Princess Kate's latest video is beyond cringe

Anybody who thought that the short film made by the Princess of Wales to mark the end of her chemotherapy to be beautiful and poignant should look away now and skip this comment, because I found it cheesy, tacky, embarrassing and naff. If Meghan Markle had produced a video in which she floated along, the star in her own production, talking about journeys, staying hand-in-hand and all you need is love, it would have been par for the course but how on earth could sensible, down-to-earth Kate have done it?

Heaven knows what the rest of the Royals made of it. It is easy to imagine Princess Anne shrugging and then going to feed the horses.

The King, who has faced his own cancer problems by just getting on with it and who is now proposing an exhausting tour of Australia with up to 10 engagements a day and is showing the dignity and duty of the late Queen, probably scratched his head in puzzlement.

The monarchy needs to keep a degree of reserve if it is to retain the mystique which helps it to survive and it is a fine balancing act to do both that and not seem too out of touch.

The King, who allows himself to be hugged by his subjects and who was open about his diagnosis, while still carrying out his duties, has struck that balance but Kate and William in this video have not.

Over the years I have watched friends and family deal with the hell of cancer. My father got over his so speedily that we all forgot he had had it. My brother died slowly and painfully.

Some of my friends have recovered fully, some died and some recovered only to succumb again. What characterised each and every case was that they all faced it bravely and matter-of-factly and crucially they wanted those around them to do the same.

I wish Your Royal Highness a full recovery, but please no more videos like that one.

Lib Dems to pay price of inequality

It is fast becoming a truism that the Liberal Democrats are neither liberal nor democratic.

A group promoting single-sex spaces at the annual party conference is only there this year after legal advice suggested they should be allowed to set up their stall. Last year they were banned because their values did not accord with those of the Lib Dems.

Mark Pack, below, the President of the Lib Dems has said he “regretted” their presence. That attitude is all part of a pattern of the Lib Dem attitude to conscientious dissent. Some while back I wrote on this page of the fate of David Campanale, the then Lib Dem candidate for Sutton and Cheam, who was deselected because he opposed abortion. He has brought a legal action and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has warned that it may become impossible for people of religious views to represent the party, whether orthodox Jews, Muslims or Catholics and other Christians. Two other Bishops have also risen to Campanale’s defence.

This is, of course, not a one-off. Tim Farron, the leader himself, was forced out due to his evangelical Christian views. Then a parliamentary candidate was barred from standing after she wore a T-shirt proclaiming “woman: adult, human, female.”

It is reported that the party is now facing a bill of some half a million pounds after she sued it until it caved in following three-and-a-half years of costly legal wrangling. Other cases include that of Jo Hayes and Avril Coelho, both of whom allege discrimination.

At this rate the Lib Dems won’t have any money left to fight an election.

Frequency of announcements has derailed their impact

I was having breakfast at the RAF club in London last week when there was an anguished exclamation from a fellow diner. He had left his backpack on the train. He shot off to Waterloo and I hope he recovered it.

The incident demonstrates just how irrelevant those endless announcements on trains have become. Every time a train pulls into a station we are reminded to take all our belongings with us, take care when stepping down from the train and to mind the gap between the train and the platform. We hear them so often they have become “white noise”.

As for the silly, endless “see it, say it, sorted” I doubt if I will hear the last one in my lifetime. I will for ever have a choice between enduring it and emigration!

■At the last election the Reform Party got more than four million votes. It polled ahead of the Lib Dems and the Greens, coming third in terms of vote share behind the two main parties. It has five MPs.

Yet despite all that, it has not been accorded a single seat on any of the Parliamentary Select Committees.

Bias does not even begin to describe it but clearly parliamentary democracy is an outmoded concept at Westminster.

Nigel Farage won’t worry: Reform is the fastest growing political party in the UK and after the next election it will be calling the shots.

■About a week ago I took part in “a great disputation” at the Church of St. Bartholomew the Great in London. The motion was “this house believes that Christianity is intrinsically socialist”. I am glad to say that we won convincingly... for the opposition!

However one of my fellow opposers was Danny Kruger, a Conservative MP. He is a good egg and I like him but he informed the audience that heaven itself would indeed be socialist.

All I can say is that if a Conservative MP is looking forward to a socialist heaven, it probably explains why that party is doing so badly.