? Surely it’s not more important than the future of education in our country? Oh, I see, it must by the story about 3,000 police being laid-off in Manchester, despite coalition pledges to protect front-line services. No? Then it’s the horrifying new plan to remove the obligation on child-care centres in impoverished areas to provide full-time day-care – a cornerstone of gender equality in the workplace. Not that either? Well then you must be reserving the front page for the story about the shocking U-turn by the Prime Minster, who has fired a couple of his “vanity staff” – a personal camerawoman and photographer – who he hired just days ago at the tax-payer’s expense after claiming they were necessary.

Of course, the headlines this week will be entirely dominated by none of these pressing issues. They will be dominated by a wedding. A wedding between two people almost none of us have met. Two people who are news-worthy for no reason other than that they hold the status and fossilised power of an ancient and non-functional system of government, long displaced by our, theoretically, parliamentary democracy.

Will anyone hear about or care about the stories outlined above? Appalling budgeting attacks on education, child-care or the police? Perhaps a few. But the vast majority of us will be too entranced by the aura of prestige and idealised celebrity that surround William and Kate to notice. When the cameras are finally turned away from the glorious couple, they are merely refocused on the slimy platitudes being fired off by every manner of unconnected politician or vague notable, all desperate to have their turn to bask in the dazzling glow of royal happiness.

I have never been an anti-royalist. I don’t see any problem with a harmless institution that brings in more revenue than it costs, and rarely gets in the way of the proper workings of politics. Far more problematic is the demented celebrity we attach to the royal family. I don’t want to retread the tired arguments about the superficiality of fame and the harmful effects of our addiction to it. This is a very specific kind of fame. It both raises up hereditary elites for no reason other than their royal birth, and at the same time lowers them to the status of just another passing fad – fodder for the gossip magazines.

The royal family should be kept as interesting but unimportant servants of history. A Christmas address and a handful of tourist traps are sufficient to keep them in their proper place at the margins of relevance. They have no right to intrude onto the front pages. They have no right to be a vehicle whereby spin-machines, with the full collusion of the mainstream media, are able to bury their bad news (see stories above) on the William-and-Kate-dominated days during which no one pays attention to anything else.

Obviously this is not a problem for which the royal family are to blame. It is not even the fault, at least not fully, of the media bodies that attach themselves so slavishly to royalty’s every move and turn of phrase. Like celebrity culture as a whole, the obsession with royalty is the fault of no one person or group. It is the result of a complex series of historical and social trends in our country and in our wider global community. But it is the duty of every one of us to combat it; in the way we consume media and the way we think about national issues. And it is doubly the duty of institutions with communication powers, such as the BBC, not to devote the entire first half of the News at Ten to an utter non-issue, at the expense of stories which have real significance to vast numbers of real lives. JOHN WALLIS

 

And so, yesterday the worst kept secret in the history of modern times was let out: Kate Middleton will marry Prince William. Girls wept as they finally realised that a 28-year-old royal they've never met is not going to marry them. The truth is hard, eh.

Immediately, we saw the criticism for the Middleton family rolling in. Now, I don't know the family - they may be ghastly, they may be wonderful - but in marrying a future monarch, this girl has sacrificed her liberty for the man she loves. People often forget that they’re a couple, they love each other (call me a romantic, but I don’t think they’d have stuck this many years together without a little bit of the old L O V E), and they want to start a family. But, they’ve got to consider the responsibility of ‘ruling’ a nation and being figureheads for the rest of their lives. He was born into it, and now she’s being dragged into it. As far as I can see, she’s tackled the task with poise, grace and refinement even if her mother did, shock horror, once chew gum. In Kate’s mothers shoes I too would have hankered after minty breath at a public event where I was meeting HM Queen Elizabeth II.

So, what are peoples main objections to Kate and the royal wedding?

Number one: She’s a lazy airhead. Well, she's not. St. Andrew's don't let in lazy airheads, and they don't get a 2:1 at the end of their degree either. And...she does work. Lots of people work for their family business, and it's pretty hard to juggle the commuting pressure with the paparazzi following your every move and the tabloids criticising your every outfit.

Number two: She's just too common. Er...really? OK, she doesn't have a title, but we live in the 21st Century. Her mother may have been an Air Hostess, but she wasn’t a prostitute now was she? She worked for BA, not RyanAir. They have proper uniforms, and if you think about it, it’s quite fitting given William’s election to join the RAF. I'm pretty sure, too, that the royal family have learnt how bad an idea it is to forbid future kings from marrying the women they love and instead marry them off to a Lady (ahem, ahem: Charles, Diana and Camilla).

Number three: The public will have to pay for a huge press event dressed up as a wedding.  Actually, I think the crown has a little stash of money tucked away somewhere, and, given the state of the economy, it really is a little smaller than it used to be, so I doubt they’re going to blow the crown jewels on a religious ceremony. Sure, they’ll want to make it a big deal, but they’ve not even bought a new ring for Kate, she’s wearing Diana’s old one. In addition, given William’s celebrity status across the globe, the wedding is likely to be a real crowd-puller and hence a big earner for the country and its tourism business. Ironically, Carole Middleton’s old employer, BA, might make a killing.

I'm sure there are more objections, and I know there are counter-arguments to mine. But please, give the girl, and her fiancé, a break. She has to wear the engagement ring of a woman 'killed by the press'. That can't be nice, can it? EMMA GREENLEES