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Rob Morrice: I have given permission to reprint this scandalous view from North of the border penned in the Scotsman Newspaper today by my ex-business partner, Pete Martin, the Creative Director of the Gate Worldwide. I must make it clear that I distance myself from any of Pete's opinions about our cherished national institution and this Friday's history-making event. I am indeed going to London for the weekend to drink in the atmosphere and there is no truth in the scurrilous rumour that I have tickets for the Arsenal vs Man Utd game on Sunday...

The national hysteria that surrounds the impending nuptials of William and Kate is grating for those of a republican disposition.

SHE even looks a little bit like Eliza Doolittle, don't you think? The poor little Cockney flower-girl was played by Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, the Oscar-laden movie derived from George Bernard Shaw's socialist satire Pygmalion. Schooled to speak posh by Professor Henry Higgins, the lovely young woman eventually passes for royalty - only to find that social climbing makes you miserable.

The British media would have us think that Kate Middleton too is just an ordinary working girl, lucky enough to have landed her handsome Prince. There are four untruths hidden in that short sentence.

It is true that, generations ago, the Middleton forebears included some mining folk from the middle of nowhere. But Kate's pedigree isn't exactly ordinary, unless you consider a private education costing £250,000 normal. The reality is, in most people's terms, the Middletons are loaded.

As for working, Kate really has been Miss Doolittle since leaving St Andrews. Her entire career encompasses a brief stint in a fashion shop and a few shifts in the family's online party firm. She did have, however, a pad in Chelsea bought by the Bank of Mumanddad: suitably positioned to hang out where one might continue to mix with the "yahs" one met at uni.

I went to St. Andrews and, fine old university that it is, the teaching has always attracted more than its fair share of English public school types too dim for Oxford or Cambridge. My recollection is that the "yahs" tended to be hard work: their talent rarely matched their sense of entitlement, and the volume of their voices was wearing. So, you guess that Kate is a woman of some steel and, in snaring William, that luck had little to do with it.

Truly, she has played her cards like a poker pro. She's revealed very little of herself, in word or image. She's said next to nothing. She's not fallen out of a cab in a skimpy skirt, blotto, letting the papparazzi get a peek at her pants. Having cleverly boxed away her fashionwear, there's no room for skeletons in her closet: it's too crammed with outfits that make you think she's modelling her style on her future mum-in-law.

It's a strategy, a charade even, that's maybe been running since the Middletons first sent Kate to be schooled in poshness. It suggests a slyness and a toughness we've seen before in a royal relationship - now with added brainpower.

However, like Mrs Merton, you have to wonder "What first attracted you to the internationally-famous-but-rapidly-balding young multi-millionaire?"

William seems like a nice enough young fella, but Kate kissed a Prince and he turned into a frog. From the beautiful blonde cherub of his boyhood, the new comb-over king now seems more likely to crack mirrors than break hearts. Surely, if Eliza Doolittle saw cartoonist Steve Bell's souvenir republican mug, she'd say William looked like "a bloomin' 'orse".

Anyway, I wish them as well as you would any young couple embarking on a new life together. I hope she's as smart and ruthless as history suggests dealing with her new in-laws might demand. And, that for wee Willie Wales, Kate will be as kind and loving and faithful a partner as any fairly ordinary young bloke could fall for.

Because that's the rub: I can't see what's so special about the Windsors.

You do wonder if it is dawning on the English too. Following a dipstick poll of friends and colleagues in London, I reckon that opinion on the royal wedding is finely balanced: 25 per cent feel the country needs some "good news" and are up for an old-fashioned jingoistic knees-up; 50 per cent couldn't care less but are glad of a day off; the remaining 25 per cent are slightly nauseated by the whole affair.

Negative comments ranged from "It's just another celebrity wedding" to "I'm more interested in Scottish football than the Royal Wedding" and, believe me, that last one was meant to sting. Nonetheless, my most media-savvy mate in London assures me that, come the day, the English tabloids will have whipped the vajazzling masses of Essex into a frenzy of forelock-tugging and beer-swilling that will not be seen again till Simon Cowell gets married.

The Scottish "celebrations" are sure to be more muted. We're the country that gave the world "a man's a man for a' that" and the concept of the Crown lies uneasy in our heads. Burns himself, in his last recorded conversation, had shown himself a democrat and a "staunch republican". Three years earlier, the French had lopped off the head of King Louis XVI and wiped out their aristocracy, so it was dangerous for a British subject to express such wildly radical views.

In Britain today, I find it bizarre that republican ideals should still seem even mildly controversial. Why do so many of our most progressive politicians suddenly become mealy-mouthed when faced with the monarchist publicity machine and the alleged "popularity" of the Windsors?

The popular delusion is that the royal family are like us - and that they actually like us. Sure, they're human with personal failings and family troubles and squabbles, same as the rest of us. Indeed, they bleed when you prick them, and their blood ain't blue.

But the royals are unique in British society in one key respect.

Taking aside the old joke that the rich are different - they have more money than the rest of us - the royals don't think like the rest of us. They have an in-bred belief that they are better than us.

That's the fundamental idea of royalty, isn'tit? In complete opposition to common sense and meritocracy, they think that royal blood, birth-right, lineage marks you out for special treatment and great big wads of public cash. For affection as well as finance, the royals must be touched by their humble servants' generosity. But, royal protocol implies they're not that keen on actually touching ordinary folk, so you have to wonder how far that regard is reciprocated.

The pride and pomp of the monarchy may be as misplaced as the public funding they receive. The official estimate is that the royals cost Britain about £40 million a year. It's an estimate because - as their revenue is, literally, a private business - they refuse to allow full scrutiny of their accounts by the National Audit Office.

Republican campaigners suggest that the true total cost of the monarchy to the public purse could be as high as £180m a year, with around £50m for security alone. Not forgetting an extra £20m in police costs for the royal wedding this year.

To capture the new patriotic mood of the nation by misquoting Churchill - is it possible that, never before in the field of public finance, have so few owed so much to so many? Maybe, but let's face it: it's not really about the money.

Even if we paid no royalties, I would still object to the monarchy. And not because they are, in reality, simple, plain-looking folk with only one discernible skill. In 2005, the BBC quoted former royal aide Mark Bolland who said that the Windsors' real talent was "working three days a week, five months of a year and making it look as though they work hard".

The real reason I would abolish the monarchy tomorrow is simple. I'm a democrat: I believe we are all equal. In a meritocracy, individuals may have different talents, but everyone still has the same fundamental rights and responsibilities. No-one is intrinsically better than anyone else. The idea of in-bred honour, distinction and privilege is unsupportable in science, in logic, in principle. It is a monstrous con.

Still, there's a chance this fairytale may have a "happy ever after" ending. On 29 April, William and Kate will find themselves locked together in a tired old irrelevant institution. And I mean the monarchy, not marriage. Let's hope it dissolves a long, long time before their love. As Eliza Doolittle herself might say, "Wouldn't it be loverly?"