Look, it was only a jubilee

Five years ago, the House of Windsor trembled as thousands mourned the death of its most popular member: Diana, Princess of Wales. Silent crowds lined the Mall and placed flowers outside Kensington Palace, paying tribute to a woman they believed had been wronged by a snobbish, out-of-touch Royal Family. The Queen and Prince Charles were singled out for not displaying sufficient grief for the "people's Princess", as she had been newly dubbed by Tony Blair. Some of our more excitable commentators even hailed the public response to Diana's death as a republican moment, an idea I poured scorn on at the time.

I am no more convinced, after a few days of flag-waving and processions, that the monarchy has regained the seemingly impregnable position it once had in the national psyche. More people turned out for the Golden Jubilee than the sceptics – myself included – predicted, but that was before two bereavements produced a wave of sympathy for the Royal Family. The English are a deeply sentimental nation and they also have very short memories. The funeral of an elderly former Queen, even one who was criticised in the early 1990s for her unsympathetic attitude towards her grandson's wife, was quite enough to make lots of people feel more warmly towards the present monarch and her relations.

Lots of people, but by no means all. The reporting of royal events in this country is lazy, predictable and sometimes downright dishonest; reporters and TV crews go to places where parties and parades are scheduled to take place, the centre of London or villages where fêtes are being run by determined self-publicists, and ignore millions of people who are simply enjoying a day off work. I have seen many streets without a single piece of bunting, and it seems likely that some of the national flags hanging from windows and car aerials are there to show support for the England team in the World Cup rather than the Queen. I recently saw something similar in Lebanon, where people love football but do not, as far as I know, have a passionate attachment to the British Royal Family.

My guess is that support for the monarchy is wide and shallow, rather like the enthusiasm that greeted Tony Blair's general election victory in 1997 – and think of where he now stands in people's affections. It ebbs and flows in relation to events, only some of which are within the Royal Family's control. There is no doubt that the Queen and her advisers are adept at exploiting ceremonies and anniversaries, with the craven support of organisations such as the BBC, which ditch proper news values for the duration; it would not have surprised me to hear one of the corporation's bulletins begin last week with the news that the Queen had changed her hat, followed by an announcement that an Indian missile had nuked Karachi.

Establishment values may not be so widely shared as they once were in this country, but its institutions remain pathetically eager to display deference. There is also a repellent eagerness to stifle dissent, exemplified by the abuse heaped on republicans last week. This is an advance on the days when the Labour MP Willie Hamilton was mocked as a lone eccentric for criticising the Queen but also no more than I would expect, given that there are no intellectually coherent arguments for monarchy. That is why royalists are reduced to boasting that they outnumber republicans – not an argument at all, unless you believe that sufficient people could also determine that the moon is made of green cheese – or muttering that having a hereditary head of state is better than the French or American systems.

This ignores not just other options but the fact that the present heir to the throne, widely vilified as the man who cheated on the Princess, would have made a hugely unpopular king if his mother had expired in 1997. The Jubilee is being misinterpreted in much the same way as the reaction to Diana's funeral, and predictions based on it may come to look just as silly. The other difficulty for monarchists has only been emphasised by the recent celebrations. If the Windsors themselves are dull, look at their most prominent supporters: Charles Moore, Tony Blair, Cliff Richard, Emma Bunton and Paul McCartney all got it out for the Queen last week. Being a royalist is just so unsexy.