ENOUGH already. Union flags and bunting are almost everywhere you turn in central London, Big Ben will be illuminated in red, white and blue while TV channels have been churning out toe-curling programmes about every aspect of King Charles’s life. I have to admit I’m already kinged out.

I hazard to guess that most folk are neither staunch monarchists nor avid republicans but fall somewhere in the middle and generally tolerate the Royal Family; as much for entertainment value as anything else.

It has to be said if Britain did have an elected president, their formal inauguration would attract nowhere near the vast scale of enthusiastic international attention that the Coronation spectacle will.

The scores of TV and photographic crews from across the globe, who will be stationed outside Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, would probably number single figures if President Jack or Jill were taking over as our new head of state.

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And for all the Ruritanian flummery and pomp, there will be an economic benefit to the royal event. While its cost is said to come in around £100m, the revenue from tourism and extra shopping is put, by some analysts, as high as £8bn. Which I find very hard to believe.

More important to ordinary punters will be the four-day weekend, which I doubt would ever happen under an elected president. In this age of anxiety, we must be grateful for small mercies.

At Westminster, party leaders, unsurprisingly, have been intent on bolstering the monarchy. Rishi Sunak told MPs the Coronation would be an opportunity to look to the future in the “spirit of service, unity and hope” while Sir Keir Starmer claimed it would enable the world to see “our country at its best”.

However, the prize for political gush went to Liz Fraser, the UK Government’s Culture Secretary, who suggested tomorrow’s ceremony reflected the “national character” of modern Britain. Not everyone would agree. Certainly not some Celtic fans, who chanted: “You can shove your coronation up you’re a*se”.

I’m sure it was meant lovingly.

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Amid the blanket coverage of all things royal this week two things stood out, each firmly on the ludicrous end of the monarchical scale; the rigmarole over the ceremonial moving of the Stone of Destiny from Edinburgh Castle to Westminster Abbey and the uninvited invitation to swear allegiance to HRH while munching on a coronation chicken sandwich from one’s sofa.

While, of course, having a sovereign links our present day to the country’s past and adds a splash of colour to what would otherwise be the grey slab of a bland presidency, these two items were especially farcical, coming just ahead of the Marmite toast portrait of the king and the crocheted post-box toppers.

While coverage of the late Queen’s death and funeral seemed to also go on for far too long, I suspect even the hardest of hard-nosed republicans would have admitted to having some respect for a head of state, who was still serving the country into her 90s; albeit from a gilded cage.

And I also suspect they would also recognise, notwithstanding their deep opposition to the monarchy, that Charles, at heart, is a compassionate soul, who wants to be a kindly king in an often unkindly world.

Recent polls have suggested the older you are, the more likely you’ll be to support the monarchy and the Coronation while most young people couldn’t give two hoots about either.

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While some of us will be glued to their tellies tomorrow, others will be making a public point that they’re most definitely not.

Such as the pro-independence republicans, who will gather on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill to extol the virtues of a Scottish republic free from what some regard as the tyranny of Albion.

Yet if any of the republican horde are secretly curious they could always slip along, incognito, to the Ross Bandstand in Princes Street to see the coronation on the big screen.

Among those at another independence rally in Glasgow will be Alba leader Alex Salmond, who once seemed to be such a great fan of the late Queen, a fellow horse-racing enthusiast, but who sullied her scorecard with the ex-FM after she “purred” down the phone when ex-PM David Cameron informed her of the independence referendum result in 2014.

One notable absentee will be Humza Yousaf, the self-declared republican, who will be fulfilling his first ministerial duties by hob-nobbing with the Coronation “V-VIPs”.

And while tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of flag-waving spectators will be lining the Coronation route, there will be, we’re told, a “yellow sea” of around 1,500 anti-monarchists protesting. But the police have warned that they will “deal robustly” with any troublemaker. Plus, a new law means anyone blocking a road could be jailed for up to 12 months.

One man who will be especially delighted by people fixing their eyes on Westminster Abbey, the King and his golden cloak, will be Mr Sunak. Because if, as many expect, the Tories get a thrashing at the local elections in England today, then its political impact will be diminished by voters south of the border enjoying a long bank holiday weekend and having their attention pointing well away from the political fall-out.

After the Queen’s death, it was suggested that this had put a spring in the step of the Unionist cause in Scotland. Will the Coronation do the same? I doubt it. Its biggest helper at the moment is the continuing woes of the SNP.

While I sincerely hope all royal enthusiasts enjoy the once-in-a-generation spectacle and the big day goes off without anything untoward happening, I have to admit that I’ll be relieved when all the hoopla dies down, the “Coronation quiche” is all eaten and the “Coronation cocktails” all drunk.

And then, mercifully, the country can turn its attention away from the happy distractions of an often dysfunctional aristocratic family to the unhappy distractions of often dysfunctional plebeian politics. I’m not sure which is more entertaining.