EVERYONE loves a cute new baby. And as former midwife I know only too well the sense of relief and joy that all families feel when it’s all over.

I wish all newborn children all the best. But I’ll never be able to understand the frenzy that surrounds every royal birth.

When I was a girl, my late mum had a photo of the young Queen Elizabeth in her display cabinet. But she would never have dreamed of camping out for a fortnight to get a glimpse of a pimply wee royal nose.

Kate, like many second-time mums, had a straightforward, speedy delivery that would have been excellently dealt with by one midwife in the normal world. But she gave birth in a £7,000-a-night private hospital wing surrounded by a posse of obstetricians whose expertise might have been better deployed saving lives in high-risk situations elsewhere. The team around her bedside also included a private secretary, a press secretary, a personal assistant and a stylist.

Right now, Kate and William’s new daughter only wants warmth, security, a good feed and a clean bum. It’ll be a few years yet before she even begins to understand the life of privilege into which she’s been born.

According to Republic – a group campaigning for a democratic alternative to the monarchy – the Queen, her relatives and her expansive households, cost just a fraction under £300 million a year.

That’s enough to pay the salaries of nearly 12,000 midwives, at a time that the shortage of midwives in England is, according to Westminster’s public accounts committee, putting women and babies at risk.

It’s not just the waste of money though that makes me a republican. The monarchy is what makes the UK state fundamentally elitist. It legitimises inequality and reinforces the feudal notion of inherited superiority.

It also stands at the heart of the UK’s labyrinthine but uncodified constitution. It is not just for ceremonial purposes that our MPs and MSPs are forced to swear allegiance to the monarch. The royal prerogative – which was wielded by kings to go to war – is now operated by the government and does not require parliamentary approval. It’s been used to ban unions at GCHQ. It was invoked in 1971 to clear the island of Diego Garcia of its inhabitants to make way for US-controlled military base in the Indian Ocean.

And don’t let the wittering Nicholas Witchells of the world kid you – the royal family has real, personal, political power. Between them, the Queen and Prince Charles have used the royal veto over parliament 39 times.

In 1999, for example, the Queen intervened to end any further debate on Tam Dalyell’s Military Actions Against Iraq private members bill, which sought to transfer the power to authorise military strikes against the country from the monarch to parliament.

The monarchy is not just a tourist attraction. It is a living, breathing symbol of class privilege and inherited power.

As Keir Hardie said on the day King Edward VIII was born 120 years ago: “From childhood onwards this boy will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers and will be taught to believe himself as of a superior creation.”

I only hope we don’t have to wait another 120 years before our politicians take a leap into the modern world and banish princesses, princes, kings and queens to the pages of children’s fairy tales.

Time for sport to belt up

IT was billed as the fight of the century, and by all accounts it turned into more of a playground scuffle than a re-run of the Rumble in the Jungle.

The absence of blood seems to have generated a huge wave of disappointment among boxing fans.

On social media, armies of men, who had psyched themselves up for serious brutality, ended up whimpering about the lack of punches thrown. Those who paid up to $150,000 for a front seat in the gladiatorial ring must have been gutted.

The winner, Floyd Mayweather, who earned $5million a minute for his time in the ring on Saturday night, seems to have honed his skills on former girlfriends. He has repeated convictions of violence, including against four different women.

Professional boxing celebrates male violence and should have no place in an enlightened society.

Our Labour leader cannot escape from this bad romance with the Conservatives

ACCORDING to one poll, Jim Murphy might just hang on to his seat – courtesy of Tories in the affluent parts of his constituency tactically voting.

That just about sums up the mess Labour’s Scottish leader has got himself into. After waltzing down the aisle with the Tories, Jim is now trapped in a bad romance from which he cannot escape.

The support he can expect from his Tory electorate is like the support a rope provides to a hanging man.

If Murphy does hang on, he and David Mundell might end up with new nicknames: Tian Tian and Yang Guang.

I can only hope, for Jim’s sake, that the voters of East Renfrewshire put him out of his misery on Thursday.