The weekend’s opinion pages provided a mixed offering, with the Queen, Brexit and the Supreme Court all providing talking points. Here is The Herald’s pick of columnists’ offerings.

The Sunday Times
Alex Massie in The Sunday Times offers his opinion on both David Cameron’s and Boris Johnson’s recent interactions with the Queen after Mr Cameron revealed that he asked the monarch for help during the Scottish independence referendum and Mr Johnson was recently found by a court to have misled her.
Mr Massie wrote: “The British constitution is not designed to be stress-tested in this fashion. For it to function it requires a certain suspension of reality; what is known is not necessarily what can be said.
“It only works if everyone agrees to play along with the established conventions. Otherwise, like monarchy itself, it cannot bear the intrusion of too much daylight. Or, indeed, scrutiny.
“That may well change in the years ahead. The Queen is 93. She has reigned for 67 years. At some point, this Elizabethan age must come to an end. I am not sure the country is in any way prepared for what might happen after that.”

The Observer
The Queen was also the topic of choice for Observer columnist Nick Cohen, who claimed that if the monarch can break convention and intervene in the Scottish independence debate, she can also intervene in Brexit.
He wrote: “Johnson exploited the convention that the Queen does what the PM tells her and got his way. But another convention is that she stays out of politics and she has broken that. If she can break one convention, she can break another.
“I am not raising a hypothetical question. The issue could explode this week. When the Supreme Court judges asked what the Government would do if it found suspending Parliament was unlawful, Johnson’s lawyers said: ‘Depending on the court’s reasoning, it would still either be open or not open to the Prime Minister to consider a further prorogation.’” 
“Cummings has said that he would happily send Jacob Rees-Mogg off to tell the Queen to close Parliament a second time.
“If she agrees to suspend Parliament twice it will be 
political. If she refuses it will be political. There’s no escaping the politics.”

The Mail on Sunday
Peter Hitchens claimed in the Mail on Sunday that last week’s Supreme Court hearing on whether or not Boris Johnson’s suspension of Parliament was lawful or not was “absurd”.
“There is no law, no precedent,” he wrote. “Within our constitution, Prime Ministers can do this sort of thing and often it will be right and necessary.
“You might as well get the Supreme Court to rule on whether the red wines of Burgundy are better than those of Bordeaux. The judges could have a lot of fun examining the matter. But their opinion, at the end, would be worth nothing.” He added: “And so we see from the ‘evidence’ presented at this gathering of learned kangaroos. It’s all opinions.
“Ten thousand brilliant legal brains could not read Mr Johnson’s mind or prove that he misled the Queen, and Her Majesty is certainly not going to give them any evidence on that score.
“I just hope the ‘Supreme Court’ will have the sense to recognise this and throw the whole thing out. But in such frightening times as these, I can’t be sure. Our whole tradition of fair, wise government is tottering, and I am not convinced it can survive these games.”

Scotland on Sunday
In the Scotland on Sunday, writer Euan McColm praised Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson for her commitment to revoking Article 50 and stopping Brexit. While others have criticised the move and claimed it is undemocratic, Mr McColm claimed it makes “perfect political sense”.
He wrote: “Of course, people who cling to the belief that Brexit will mean a great national liberation are not going to like Swinson’s policy. Of course, they are going to attack it. But it is not, no matter how loudly they screech, undemocratic.
“In order for the LibDems to be able to revoke Article 50 and stop Brexit in its tracks, the party would have to win a majority at the next General Election. Swinson would require a democratic mandate to do what she wants.”
He added: “So far as I can see, Brexit shows no sign of becoming less important to the electorate. And while this is so, Swinson is quite right to take a hard Remain position. If ever there was a time to pick a side, it is now.”