The Photo of the Year...

The photo that should be sent to everyone this holiday season to adorn their desks and tables is the one of Prince Charles and his wife Camilla with their astonished expressions when their Rolls Royce limousine on route to the theater was accosted by college students protesting tuition hikes in Great Britain and unkindly uttering "Off with their heads!"

It was a wildly entertaining photo, meant to become as good a holiday tradition for everyone's viewing as Jimmy Stewart's movie "It's A Wonderful Life."

Now, let me repeat part of the facts of that moment: The royals. In their Rolls Royce limousine. On their way to the theater.

And the second part of facts: Students in the street, hoping to afford an education.

Prime Minister Cameron, the current British leader from the political conservative right, is looking more and more like the Herbert Hoover of Great Britain. That means that Liberal Party leader Clegg, whose support was necessary for Cameron to ascend to leadership, is looking more and more irrelevant. For an American comparison, it would be like Cameron is the Republicans and Clegg is Obama. Of course, the royals are the main constituency of the Republican Party which is the 2 percent group of millionaires that the Republicans here so dutifully support, as was the case with the recent proposal for the extension of the Bush tax cut for the wealthy.

Wow, if the Bush tax cut extension for the wealthy does indeed get passed by the Republicans and Obama, despite the protests of progressive Democrats, then someone needs to send around a memo that says, "Got the tax cut again. Bless your lucky stars. And spend like hell." The memo needs to encourage all those millionaires, in the absence of their self-sacrifice for the nation, to do their darnedest to buy another car or two and an extra 3-D TV and some new laptop computers and the latest texting gadgets for their kids in college, to take a trip to Yellowstone Park, to hire another maid and gardener, and to expand that company that hires so many workers. In other words, to spend like crazy so that the economy improves and more middle-class people can find jobs and leave the unemployment lines.

And, of course, that's where it is especially important to include with the memo the photo of the royal distress and surprise of Prince Charles and his wife, as it wouldn't be good if that photo comes to define the future.