For Americans, says Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic, the political violence in Brazil has felt all too familiar. After Jair Bolsonaro lost November’s election, he refused to attend the inauguration of his successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Instead, he decamped to, “of all places”, Florida, and he and his right-wing supporters pursued “fictional” claims of voter fraud in the courts. When those efforts failed, his goons chose 8 January to launch their assault on the congress, supreme court and presidential palace in Brasília – almost exactly two years after Donald Trump’s supporters launched their own assault on America’s capital. Some protesters even held up signs in English, “as if to speak to their fans and fellow flame-throwers in the US”.

The over-reaction to all this is likely a spillover from the Queen’s death: “a national wobble was predictable after 70 reassuring years”. But the uproar will abate, and the “mild, sad, silent Palace” is wise not to feed it. For all the fuss, I remain a moderate, optimistic monarchist. In my experience, the royal family’s core players and their aides are generally “decent people who willingly do a curious but useful job which enriches national life”. More than anything, they are “interested visible patrons of all that is constructive and kind”. Think of the Queen asking a young bomb victim about Ariana Grande (“She’s very good, isn’t she?”), or Kate romping around a nursery, or even Meghan meeting Grenfell survivors during that “brief, glorious honeymoon period”. Such moments “raise both morale and the visibility of need”. That’s why we need monarchy. “Because it is powerless, apolitical and yet represents the nation.”