Yesterday was the first day of official mourning for the death of Queen Elizabeth II. The difference between how the ‘great and good’ and the ordinary people expressed their grief could not have been greater. Dour MSM, especially the ‘comment piece writers’, deserve a dishonourable mention. Even now they cannot stop telling us how they feel and that “we” must feel just like they do.
There was the official tribute of MPs in the HoC – no, I didn’t watch it, the photos of the whole place full to the rafters with everyone clad in unrelieved black was quite sufficient. The former PMs, Johnson and T.May, apparently gave good speeches. The DT has a video on their paywalled site, but I’m sure you can find it on youtube. Later today there will also be the televised decision of the Accession council which must give their placet to the new King.
There was also the first address to the Nation by King Charles III (link) which was beamed to the huge congregation at St Paul’s, attending the first memorial service. Needless to say that the Westminster opinion piece writers are in full interpretation mode (e.g. link, paywalled). Clearly, even now they believe that we stupid people wouldn’t understand anything unless they explain from their great height what it all means.
Interestingly, hardly anything has been made of the announcement of various Trade Union Bosses that they are suspending their strikes. Together with the moving images of crowds in London and Windsor laying down bunches of flowers in masses, with mourners showing the diversity so praised by our anti-racist commentariat, with so many mourners being young, definitely not ‘old white women’, I wonder why a certain former Labour PM hasn’t yet declared that Queen Elizabeth II was ‘the people’s Queen’.
I won’t mention the unspeakable comments on social media, especially those coming from woke US ‘intelligentsia’. Unsurprisingly, many comments posted on blogs and below reports in the foreign press, especially in the USA and Germany, reflect a deeply anti-monarchy attitude.
Together with the first ‘analyses’ and predictions regarding King Charles – ‘he’ll be bad because he’s a globalist’ – they demonstrate one striking fact: all those writers haven’t got the slightest inkling about how our Constitutional Monarchy works. They all, without exception, regard both the Queen and now the King as secret tyrants who have and will pressure their hapless PMs and politicians into implementing a secret agenda. Why that is wrong would demand a long essay.
One country seems to understand though: France. In the following I quote at length from the sadly paywalled comment piece in the DT, titled: “Elizabeth II embodied a monarchy France never had – French kings did not do humility. That’s why France is devastated by her death” (paywalled link). The author is the French journalist Anne-Elizabeth Moutet.
Why is it that this French journalist has a better grasp of what our monarchy meant? She isn’t pontificating about what we ought to think and how we ought to look at our monarchy and our Queen. Instead we read:
““We loved her so much”, Le Parisien tabloid splashed on a full-page picture of HM the Queen this Friday morning; and for once, it was not hyperbole. The French are devastated by the death of Elizabeth II. Politicians of all stripes expressed their respect and sense of loss with a rare grace, starting with Emmanuel Macron who for once found les mots justes, in a short, heartfelt message en Anglais to the British people. “To you, she was your Queen. To us, she was The Queen. She will be with all of us forever.” The Élysée flew the Union flag next to the tricolour. The Eiffel Tower went black.
But it wasn’t just officialdom. Ordinary citizens, who for years gave any programme on the Royal family huge viewing ratings, have been talking of little else. 6 million watched Prince Philip’s stark funeral a St George’s Chapel last year. Close to 10 million followed the 2011 and 2018 Royal weddings.”(paywalled link)
Ms Moutet next describes the reactions of her friends and colleagues, all sad, shocked, deeply touched and touching. This segment is followed by an interesting observation
“British commentators were quick to point out that to us French, the Queen represented the best parts of the monarchy we lost. But that’s a misreading. We don’t regret our untender, absolutist, rash or conniving kings – and those were the best ones. Elizabeth II did not embody a system we lost so much as the monarchy we never had. Our Kings did not do humility (and to be fair, we might not have respected them if they did.)” (paywalled link)
Ms Moutet compares the Queen with one French King, Henry IV, a comparison I appreciated because, as avid reader of the novels by Alexandre Dumas, I’ve had a soft spot for that King:
“The exception was Henri IV, the beloved former Protestant, converted to Catholicism who ended the savagery of the Wars of Religion in France, who famously said he wanted every French family to be able to “put a chicken on the table each Sunday”, a modest dream of “affluence” after years of massacres. Approachable, happy to greet visitors while on the floor playing with his children, he’s the only of our monarchs who shared with the Queen humility and dedication to the common good: for his pains, he was assassinated by a fanatic in 1610. His successors learned that lesson too well.” (paywalled link)
After this historical reminiscence Ms Moutet turns to the present, the one embodied until Thursday by the Queen:
“Of course we were delighted that the Queen loved France, visited our country more often than any other, bought horses at Chantilly and raced them at Longchamp; that she spoke excellent French and welcomed our awestruck visiting presidents with a twinkle in the eye, as if to let them know – the Sarkozys and Hollandes and Macrons – that it was both serious and a bit of a joke, but she at least would not have to face new elections soon. Did them good, we thought, because we both welcome and reject authority (which she had) and pompousness (which she hadn’t.) […] Even your unions postpone strikes to respect and share in your grief. We’d never seen someone like her, and we never will again. But we feel, as a last gift, that she’s brought us French and Britons closer than we’ve been for years.” (paywalled link)
Unlike our esteemed opinion piece writers, Ms Moutet has grasped that here and across the Channel it’s the ordinary people who have shown their sadness and grief in simple gestures, untutored by ‘nudges’ and ‘advice’ from the elites here in Westminster, there in Paris.
