LONDON -- This is proving to a wretched winter for two of Britain's most hallowed institutions. The reasons say much about the way the country has changed -- and is changing.
The most headline-grabbing event has been the fallout from the collapse of the trail of a former royal butler accused of stealing effects of the late Princess Diana. This case collapsed when Queen Elizabeth recalled that he had told her what he was doing. But the real damage was done when one leading tabloid newspaper, the Daily Mirror, bought the butler's story -- and its archrival, the Sun, devoted its considerable energies to doing down the butler.
The result has been a stream of multiple page splashes about the royal family that have reflected badly on the House of Windsor. The details may or may not be accurate, and much of the tabloid copy is, at best, secondhand. But the overall effect has been to diminish further the standing of the royal family at the end of the queen's Jubilee Year during which it had hoped to resurrect itself from the rows and revelations of recent years.