Always be wary of hyperbole; if it is accompanied by exclamation marks, then be extra cautious.General Accident, for example, is running an advert headlined “62.9% After Tax! Past Performance. The Guaranteed Investment Bond”.In fact, as the advert goes on to explain, “the Guaranteed Fund is a completely new fund so we cannot show actual past performance.”However, we can show what this fund could have achieved if it had been available five years ago”.This hypothetical five-year performance may sound impressive – “a pounds 10,000 investment would have been worth a staggering pounds 16,295″.But is this really staggering? Take a typical unit trust. While the returns are not guaranteed, they are on average much higher than the GA fund and pounds 10,000 invested in an income-oriented UK unit trust five years ago would, on average, now be worth pounds 18,436, after basic rate income tax.Put the unit trust in a tax-free PEP wrapper (not an option with the GA fund) and the returns would be even higher.o Jean Eaglesham works for ‘Investors Chronicle’.. “IT is in principle wrong and absurd,” Tony Blair said in his John Smith Memorial Lecture earlier this month, “that people should wield power on the basis of birth, not merit or election.” The Labour leader was talking about the need to reform the House of Lords but Conservative MPs were quick to point out that an argument against hereditary peers is also, by logical extension, an argument against the monarchy. “Is the monarchy going to be safe?” asked Toby Jessel, MP for Twickenham.

The answer is that, in the medium-term at least, it will be safe from a Labour government But it ought not to be. Abolition of the monarchy would be an undertaking so far-reaching, so drastic, so controversial that it would daunt any politician. That, however, is precisely why the subject needs to be addressed. The Crown is part of the fabric of British life: the national anthem, the opening of Parliament, the Christmas broadcast, the Royal Variety Performance, Remembrance Day, the royal presence at major sporting events, the royal imprimatur borne by many charities – in these, and so many other ways, the monarchy defines who we are and how we see ourselves.

Every time we post a letter or spend our cash we gaze on the Queen’s head. We rely on agents of Her Majesty to collect taxes and check school standards. If we are accused of crime, we are tried in the Crown Courts and, if found guilty, detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. We speak of the Queen’s English and of Queen’s Counsel, of Her Majesty’s Government and Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. Soldiers swear an oath of loyalty to the monarch and die for Queen and country.