Peter Bills: Pound struggling but royals having sterling year

Queen Elizabeth II and Irish President Mary McAleese in Dublin. Photo / Getty Images

The poor old British £ limps on, like a battered ship in a heavy sea. The heavily indebted people have stumbled upon the only possible solution to their monetary crisis in a land where costs have risen to frightening levels - borrow more.

Yet it's been a good month for one British citizen. The Queen is positively glowing. At 85, she is receiving rave reviews for her calm, measured performance in what was potentially a minefield of a recent diplomatic visit to Ireland, and her sheer indefatigability.

Most elderly ladies of 85 have long since put their feet up and brewed a cup of tea. Granted, she doesn't have to do the latter but she certainly shows few signs of doing the former.

No sooner had she flown home from what was a highly successful four-day visit to Ireland, than she was preparing for the visit of the United States President, Barack Obama. He arrived in London last week and headed straight for Buckingham Palace to visit the Queen and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.

It was a friendship renewed from their last meeting a year or so back when Michelle Obama, quelle catastrophe, broke protocol by putting her arm around the Queen's back. The fussy, crusty old colonels and ladies-in-waiting to whom these things matter in royal circles were shocked by what they regarded as such an overt breach of protocol. But the Queen didn't seem to mind too much - she just smiled.

The fact is, the British Royal Family has had a very good month or two indeed. Prince William's wedding to Kate Middleton was hugely well received for the fact that it wasn't a gathering solely of toffee-nosed individuals with the riff-raff kept well back and out of sight.

William and his new bride are in no doubt as to their position of eminence in British royal circles. Yet they appear to have a common touch. They seem more than happy being away from all the panoply and trappings of privilege; just mucking about with friends, or having a pint in a country pub or similar activities.

It might be stretching the imagination to think that, in these enlightened times, you might bump into Her Majesty quietly supping a pint of Guinness in the snug bar of the old Queen's Head down the Wapping High St in East London. But the point still applies. The British Royal Family have had some good press because of all the members of this elongated gathering, Her Majesty and Prince William, the new Duke of Cambridge, have shown themselves as something other than stuck-up prigs who look down sneeringly on all those who fawn and wait upon them.

The Queen's visit to Ireland undoubtedly moved Anglo-Irish relations forward by a quantum leap. Irish friends of mine who still recalled the anniversary of British massacres in Ireland, like 1698, confessed they had been impressed by this particular old lady's show of remorse for all victims of the Irish troubles.

The Queen did not bow and scrape, there was no apologising. She doesn't do that. But she did give the very vivid impression of expressing the remorse of all British people that so many Irish men and women, children and families had suffered for too long because of the enmity between the British and Irish.

Her unspoken message was as clear as a summer sky: it is time not to forget, but to move on to a new era. She could not have done such a delicate job better.

Likewise the impression Prince William continues to give that, as the son of his mother, he is far more pragmatic and down-to-earth than most past royals. Particularly his father whom, it is alleged, still demands that servants squeeze toothpaste on to his toothbrush at night before he actually puts it into his mouth.

Charles is largely disliked in Britain, regarded as daft and antiquated, and still blamed for his appalling treatment of the late Diana, Princess of Wales and the crass cynicism that accompanied it.

It is fortunate for the British monarchy that his mother and both his sons are widely popular and seen as the true embodiment of the type of monarchy Britain needs in the 21st century.

Some have suggested the crown should pass directly from the Queen to Prince William. There is not the slightest chance of that happening. That is protocol that will not be broken. But the coming of William as King once his grandmother and father have gone could be the best news possible for the long-term health of the British crown.