Her Majesty by Robert Hardman

Author:Robert Hardman
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pegasus Books

* Some have accused Blair of breaking the code of secrecy surrounding the meetings of monarch and Prime Minister by describing them in his memoirs. But there are no complaints from the Palace. While he may have indulged in some mildly indiscreet – and highly readable – scenesetting, he has been scrupulous in observing constitutional proprieties. We are still no closer to knowing what the Queen actually thinks.

* A member is called a ‘Counsellor’ rather than the more conventional ‘Councillor’. Senior members of the Royal Family are appointed as Counsellors of State, two of whom must be designated to stand in for the Monarch whenever she goes abroad. The Queen was appointed one herself on turning eighteen. It was a sobering experience for a Princess who had led a relatively sheltered life. She was said to be particularly shocked by the details of a murder case.

* The Queen also has a set of Privy Council implements laid out before her, including sealing wax and a candle to melt it. It’s a nice touch but a historic one. The reality is that all sealing is now done elsewhere with longer-lasting plastic.

* Princess Margaret duly married Antony Armstrong-Jones (later created the Earl of Snowdon) in May 1960 and the Royal Family’s surname (though not that of the dynasty) was changed to Mountbatten-Windsor in the same year.

* Lord Carrington’s strategy worked and, following talks at London’s Lancaster House, a ceasefire and independence followed. Zimbabwe’s subsequent decline into a kleptocratic dictatorship is another story.

* In 1984, an IRA bomb exploded in the Prime Minister’s hotel at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton and killed five people.

* The Lords has not lost all its hereditary peers – yet. In a last-minute deal to avoid parliamentary guerrilla warfare, the government agreed to let ninety-two stay on pending further reforms. There has also been a stay of execution for the Queen’s two hereditary officials in the Lords, the Earl Marshal (a post held by successive Dukes of Norfolk) and the Lord Great Chamberlain (the Marquess of Cholmondeley). Both roles are ceremonial and neither man plays any part in politics.

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