Quotes of the day

“You can’t look down to read the speech, you have to take the speech up, because if you did your neck would break, it would fall off. So there are some disadvantages to crowns but otherwise they’re quite important things.”

The Queen’s playful take on wearing the State Imperial Crown.

“I only have to hope that the pinstripe warriors in the Treasury, who daily live in fear that the air conditioning might malfunction or that the tea trolley might be late, have since abandoned such a daft suggestion.”

Tory MP and former Defence Minister Mark Francois hits out at plans to reduce Britain’s forces. “

Oprah Winfrey showed what a presidential candidate should talk like, what language and passion and principle they should have, what rhetoric can rouse in people and how important it is to people to feel that and get that encouragement. That’s the voice of a leader. Whether she’s leading us to the candidate we need or whether she is the candidate, she sets the bar pretty high.”

Meryl Streep, backing the TV star as a future US president.