We need a new word, one that means more than twee but less than naff. It should combine affectionate understanding with mild regret and probably a host of other emotions somewhere between pride and disappointment. The word I’m looking for would describe my feelings — and, I suspect, those of many others, when facing contemporary royal celebrations.

For most of us who are monarchists, attachment to the institution is, like the Queen herself, an undemonstrative thing. We’re pleased, in so far as we ever give it much thought, that our country has been blessed with constitutional stability for 300 years. We’re rather chuffed that our head of state, in so far as she ever intrudes into our thoughts, is an unshowy, unfussy, unchic woman of plain public tastes and formulaic dress sense devoted to traditional English recreations. And we’re genuinely grateful that in the long years she’s been in the public eye, the Queen has never done or said anything to undermine her position. Through a mixture of restraint, a sense of proportion, dignity, silence, a highly developed vision of duty, tradition, horse sense, practical Anglicanism and proper patriotism, the Queen has always refrained from following fashion or crowd-pleasing gestures. Which is, of course, why there are always delighted crowds wherever she goes.

Yet whenever there is an opportunity to mark Her Majesty’s popularity, there are now always moments that, to my ears, jar. Watching last year’s Royal Variety Performance, I winced when the otherwise brilliant Catherine Tate asked the Queen: “Is one bovvered? Does one’s face look bovvered?” A few years earlier, at the celebrations in Buckingham Palace for the Golden Jubilee, I couldn’t help thinking that there was something rather forced and out of key about Brian May playing God save the Queen on electric guitar perched on the palace roof. It was nothing to do with May’s musicianship; it was just the incongruity of using a quintessentially 1980s rock star to stage a stylistic echo of Jimi Hendrix as a means of celebrating 50 years of dynastic continuity. And in the celebrations we’ve just enjoyed for the Queen’s 80th birthday, I couldn’t quite force a smile to my lips when I watched the band of the Irish Guards playing Happy Birthday, any more than I could feel that staging a specially written children’s drama featuring Noddy, Bob the Builder and Mrs Tiggywinkle in Buckingham Palace grounds this June was the best way to introduce the next generation to the magic of monarchy.

Perhaps I’m ageing prematurely, my features already set in the po-faced mask of a humourless crusty before I’m 40, but these efforts to make royal celebrations more accessible strike me as uncomfortably close to naff, and in some cases dangerously near to twee. The apogee, or perhaps that should be nadir, of attempts to mix monarchy with popular culture came with the well-intentioned but tragically contrived It’s A Royal Knockout of 1987. One would have thought that that experience might have inoculated the Palace against tweeness and naffness in all its varieties. But while nothing on that scale has ever, wisely, been attempted, the belief that the monarchy needs to be associated with popular culture to maintain its relevance and appeal persists.

But the truth is that the monarchy, and in particular the Queen’s popularity, resides in, among many other things, her shrewd and obstinate reluctance to play by the same media rules as other public figures. Unlike pampered celebrities who want to maintain a bond with their fans, even as their success distances them from their roots, she doesn’t need to show us that, despite her wealth and status, she really shares our tastes. Because her whole life has been built on principles of restraint and modesty, we do not resent her residual privileges. And unlike stars who need to refresh their act, or maintain their relevance, by self-consciously moving with the times, recording with younger artists, submitting to plastic surgery or appearing in The Simpsons, the Queen doesn’t need any external validation from what is popular this week. The monarchy speaks to our desire for stability, continuity and reassurance at a time of restless change, and if it becomes a part of the giddy, superficial whirl, it loses its special value, in the same way that religion loses its universal relevance when it tries too hard to accommodate itself to the spirit of the age.

My birthday wish for the Queen is quite simple then. Just as she has brought us stability, dignity and continuity, let us ensure that those qualities mark every future celebration of her reign.

New masters of improbable improv

At the end of BBC Two’s Mock the Week the performers must improvise the most inappropriate response to an event. The answers are usually inspired. Whether it’s the speech you should never give at the Oscars (“Can I begin by thanking President Bush for keeping our country safe and salute the National Rifle Association for its good work . . .”), or what you should never ask at Prime Minister’s Questions (“Can I ask the Prime Minister, is that a pistol in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see Hazel Blears in her place?”).

I’m starting to wonder if life is imitating art. The competition to think of the most inappropriate thing to say or do in any set of circumstances just got harder. With Patricia Hewitt greeting the sacking of thousands of nurses by proclaiming that the NHS has had its best year ever, the sports minister giving lottery money to the world’s richest football club and workers at a Bernard Matthews turkey farm in Norfolk playing rounders with live birds, it’ s hard to conceive of where the boundaries of satire can now be drawn.

Who's tops in tales?

Last week I set a test for hands-on dads: what comes after “A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood”? What is the difference between Stingo and Bumble? Until what time do bunnies sleep? The answers are: “A fox saw the mouse, and the mouse looked good”; Stingo is a wasp, Bumble a bee; and bunnies sleep until nearly noon. To pass you’d have to be familiar with The Gruffalo, Fifi and The Flowertots and the lyrics of See The Bunnies Sleeping. The person who came up with correct answers most quickly was a Tory parliamentary colleague from the 2005 intake. But I rather expected a Labour minister to be swiftest off the mark regarding The Gruffalo: after all, telling fairytales is now the Government’s area of expertise.

The author is Conservative MP for Surrey Heath.

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