In one of the more bizarre speeches she has ever delivered, the Queen referred on Wednesday to the great Prussian moral philosopher Immanuel Kant. Speaking in Berlin at a state banquet in her honour, the Queen did not go on to expound her view of Kant’s famous formulation that we cannot know what we cannot observe. Which was a shame, because that is exactly the right judgment about the finances of her own household.

In the week that a veil was lifted on a fraction of the royal wealth, the Chief Flunkey of Works at Buckingham Palace announced that £150 million is needed for repairs. Then Sir Alan Reid, Keeper of the Privy Purse, had to clarify that a palace spokesman did not mean to