It is something those ‘elites’ who scoff and sneer at us better remember in the coming months and years. For the coming days of mourning we’ll have to put up with them when we watch the events around the Accession council proclaiming the new King, when we watch the state funeral for our Queen even though more and more of us have dropped watching TV and reading the MSM.
Neither they nor the social media’s incessant drumbeat of wokery and sneering seem to have had an effect on ordinary people, clearly shown by the many of ‘generation smartphone’ who came to express their grief, laying down flowers, showing their support for the new king.
I would like to think that this bodes well for the future.
I was watching/listening to Nigel Farage on GB News this evening as I normally do, but I had to switch it off as the coverage of the present situation is miles over the top. Farage said quite rightly that the Premier League should have played their matches today as the Queen would have wanted sport to continue, and not just the Premier League was cancelled but all Football League and National Leagues matches were cancelled as well, as they were in Scotland as well. However, how about GB News carrying on as normal rather than this wall to wall coverage which is repeated throughout the day. By all means report the important events surrounding the death of HM Queen Elizabeth 11 and the Assension of HM King Charles III, but to have this around the clock and asking the public how they feel etc is becoming OTT. And to cap it all with reference to Prince William and Princess of Wales coming out with Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex to look at the wreaths, a GB reporter called them the Fab Four. I mean this nonsense is what we might expect from the BBC not from GB News which was supposed to be different, and at that point I had to switch off.
You were not alone and Talk TV along with most of the ‘independents’ which were just the same.
I read that Moutet piece this morning. It stood out as a breath of fresh air. So, glad to see it quoted at length here. The brilliant key phrase, and not just for the French, is this: “Elizabeth II did not embody a system we lost so much as the monarchy we never had.”
I watched the Accession ceremony at the Privy Council (and then the proclamation). Sadiq Khan was present. (He used to be Minister for Transport in 2009.) Turned my stomach though I enjoyed Sturgeon signing as a witness to the oath on the Church of Scotland.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-10111893/The-Queen-not-afraid-softer-zingy-wit.html
Harryagain……..and as clicked onto that link I was waiting in trepidation to read that YOU had in fact made that marmalade sandwich for the Queen, but alas no you didn’t.
As you say Viv ” showing support for the new king”
Yes I agree as long as he drops all support and contact with the WEF like a hot brick
Oh! And it would also be handy if he gives Carbon blubbery the boot too
FOI request Guardian 2015
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/13/prince-charles-black-spider-memos-lobbying-ministers-tony-blair
Indeed Roger but he seems to be fully indoctrinated in such matters.
The Queen’s image, or a Union Jack, has been projected onto buildings around the world with tributes from some unlikely countries. This has been more than perfunctory condolences and ordinary courtesy betwen nations. The Queen of England was no ordinary head of state because Britain’s constitutional monarchy is historically unique and for 70 years the Queen projected duty, stability and dignity so lacking elsewhere. The respect from other nations appears genuine. Everyone knows something ended with her death, and everyone senses a dislocation with the past is coming and wonders.
Constitutional ‘modernisers’, from smug liberals to Corbynite republicans, aside from a few incontinent nutters, will keep quiet for a while (not wanting to be torn limb from limb), but one suspects that over the next few years they will want a share of the limelight. Charles (and William) have an unenviable task. They believe the monarchy needs modernising – slimming it down appears to be the first mission – while at the same time maintaining continuity with history. They will try and appease the crocodile for want of not knowing what else to do. The immiseration of our population that is the culmination of 12 years of Tory misrule is not the ideal context in which to do this.
The Queen came to the throne without any baggage, significant in a way not realised at the time, in contrast to Charles who has too much. One can hope he overcomes it, that we let him overcome it, but one wrong move…..
