But it didn’t really work. Rage at the Dominic Cummings affair, the government’s mishandling of the pandemic and COVID-cronyism (a term we believe openDemocracy invented) swept over the government. If it weren’t for a flaccid Labour leader, the fury could have capsized Johnson.

The establishment was temporarily saved by a different British institution; the NHS took control of the vaccine roll-out. The reassuring hands of tens of thousands of nurses got a grip of the situation, and the polls bounced.

But the ruling class is clever enough to understand that a year of lockdown, sickness and death means an ocean of pent-up energy. ‘Kill the Bill’ protests across England and riots in Northern Ireland are likely to just be the start of a long, hot summer of post-lockdown protests.

And so for them, Philip’s death was timely. It provides, they seem to hope, an official outlet for grief, a space to construct a national moment where we can all cry together and mourn together and then move on; a symbolic end to a disastrous year and a chance to unite with those who chose to risk our actual grandparents’ lives for the sake of their donor’s profits.

But it seems that they’ve misjudged it. Of course every death is a tragedy, but in a year that nonagenarians have been sacrificed to the gods of the market, a 99-year-old dying in comfort doesn’t feel any more tragic than every other death. Where are the John Lewis banner adverts for everyone else’s grandparents? Where is the week of mourning for the country?

The same ruling class has got this wrong before: they tried to downplay the death of Diana, and faced a revolt. They tried to enforce a victory parade after WWI, and faced off a revolution. It doesn’t surprise me much that a group of people whose defining childhood experience was being sent to boarding school doesn’t really have a feel for this sort of thing.

At some point in the coming days, the UK will pass 150,000 deaths with COVID on the certificate. Each of those lives was special and important. And Philip – equally special, equally important, but no more so – wasn’t a metaphor for any of them. When this is over, we do need to grieve as a nation. But we also need to be able to feel our anger, and direct it at those who deserve it.

This post was originally published on Radio Free.