"Runs rather counter to the view of folk song as being inherently a counter culture"
Not if the source of that counter culture is answerable to laws which make sure that certain subjects are no-go areas.
Couple this with generation after generation who have been brought up to revere the monarchy on a daily basis (can still remember being forced to stand on the road outside Speke Secondary Modern School in the pissing rain to watch the Queen Mother being driven past at high speed (she didn't even bother to wave to me!) and you have the almost insurmountable combination of conditioning and coercion.
Jim Carroll