CONGRATULATIONS TO THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE........

Congratulations to William and Kate on the wonderful news. No doubt it's not how they wanted to announce it, with her being taken to hospital for acute morning sickness, but hopefully everything will be all right and the country will have something to celebrate in the summer.

As a wedding-sceptic before last year’s bash, I was very surprised by how beautiful the event was, and how everyone (or almost everyone) felt bonded by a feeling of togetherness. It’s a common response I’ve heard from many people, and since April 2011 the republican movement has been all but moribund. God willing, people will feel the same come next year.

Having a baby is the most awesome and spiritual experience a man and woman will have, a memory that will always be my happiest. As a man we can hardly complain about the whole process, but it’s a roller-coaster – it felt like being kidnapped and forced to watch your wife being tortured for 10 hours, then released unharmed, and then told you’ve both won the lottery. The joy is intense.

That happiness is not confined to the mother and father, either, but also to family and friends; and the Royal family are sort of, in a strangely comforting psychological way, our family, so little wonder that so many people are genuinely pleased by the news. The Onion headline about the 1981 wedding, Ravaged British Underclass Temporarily Forgets Miserable Lives, is funny because it’s true, but the happiness is genuine.

After this Olympic year, this will come as another great psychological boost to the nation and, more importantly as far as I’m concerned, our newspaper industry. We’ll probably have a baby boom next year and a slight increase in GDP; my guess is George for a boy, while a friend has suggested Diana if it’s a girl.