The Chinese curse – may you live in interesting times – is at work now.
Evolution happens. Where a beneficial improvement occurs it will be readily adopted: one reason EVs are stagnating. Modernisation however is a Bliar word that means we have plans for you and you cannot object because who but a Luddite does not want to modernise. What it usually means is ruining perfectly good historical institutions and practices for ideological and political benefit to the perps. So beware modernising the monarchy.
In certain Caribbean nations he death of the Queen has raised fresh demands for slavery reparations and republicanism. Some pretty nasty remarks and comments from some (wannabe) politicians out there.
Nobody can change history, and what is done is done. The abolition of slavery which this country was at the forefront occurred hundreds of years ago and nobody who is alive now can be held accountable, and nor should they. So, any country seeking reparations from this country which stood up against the likes of Adolph Hitler prior to and during the second world war, should be told to go and take a hike in the politest of terms of course. However, should these countries wish to go down the republican route, then that should be their choice and this country should not stand in their way. And if they wish to take that route, these countries should understand that independence means independence and that they must learn to stand on their own two feet and will not be members of the Commonwealth and as such not entitled to the benefits and not permitted to compete in events like the Commonwealth Games etc. I only wish our own two timing politicians had allowed the citizens of this country full and unfettered independence from the European Union, but here we are six years down the line still talking about it.
IMHO the sooner the Commonwealth is broken up the better. It is a millstone around our necks.
Jake, well, I do agree with you there in fact. I think it is only a matter of time before Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Jamaica go their own way. And as much as any other reason, the biggest factor which will lead to the impending break up of the Commonwealth has been our membership of the European Union, and as previously said that is most definitely unfinished business. It remains to be seen whether Truss will unlock that door to 100% independence, but I won’t hold my breath..
Jake. I totally disagree. I am not sure why. But I feel that the link to Britain to anywhere in the world is sort of far greater unofficially politically and power wise, as well as respected and everyone wants to know why, what, how it is respected or why they do. I Certainly I don’t understand but if you havent felt it. But it is there and probably we have everyone of us benefited As a brit abroad it is tangible. and almost automatically friendly. All over the world everone has a British Name they admire. I value it.
The Empire created wealth, innovation, national security and power for Britain. After WW2 with the break up of Empire, our virtual bankruptcy, the passing of the global policeman role to Uncle Sam, we as a country, were struggling to find our place in the world. The Tories were desperate to protect their sponsors in the City by joining the Common Market, whilst Labour were dead against that proposal. When we finally did join, our richer white Commonwealth partners felt we had abandoned them and they started to trade globally whilst nudging closer to Uncle Sam for national security.
The poorer African and Asian Commonwealth countries (with the exception of HK an Singapore) fared rather worse in the post WW2 years as trade in raw materials with Britain lessened. Now as we know China has replaced Britain regarding trade in raw materials and infrastructure projects.
The Commonwealth does afford monarchy and all their hangers-on the opportunity to swan around the world at tax payers expense pretending it it is good for our global image (soft power) and good for trade (nonsense). They would say that wouldn’t they!
Joining the Common Market whilst still supposedly committed to the Commonwealth was never going to be a success. Our chance to make an economic success of the Commonwealth (why else) has gone. Economic globalisation has put paid to that.
Time to put the pith helmet and feathers away.
Jake. In what way is the commonwealth a millstone round our necks?
Does it cost us something? If so amend that legislation.
If it upsets E.U. and/or U.S.A. all the better.
Commonwealth countries are independent so let them make their own choices.
Pauline All members chip in for the admin costs of the Commonwealth but the richest pay the most. I think the UK pays something like £5 million. Some claim our trade with the Commonwealth makes up for any costs but World Trade rules rules out any preference to UK trade so no benefit their as we enjoyed in the days of empire. I would guess that China enjoys more trade with some Commonwealth countries than we do and trades at a profit too. We on the other hand have an establishment that would be petrified of making money out of an ex colony for fear of the charge of exploitation. We are as head of the Commonwealth constantly at peril of all kinds slavery/race litigation as well as our businessmen having their hands tied in doing deals in these countries unlike the Chinese or even European competitors. We mustn’t embarrass the Queen or King as it will be now. We have some of the most ruthless litigation lawyers in the world ready to take their own tax payers to the cleaners on these issues Furthermore, many Commonwealth countries have unstable governments leading to civil wars, and thus we always feel we have obligations to help often costing huge amounts of money and yes, more migrants as a secondary effect. So IMHO the Commonwealth is a millstone around our neck with few benefits if any- except, as I say to give the monarchy and their hangers on something to do to justify their role/status and somewhere to go for their all expenses paid jollies.