The royal birth is also very good news for the unity of the British Commonwealth. This new member of the family could be head of state of no fewer than 16 countries one day, if Australia doesn’t vote to break away after the death of the present queen, as some observers have suggested might happen.

Australian immigration demographics presently imply that such a divorce won’t occur, because immigrants into Australia from dictatorships and former communist countries tend to equate the constitutional monarchy with domestic political tranquillity, the rule of law and limited government. If the baby prince turns out to be as photogenic as his parents, all that Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge will have to do is visit Australia on the eve of any republican referendum to bury the movement’s chances there.

For David Cameron’s government—which is running neck-and-neck with the Labour opposition in the polls at the moment—the royal birth is already fomenting a national feel-good factor. This might seem to have nothing to do with any ministry or political party, but it does translate into larger numbers of people telling pollsters they are “content” or “very content” with the way Britain is heading. The Cameron government was helped by the similarly unpolitical Olympics, just as Prince William’s birth aided Margaret Thatcher, and the 1966 soccer World Cup victory win benefited Harold Wilson in the general election that year.