The Queen is a saving grace in this age of insults
Donald Trump branded the mayor of London “a stone-cold loser” as he landed in the UK yesterday – only to be greeted by a very literal schoolboy taunt himself. In a field near Stansted airport, an 18-year-old eco-activist named Ollie Nancarrow had mown a massive phallus into the grass alongside the words “Oi, Trump”.
Meanwhile, Nigel Farage was busy hurling his own insults at Theresa May, and chanting: “Trump would have got Brexit done by now!” All this as Glastonbury – belatedly remembering Jo Cox – axed a band urging people to “Kill Tory Scum” from their line-up; and viewers of ITV’S controversial Love Island – which only started last night – were warned to stop the online trolling that was believed to have contributed to former contestant Sophie Gradon’s suicide.
Wow. What a repugnant bunch we are. Small-minded, silly and vicious, we’re not ashamed to say or do the first things that come into our heads. In fact, we’re loud and proud. Hand me that social media megaphone! And, granted, this isn’t the first time that I – or any of us – have looked at the patchwork of playground puerility that is our daily news and wondered how we sank so low, but yesterday my disgust came with a
realisation of what was missing: grace.
It was no coincidence that my eyes had wandered to a snippet on the pageantry surrounding the state banquet being held in Trump’s honour at Buckingham Palace, and an archive picture of the Queen greeting President Obama with the same expression of polite interest she’s worn for 67 years. Whatever her views on Trump (and how wonderful that we’ll never know), Her Majesty will get through these 72 hours with grace.
Indeed, if anyone epitomises grace, it’s the monarch who has met nearly every American president since Dwight Eisenhower, never allowing herself the self-indulgence of a single wrong word or eye-roll, always doing what was needed and expected… for what? For the sake of kindness, courtesy or clemency. For the sake of the greater good.
We recognise the Queen’s eternal grace, just as we recognised 89-year-old war veteran Colin Thackery’s on Britain’s Got Talent. The Norfolk-born Chelsea Pensioner’s voice was impressive, but wasn’t it his grace that bowled audiences
over? Surely that’s what made them reach for their phones. Which is both reassuring – and sad.
If we can still identify grace as a good thing and prize it in the way we clearly do, why is it no longer a desirable trait to possess and flaunt? Right now, unless you’re a queen or a performer, up on a pedestal or on stage, it’s about getting down and dirty with the masses. It’s about trading insults with strangers, speaking before you think and adopting the kind of casually brutal tone that seems to have become de rigueur online.
Certainly, I can’t remember the last time I heard anyone praised for their grace in daily conversation. And maybe it’s the word’s Christian origins that people find offputting, or maybe life just scarcely ever throws up situations in which a person’s grace could be complimented.
There is disgraceful behaviour everywhere you look – from the young man who couldn’t be bothered to get up out of his aisle seat for the octogenarian forced to squeeze past him on my flight home from France on Sunday night, to the shocking lack of respect that ambitious and self-serving ministers continue to show the Prime Minister, even now that she has resigned, as well as each other.
In politics as in life, the kind of callous simplicity commodified by social media leaves grace increasingly sounding like the kind of whimsical notion that a Fifties crooner might warble on about. But when a full set of pictures emerges from Trump’s visit, a set that encompasses the white tie and tiara dinner that the President has long craved alongside tomorrow’s solemn 75th anniversary D-day commemorations in Portsmouth, shouldn’t it be Her Majesty whom we all zoom in on?
It should not be the clashes of protesters outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, the inevitable list of faux pas Trump and his family will supposedly have made, the giant phalluses making goodness knows what point, or the social media spats prompted by slights both real and imagined – but Her Majesty’s unerring grace.
Whatever her views on Trump, Her Majesty will get through 72 hours with him