Her Majesty speaks her mind

To The Times

Matthew Parris was right to say that the Queen has made a mistake by expressing an opinion relating to Brexit, as was your leading article in the same edition. Furthermore, he was correct in saying that “calling for compromise is taking a position, it is not standing back from the fray”, and that it is “an approach that is commendable in some circumstances and not in others”. Perhaps the most outstanding illustration of this truth was in 1940. Lord Halifax, the foreign secretary, told Bjorn Prytz, the Swedish minister plenipotentiary in London, that common sense would prevail over bravado, and that an opportunity to make a reasonable compromise for peace would not be missed in spite of what his undersecretary of state, R.A. Butler, described as the “diehards” in the cabinet. This was two weeks after Churchill’s “never surrender” speech in the Commons on 4 June. Mary Potter, Henley-on-thames, Oxfordshire

To The Times

Matthew Parris proffers his view that the Queen’s remarks to the Sandringham WI were wrong and should not have been made; then, a few pages later, he describes how the ripe old age of 69 has freed him to speak his mind without worrying about what others think. Perhaps Her Majesty, some few years his senior, has come to the conclusion that she no longer need worry what Mr Parris thinks. What a profound sense of liberation this must have brought her. Dominic Moseley, Ireland