I’ve finally seen why we need the Queen
FOR the first time in my life, this weekend I properly understood the point of the monarchy.
For 46 years I’ve largely regarded our Royal Family as having little purpose beyond keeping the tourist trade going and providing something to watch on telly after Christmas Day lunch.
And then, on Friday, a 91-year-old great granny with snow white hair and a cobalt blue suit walked up to the black carcass of Grenfell Tower and I realised this was why we have a Queen. As a beacon of strength in dark, dark times. In those moments when the Queen and Prince William met survivors of the fire and distraught residents still searching for loved ones, they were emblems of the British spirit of survival. Just as the Queen’s parents were during the Second World War when they visited families who had been bombed out in the Blitz. Then, as now, we were a nation feeling battered and beleaguered with hope in short supply. And yet the monarch’s visits – both then and now – provided consolation and hope that we would come through the seemingly relentless onslaught of murder and tragedy. When the Queen met those people from Grenfell Tower she wasn’t alone – she represented an entire nation’s sorrow. There is a permanence and solidity to our monarchy which runs like a steel girder through our nation, shoring us up in times like this. In difficult periods, tradition brings comfort and a sense of security. And no one does tradition as well as our Queen.
From the moment she was propelled into the job at just 25, she was guided by an extraordinary sense of duty.
And it was that duty that ensured she was prompt to visit the scene on Friday morning. Unlike our PM, she wasn’t put off the trip for fear of meeting angry and distraught victims. And unlike our PM, who scuttled back to Grenfell when anger bubbled about her initial response, the Queen wasn’t bothered about PR opportunities either.
All that mattered for her, as ever, was to fulfil her duty of guiding the nation.
Britain at the moment is in crisis and pain. We’ve had the Westminster, London Bridge and Finsbury Park terror attacks. Each was an assault on the British values of democracy and decency.
We’ve had a horrific fire which has illustrated the terrible divide between rich and poor. We have a zombie Prime Minister with no mandate and we face Brexit negotiations which could bankrupt us. None of it looks good. But we have been through worse. And survived it. And that is what this little old lady in blue represents.
For as she said in a perfectly pitched statement on Saturday morning: “Put to the test, the United Kingdom has been resolute in the face of adversity.”