Now that we’re all well into the “Diana 25 years on” tributes, it’s perhaps worth exploring one of the more plausible “what ifs” of history: What if the Princess of Wales had not been in the car crash that took her life on the night of the 31 August 1997, in Paris? What if Diana had still been around to enjoy her 60th birthday party last year? What would life have been like for her and the monarchy over the last quarter century or so?
In the first place, the monarchy as an institution would not have undergone the sudden and massive loss of popularity it suffered in the aftermath of her death, a time when even the most slavishly royalist elements of the press and public started to wonder whether the Queen and the rest of the firm had lost their touch.
