A new member of the royal family was born on 17th December – James, the son of Edward and Sophie, who will also be known as Viscount Severn. His birth may not have registered much on your consciousness, but it has caused a rearrangement in the line of succession to the throne. His older sister Louise, and all the royals below her, have been bumped down one place because of male primogeniture that means that male royal heirs take preference over their female siblings. James is now 8th in line, Louise is 9th and Princess Anne is 10th, below her brothers and their children just because she is female.

So what? It’s a law that affects so few people, does it matter? Lynne Featherstone, Lib Dem MP for Hornsey and Wood Green and their Youth and Equality spokesperson, argues that essentially this law says that the UK believes that men are more important than women and she has referred the monarchy to the Equalities Commission. You can read more about it on her blog here. She argues that ‘there is little hope of bringing full equality to the workplace if we can't bring equality to the highest office in the land. Any practice that is based on the idea of making do with a woman until a man comes along must be consigned to the history books.’