Most of us would accept the monarch's verdict even if it went against us

John Bercow is surely right that the Government should not be able to keep bringing exactly the same measure back before Parliament when it has already been decisively defeated.

The ancient Parliamentary convention to which he appealed was designed to prevent precisely what Theresa May's team appears to have been trying to do - wearing MPs down until luck, panic or error causes all opposition to disintegrate.

Whilst we're on centuries-old conventions intended to apply to precisely this sort of situation, I don't see why one man's appeal to ancient convention to help him block a Brexit vote is okay (the Speaker) but one woman’s intervention to steer things either way in a situation of deadlock would be fanciful (the Queen).

I can understand an argument that says we don't truly have a constitutional monarchy any more and the Queen is just a ritual monarch so can’t intervene. But notionally, at least, most British Parliamentarians and political commentators claim to believe in and support constitutional monarchy. Well, constitutional monarchy is supposed to exist to resolve precisely this sort of situation.