Jeremy Paxman: We’re All Monarchists Now – Even Me

Jeremy Paxman’s book Empire is out now.

'That’s SO cool!" It was an excited 14 year-old speaking. All I had done was to tell her I was going to an event that the Queen would be attending.

This, surely, is one of the big changes of our time. When I was a teenager, I could have thought of few things more uncool than going to see the Queen. Mocking the Royal family was a staple of the 1960s satire boom. Johnny Rotten’s God Save the Queen marked the 1977 Silver Jubilee by comparing her – absurdly – to a "fascist regime". Everyone could stomp to that one. One of the rather priggish boasts of the newly founded Independent newspaper in 1986 was that it stood aside from the whole royal pantomime, and it did quite well out of it for a while. But last week even the Guardian printed a supplement to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee.

In her old age, Queen Elizabeth II is held in an affection which 15 years ago, at the height of the hysteria following the death of Diana, was unimaginable. Now, we all love the Queen and the strangulated protests from republicans just sound like some petulant little boy stomping his feet and saying he hopes it rains on your birthday party.

How did this happen?..