Conrad Black’s farewell to the British press

The astonishing level of enthusiasm over the birth of the new prince goes far beyond the pleasure that people naturally feel for an attractive young couple who have had a healthy child. If there is any truth at all to these estimates in the North American media that trinkets and other bric-a-brac, and even increased numbers of tourists, will produce hundreds of millions of pounds for the British economy, the answer lies not just in normal goodwill and the effusions of the most strenuous monarchists. If my memory is accurate,  the last time there was so much public interest in a royal event, albeit of the exactly opposite nature, was at the death of the newborn prince’s paternal grandmother, Diana. How implausible, the widespread predictions of the demise of the monarchy around that time seem now.

Diana was running a parallel monarchy and the combination of her talent at manipulating the media and the mischievous pleasure of much of the press at disconcerting the royal family, and the gaffes some royals made, incited the belief that the institution was no longer on a firm foundation.