Oh, what a lovely war

What a fantastic week it's been: even I never dreamed of a moment in history when the Tory party, the Monarchy and the Church would be locked in internecine battles at the same time. There is so much blood on the carpet that it is hard to keep track of the combatants, although a fair summary would be Windsors v Spencers (continued), the head of the Roman Catholic Church against the forces of darkness, and Iain Duncan Smith against just about everybody.

The whole thing is like a remake of Apocalypse Now but with a much gorier plot. Mind you, I don't think Francis Coppola would have advised Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, to make his dire predictions about the imminent eclipse of the Church in a Butlin's holiday camp in Bognor Regis. Great robes, your eminence, but the venue? I suppose the cardinal got a cheap deal for himself and 400 priests, as it's November. But I can't resist asking – in terrible taste, but that's what this column is for – whether they were woken by Redcoats with a cheery cry of "Good morning, campers!"

Anyway, the cardinal described Catholics as under attack on all sides, echoing George Carey's pessimistic assessment of the state of the Anglican Church in his final sermon as Archbishop of Canterbury. Murphy-O'Connor admitted that the Church is in a "dusk period", a description that might also be applied to leading Tories. I will admit to feeling a brief tendresse for Michael Portillo when he chose "La Isla Bonita" by Madonna as one of his Desert Island Discs, but I can't say I prefer him to the suave fag salesman Ken Clarke or the spectral Duncan Smith.

Then there is the Queen, a woman so compassionate towards servants that she summons them in for a consoling chat but doesn't ask them to sit down. Whether or not the meeting lasted as long as Paul Burrell claims, that vignette goes to the heart of what is wrong with all three institutions: nostalgic for a bygone era of deference, hierarchy and unaccountability, they have utterly failed to engage with modernity. In that sense, their problems extend far beyond the tittle-tattle of former employees, rows over whether unmarried couples should be able to adopt children, and scandals involving priests and child sex abuse.

They have got themselves into this mess by adhering to old habits of secrecy and moral superiority, neither of which can be maintained in a diverse, open, democratic society. I suppose I should pretend there is something unedifying about the spectacle of all these people knifing each other or immolating themselves, but I actually find it hugely entertaining. All we need now is a development that brings them all together, something along the lines of Butler Savages Archbishop in Shock Tory Leadership Bid.

In fact there is a common thread, and it is double standards. Time and again, the majority of Tory MPs and peers reveal themselves to be homophobic and rigidly prescriptive about how adults should organise their private lives. They cannot force us all to be married and heterosexual, but you would think they might have learnt something from Edwina Currie's revelations about her affair with John Major. And yet, egged on by their useless leader, they still take every opportunity to emphasise their distaste for other types of relationships.

The Vatican denounces sex outside marriage, homosexuality, contraception and abortion, yet Murphy-O'Connor has been accused of failing to report the activities of a paedophile priest to the police in the Eighties. By a strange coincidence, Prince Charles also finds himself accused of a cover-up, with fevered speculation last week that the Burrell trial was stopped to prevent evidence emerging about the homosexual rape of one member of his staff by another. It is also clear that much of the Royal Family's declining popularity in recent years stems from its sexist attitudes towards women, about which Diana, Princess of Wales, even after her death, continues to remind us.

The old combination of conservative public morality and private licence just doesn't cut it any more. Few of us care whether people are single or married, gay or straight, as long as they behave decently to each other and to children. Deference is on the way out and if politicians, bishops and royals don't adapt, they are doomed. They deserve to end up in a holiday camp out of season, with no one to talk to but each other.