Queen’s snub is just horse play

There has been much speculation over the constitutional niceties of the Queen’s non-attendance at the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. The Diary, however, can reveal that the real reason is much more prosaic: the ceremony clashes with Ladies’ Day, at this year’s John Smith’s Grand National meeting at Aintree.

The Queen is getting on a bit, and has to parcel out her time carefully, so she probably calculates that attending the fifth wedding her offspring have managed between them is not a profitable use of Reginal minutage. A pity really, because the sight of a bookmaker tic-taccing the odds to the nation’s esteemed Sovereign from behind the registrar would certainly liven up proceedings.