ANDREW NEIL: The Queen was the glue that bound the United Kingdom together when others conspired to tear it apart. With her passing, I fear for the Union
She was the glue that held our nation together for as long as most of us can remember. Through war and peace, social revolution and consolidation, separatist challenges and national unity, here-today, gone-tomorrow politicians (including her 15 prime ministers), from Empire to Commonwealth.
From class-bound, dowdy post-war decline to increasingly fluid diversity and dynamism. She was the rock when all around us was changing and in perplexing flux: a familiar, reassuring, permanent presence as the country’s leaders, celebrities, friends and enemies came and went.
With her gone, the risk of becoming unstuck and falling apart on so many fronts is all the greater.
It was not ordained that she would end her days so universally revered. As our young Queen in the 1950s, thrown on to the throne by the premature death, at only 56, of her beloved father, George VI, she was adored.
But in middle age she was somewhat ignored, seen as behind the times and overshadowed by the glamour and high jinks of younger royals, whose shenanigans commandeered the limelight.
ANDREW NEIL: She was the glue that held our nation together for as long as most of us can remember. Through war and peace, social revolution and consolidation, separatist challenges and national unity, here-today, gone-tomorrow politicians (including her 15 prime ministers), from Empire to Commonwealth. The Queen is pictured here with Nicola Sturgeon at Buckingham Palace in 2014
The Scottish Nationalists were never sure how to handle the Queen in their bid to break up the Union. Pictured: First Minister Nicola Sturgeon reads a statement at Bute House, Edinburgh, following the announcement of the death of Queen Elizabeth II
In old age, however, she became loved as never before. She has passed away with her reputation never higher, not just in the UK but across the globe.
Perhaps that’s because the stability and reassurance she represented became more appreciated the longer she was on the throne, especially in a world of often bewildering change.
But it was also because the longer she lived the more her undying, lifelong commitment to Christian public service became apparent — and could not be gainsaid.
Indeed, the longer she lived, the more necessary to our national wellbeing she seemed to become.
‘We’ll meet again,’ she assured us only two years ago when the pandemic was at its most scary, echoing words from Vera Lynn’s iconic ballad, which helped shepherd the Queen’s generation through World War II.
The Nationalists will never forgive her for warning just before the 2014 vote that people should ‘think very carefully’ before casting their ballots. The Scots did think very carefully — and voted to remain in the Union
It was oddly reassuring — more so than anything the politicians or experts had to tell us at the time. She had spoken as the nation’s grandmother. It was no surprise that her words were soon being broadcast around the world.
She lived a life of immense privilege, of course. But it was also a life of simplicity and service, of unglamorous charities, dull public duties and flattering tedious jobsworths.
She was the world’s most famous monarch, head of a grand dynasty. But she also kept her cornflakes in Tupperware and sat in front of a small two-bar electric fire.
The Queen waits in the Drawing Room before receiving Liz Truss for an audience at Balmoral, Scotland on Tuesday
Not for her holidays on billionaires’ yachts or lifts to exotic places on celebrities’ private jets, to which the younger royals have fallen prey. She much preferred the solitude and drizzle of beautiful Balmoral to any of that.
Republicans could attack the institution of monarchy, often with some justification.
But few were foolhardy enough to attack the Queen. There was no mileage in that. Some will think that, with her gone, their time might yet come. Her touch was not always certain. She misjudged the national mood in the days after Princess Diana’s death, remaining invisible in her Balmoral bolthole as the nation was consumed with grief and wanted to hear from their Queen.
I broadcasted regularly from outside Buckingham Palace in the days after Diana’s death and I can testify that the mood at the gates was bordering on the incendiary, with mounting anger not just because the Queen was invisible at a time of national morning, but because the Palace would not fly the flag at half-mast.
She was the world’s most famous monarch, head of a grand dynasty. But she also kept her cornflakes in Tupperware and sat in front of a small two-bar electric fire. Pictured: The death of The Queen was announced at 6.30pm today via the Royal Family’s official Twitter account
It is one of the ironies of the time that it was Prime Minister Tony Blair and his senior aides, republican-minded all, who persuaded her that she had to return to London and address the country in words they skilfully helped to craft.
It saved the monarchy from a very dangerous moment.
There was perhaps too much Germanic aloofness in her parenting. On one occasion, after returning from a long tour of the Commonwealth, she appeared to greet toddler Charles with a handshake on the platform at a London station.
