What's it all for?

"The Commonwealth," said Queen Elizabeth when she came to the throne, "bears no resemblance to the empires of the past." It was built instead on "friendship, loyalty and the desire for freedom and peace." Well, that's a wonderful idea - so wonderful, in fact, that I have a suggestion to make: the Commonwealth should launch a takeover bid for the United Nations. Instead of having a UN Secretary-General helplessly looking on as wars and famine decimate populations and turn people into refugees, we would have a British monarch fostering friendship and loyalty throughout the world. And when Prince Charles becomes king - if he ever does - his concern for the environment will mean that the world, out of loyalty to him, will stop emitting greenhouse gases straightaway.

The only slight problem, of course, with my suggestion, is that Queen Elizabeth's words were wishful thinking. I'm not saying that the Commonwealth serves no purpose whatsoever - firstly, it allows a few athletes to win medals at the Commonwealth games which they never could at the Olympics, and secondly, it prevents the Queen from getting bored - but I really don't think that its almost two billion citizens are very different from the rest of the world's population. Why did Ireland leave the Commonwealth in 1948, never to return? Because like everyone else, we Irish are fantastically friendly and loyal - but not to our enemies.

I had another look recently at the results of a poll we conducted here at The Move, which highlighted the way people in the UK had changed after ten years of Tony Blair as Prime Minister. When he came into office, almost 60 per cent of people questioned said that the best way to improve quality of life was to care for the community. To the same question ten years later, almost 60 per cent said 'looking after myself.' Selfishness and greed have not just become acceptable - they're actually seen as the best way of improving life for everybody. The more money you have, apparently, the better off everyone else is. I have a little trouble with the logic of that myself, but those City bankers who earn million pound bonuses every Christmas can all explain how it works: by spending their money they boost the economy, create new jobs and make other people richer too. This is what's called the 'trickle down' effect - wealth eventually finds its way down to the poorest the way water trickles down from the top of a mountain to the sea.

Well, perhaps it does, but the problem is that the mountain is getting higher every year, and whatever comes down from it has to cross a number of obstacles on the way. And the biggest obstacle of all is no doubt indifference - simply not caring about the community, whether it is the local community or the world as a whole.

Getting things right is extremely hard to achieve - which is why I wouldn't want the job of Prime Minister for all the rice in China - but in those weekly talks the PM has with the Queen, couldn't the idea of loyalty and friendship be just a little more prominent? The Queen, quite rightly, is not allowed to interfere in politics, so instead she goes off on numerous trips round the world to be entertained by Commonwealth heads of state. But if she can't even persuade her own Prime Minister that the generous ideas expressed in the various Commonwealth declarations should perhaps be put into practice, what chance does she have with the rest of the world? It appears - so I am told by my spies in the Palace - that Prince Charles is worried that when his Mum dies, the Commonwealth leaders will decide not to appoint him to succeed her. He has every reason to be worried, because if those Commonwealth heads are screwed on the right way, they'll all follow Ireland's example and put an end to a vast, hypocritical anachronism.