MICK HUME: Oath of allegiance to the King? Sounds more like stuff of a Stalinist people's republic

An oath of allegiance? Sorry, but this national 'Homage of the People' sounds more like the stuff of a Stalinist people's republic.

The authoritarian regime in North Korea, after all, is very keen on compulsory public oaths of loyalty to Kim Jong Un.

Thankfully we won't get locked up for refusing to chant along with the Archbishop of Canterbury in front of the television – or for doing so in a 'knowing', ironic style. It is an invitation, after all.

But this stunt still seems a bizarre bid to make the monarchy appear, in the enthusiastic words of one deluded royal biographer, 'democratic and inclusive'.

The archaic wording of the people's pledge – 'May the King Live Forever!' – might have sounded solemn coming from the traditional phalanx of robed dukes and bishops in the abbey but can surely only sound ridiculous from suburban garden parties, a few bottles of rose down.

An oath of allegiance? Sorry, but this national 'Homage of the People' sounds more like the stuff of a Stalinist people's republic, writes author and journalist Mick Hume

The public will be asked to swear their 'true allegiance' to the King and his heirs during the Coronation

I'm sure we will all enjoy some pomp and circumstance on Saturday but as a democrat I would prefer it if there had not been a restored Charles II, never mind a third.

I would rather be a citizen than a subject, and so I won't cajole friends and family to swear allegiance to a hereditary monarch, his heirs and successors, 'So help me God', if it's all the same to you.

Nor, however, do I want anything to do with those infantile 'Not My King' protesters who think the Coronation is all about them, or with the dreadful Leftist snob of a Cambridge professor who says those taking the oath are 'peasants'.

But even from the monarchists' point of view, this so-called Homage sounds like a bad idea.

It risks diluting the magic and awe that the historic ceremony is meant to inspire, by reducing it to a royal version of a local council 'inclusivity' exercise.

Would the late Queen, with her fine antennae for the public mood, have been so keen to chance exposing the monarchy to ridicule? I doubt it.