‘Why didn’t she give him a hug?’ I remember my mother shouting at the TV. Clearly we were still some way off the more tactile Age of Diana.
Whatever her shortcomings as a parent, she did not deserve the grief her offspring and their spouses regularly caused her. There were times when she must have been baffled by their self-centred, preening, destructive behaviour. But she never let it show.
If she was our rock, Prince Philip was hers. In family matters and matters of state, she always listened to what he had to say and invariably followed his advice. It is no coincidence that her health began visibly to deteriorate in the aftermath of his death.
In a long lifetime of achievements, I would single out two in particular: her symbolic role in keeping the four nations of the United Kingdom together when so much was conspiring to tear it apart; and her essential role in transforming the Empire into the Commonwealth.
The Queen evolved with the country through her long reign. She was our incalculable national asset, even if at times we did not appreciate it. The Queen is seen on the balcony of Buckingham Palace at the end of the Platinum Jubilee pageant in June with her son Prince Charles, Camilla, Prince William, the Duchess of Cambridge and Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis
The Scottish Nationalists were never sure how to handle the Queen in their bid to break up the Union. They eventually affected to ditch their republicanism and settled on giving her the title Queen of Scots, implying that she would remain Scotland’s head of state even after independence.
Anybody who knew the rabidly republican SNP realised this was just a subterfuge to get through the 2014 independence referendum and that, if Scotland did vote to separate, the Queen would not long remain head of state north of the border.
The Nationalists will never forgive her for warning just before the 2014 vote that people should ‘think very carefully’ before casting their ballots. The Scots did think very carefully — and voted to remain in the Union.
The Queen is more Scottish than English. It is fitting that she has died in her beloved Balmoral. It is concerning that the Union is probably in more jeopardy now she is gone. King Charles will love Scotland just as much as the Queen. But he simply doesn’t have her authority.
As so much conspires to tear us apart — with the stupidities of social media enhancing what divides rather than unites us — we will miss the Queen’s unifying and calming presence. Her death sparked an immediate and huge outpouring of emotion, with thousands of mourners gathering outside the gates of Buckingham Palace this evening (pictured)
The Commonwealth has suffered a great loss, too. It’s no exaggeration to say it might well have withered and died but for the Queen’s constant care and attention. No other empire in world history has ever transformed itself into a voluntary alliance of free nations. But thanks to the Queen, the British Empire did.
She lavished care and attention on the leaders of newly independent nations, making them feel wanted and important, when Britain’s politicians blew hot and cold on the Commonwealth, more interested in America and Europe. She made them feel like equals in the post-colonial age.
The fact it developed into the world’s greatest multi-ethnic gathering of nations is largely down to the Queen. Without her it could all have dissipated in post-colonial wrangling. Instead even countries that were not part of the British Empire — Namibia, Mozambique, Rwanda — queued up to join.
Indeed, the longer she lived, the more necessary to our national wellbeing she seemed to become. Pictured: First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford reads a statement following the death of the Queen
It will be harder — though not impossible — to keep it together with the Queen gone. Again, King Charles will work hard to keep the Commonwealth vibrant and relevant. But he lacks the Queen’s authority or hinterland.
The Queen was only the Commonwealth’s figurehead but without her we will discover just how important a figurehead she was. Some Commonwealth leaders will conclude it no longer matters as much. Others will see an opportunity for change.
My republican friends in Australia knew it was pointless to call another referendum on a republic (they lost the last one) as long as the Queen was still on the throne. They will now feel emboldened to try again.
That the Queen has been pivotal in creating the multi-racial Commonwealth is, I believe, a major reason why she seemed very much at peace with modern Britain, which has changed beyond recognition in the 96 years since she was born. In many ways she has been ahead of her time.
We are not alone. It is a measure of the Queen’s global significance that, as we grieve our great loss, the rest of the world grieves with us. Pictured: Her Majesty’s coronation in Westminster Abbey, June 1953
She has rolled with the changes and been comfortable with them, as we evolved from being an overwhelmingly white country into a nation so diverse that not one white man occupies any of the most important offices of state in Liz Truss’s government — a Conservative one at that. I rather suspect the Queen approved.
The Queen evolved with the country through her long reign. She was our incalculable national asset, even if at times we did not appreciate it. As so much conspires to tear us apart — with the stupidities of social media enhancing what divides rather than unites us — we will miss the Queen’s unifying and calming presence.
We are not alone. It is a measure of the Queen’s global significance that, as we grieve our great loss, the rest of the world grieves with us.
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