A symbolic moment that should herald the modernising of monarchy

If there is one point that ardent monarchists and fervent republicans can agree on, it is that the funeral of the Queen Mother today is a significant moment in the evolving relationship between crown and people. It marks, symbolically, the passing of a certain older, "magical" conception of monarchy.

It also highlights how divided we are as a nation. The length of the queues waiting to pay their respects at the Queen Mother's lying-in-state should remind us that there is still a sizeable monarchist constituency in "middle England", despite the continuing indifference displayed by many. Our NOP poll, reported today, suggests that a small majority of us want to see the monarchy continue unchanged. But it also confirms that one in three would like to see radical reform and that one in eight of us want to see the monarchy abolished. There are loyal subjects willing to wrap themselves in aluminium foil outside Westminster Hall to say "goodbye" to the Queen Mother, just as there are militant republican citizens who want to say goodbye and good riddance to the whole institution. That is why, as the BBC painfully discovered, gauging the mood of the nation is difficult.

The monarchy is an important institution, still endowed with certain vestigial but significant political powers. As with all our constitutional arrangements, it would be best if the monarchy could garner a consensus about its role, status and functions. All the more reason, then, why we should look forward to a period of debate about what kind of monarchy the nation wants, or even needs.

This time it is Buckingham Palace that seems to want to take the initiative. Most notably in the Queen's broadcast yesterday, we have witnessed the Palace showing a much surer touch with regard to public opinion than was displayed, for example, at the time of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997. It betokens a welcome awareness on the part of the royal household that they rule only by the consent of the people.

With the passing of the Queen Mother, an essentially conservative figure, some more ambitious reforms are being contemplated. Lord Luce, the Lord Chamberlain, is, we learn, to present a sort of "annual report" on the monarchy later this year as part of a package of modernising reforms that will also consider equal rights of succession for Catholics and women, and the royal finances.

All very welcome moves, but not sufficient, we suspect, to move the monarchy into anything like the position of public respect that it enjoyed before the 1980s, let alone the 1950s. That, however, is in any case the wrong "target". We suspect that the British royal family would do better to emulate the "bicycling monarchies" of Europe to see how a modernised monarchy can act as a national focus in much more egalitarian-minded societies than Britain. It might also be added that the Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Dutch monarchies have withstood much stronger and sustained republican movements in their time than the House of Windsor has had to cope with.

Stripped of any political role and free to marry "commoners" (oh, how we long to see that term fall from circulation), the European royal families seem to have been liberated from some of the more absurd behavioural constraints we place upon members of our own. There should be a further rationalisation of the Civil List. And we should be clear about which of the "royal" assets – palaces, castles, land, jewels, art, furniture and all the rest – rightly belong to the state rather than the Royal Family personally.

As our poll indicates, there is no great popular demand for an elected president, but there is a continuing sense that the remnants of the old "magical" monarchy are out of step with democratic values. The process of modernisation must proceed apace.