QUENTIN LETTS: Left wingers consider themselves virtuous. But the hateful reaction of so many to Charles' illness shows that they are the ones filled with hatred

Twenty-five minutes was all the left needed to politicize the king's cancer.

Quick work, guys. A political activist called John Smith was first to the draw, taking to X (formerly Twitter) to complain that the monarch was not on an NHS waiting list. Smith went on to denounce “the financing of public health care done by neoliberal governments to enrich the 1 percent to which the King belongs.”

Fast trigger Smith soon posted another message saying the monarchy was a “cancer on the body politic.” He completed a hat trick of charm with a tweet about his own experience with cancer. “I was also taken by helicopter to my ancestral estate of Sandringham to recuperate with a household of servants at my beck and call,” wrote Comrade Smith with heavy sarcasm.

He wasn't the only one curling a lip. Kevin Maguire of The Daily Mirror, who happens to be an old friend of mine, published a comment on social media that 'two in five cancer patients referred urgently by a GP do not start treatment within the two-month target NHS. I wish King Charles a full recovery, but we cannot ignore the fact that many others are not as privileged or fortunate.”

Ava Evans, another left-wing pundit, said this is “a good time to think about statutory sick pay – and about the millions of people who have to keep working while sick because they can't afford not to.” '.

The pressure group Republic, which campaigns for the abolition of the monarchy, responded decently, saying: 'Cancer is a terrible disease and we are sorry to hear of Charles' diagnosis. We wish him a speedy recovery.'

Republic's online followers were less than happy with this civilized response.

While some applauded, others said 'karma is coming his way', 'it's time he abdicates for the good of his health' and 'it's funny because he's potentially the least likable monarch in centuries'. One slug even wrote: 'I need him in tip top shape so he can stand trial for crimes against humanity.'

Well, it's a free country. People should be able to say objectionable things, provided they don't incite violence? As a parliamentary sketchwriter, I would be a terrifying hypocrite if I resisted a little saltiness in political commentary.

Anyway, who really takes offense when a few idiots and attention seekers have said incurable things about our 75 year old Head of State being told that he has a disease that unfortunately affects so many families? Doesn't the frequent occurrence of cancer justify a critical investigation into the king's private treatment?

Or does the sourness of these published views – the desire to turn every personal misfortune into a political cudgel – say something about the authors and their political orientation? Why, in short, are some on the left so wrapped up in everything?

Angela Rayner (pictured last week) described the Tories as 'a bunch of scum' during a speech at a 2021 Labor Party conference

Theresa May once said that the Conservatives were seen as 'the annoying party'. Unlike some, I thought she was right to speak that truth to her party, which seemed perpetually angry at the time. Lately, however, it has become clear that the haters and offenders are more often on the left.

Socialist comedian Jo Brand suggested throwing battery acid in Nigel Farage's face. Angela Rayner called the Tories 'a bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, absolutely despicable'. John McDonnell joked about Conservative MP Esther McVey being lynched. Apologists said these were isolated, misspoken words.

But when the boot is on the other foot and a right-winger makes a joke, as Rishi Sunak did in the House of Commons yesterday with a somewhat tone-deaf comment about transgender self-identification, Labor MPs recoil like goose dowagers and claim that their parliamentary opponents guilty of moral degradation.

What's so maddening is the way leftists portray themselves as “good people” and lay claim to virtuous heights. Their main consideration is usually naked politics. Their application to the case is, in a sense, quite enviable. They never seem to turn off.

Right-wingers are never as focused because they are more individualistic and therefore less good at toeing a party line. So we have to admit that the left is adept at playing a tricky game. But every now and then you feel like sighing, “Oh, please give it a rest.”

Having lost two siblings to cancer in the past six years, should I or should I be angry about the King's quick treatment?

No. I certainly wish the doctors had been as good in treating my sister Penny. She seemed to have overcome breast cancer, but the disease returned. She went to the doctor in pain and was told it was a back injury. Penny, the mother of three fine children, died at the age of 59.

The NHS was little better when my brother Alexander complained of pain in his lower abdomen. It turned out to be colon cancer, but his treatment during the lockdown was far from good. Alexander, one of the strongest guys I knew, died at the age of 62, leaving behind a grief-stricken wife and four wonderful sons.

The king's cancer was detected at a private hospital and he is now receiving the best care and attention. The left wants me to ask: why isn't the privileged so-and-so sitting on a hard chair at an emergency room in Slough? Why doesn't he have a more miserable time? Why? Why? It's not fair!

Well no, I suppose it's not fair, if by fair we mean that everything should have an equal outcome. But life isn't fair. Life can be difficult.

Why did my super-fit siblings die of cancer while I, as fat as an old Labrador, was still alive? Shakespeare's King Lear cradles the body of his dead daughter Cordelia and cries, “Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, and you have no breath at all?” Perhaps it is only human to respond to such sadness.

However, the reaction of our left-wing friends is not driven by sadness. It's politics. It tries to gain political advantage from a diagnosis. A doctor tells a 75-year-old sovereign that he has cancer and these people accuse the supposedly evil Tory government of 'defunding' an NHS that has never received more funding. They spit on Charles' “privilege.”

Sorry, but this outrage is forced. The country is almost unhinged in its relentless devotion to electoral goals. Isn't the greatest privilege of all the privilege of good health?

I'm not a saint. I'm just as likely as the next person to feel abandoned. But when I heard about the king's illness, my brain didn't begin to calculate the electoral advantage. My first reaction was 'bloody cancer'.

The second was, if you can say this without lèse-majesté, 'poor guy'. Anyway, despite his rank. The King is human, just as prone to flaws and bugs as the rest of us. I happen to admire him, even as I accept that it is every citizen's right to campaign against the constitutional monarchy. What's harder to accept is this relentless eye for political coincidence, this galloping, hard-hitting whining of resentment.

Politics are important, of course, but the best politicians understand that there is more to life. “For everything there is a season,” says Ecclesiastes. When a beloved king receives harsh medical news, it should be “a time for casting away stones.” The initial reaction of the anti-monarchists in Republic was sensible. The subsequent bile from some of their supporters, and the rush from others to make political points, ruined that moment of decency.

We close with a return to John Smith, the fiery revolutionary who greeted the king's diagnosis by calling the monarchy a “cancer on the body politic.”

Mr Smith is, as he states on his X handle, the son of Harry Leslie Smith, a writer and political campaigner who was a famous figure in the Labor movement. In other words, without his dead father, poor John would be nobody.

How perfect it is that such a vinegary agitator for republicanism should itself be a beneficiary of the principle of heredity.