Majestic way Queen eclipsed preening eco -posers
THERE is something about the scenes emerging from Cop26 that seems to encapsulate the insanity, vanity and general vacuousness of the modern world perfectly.
It’s a carousel of self-obsessed, bombastic, virtue-signalling hypocrites, from Sleepy Joe Biden snoozing on the job while his fleet of gas-guzzling limousines sit with engines idling out the back, to Nicola Sturgeon ambushing Sir David Attenborough for a selfie.
Then there’s Greta Thunberg throwing her toys out of her pram (by the way, Greta, your dismissal of world leaders’ ‘blah blah blah’ on green issues was only quite funny the first time; now it’s just annoying) to Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, spouting unutterable nonsense about Nazis.
Add to these the billionaires, most notably Jeff Bezos, fresh from his mate Bill Gates’s 66th birthday party in Turkey, where guests were shuttled from superyacht to beach club by helicopter.
I don’t know about you, but the sight of a man who has made an obscene fortune from selling massproduced rubbish made in China (responsible for 27 per cent of global carbon emissions) lecturing us all about doing our bit to stop global warming is, to put it mildly, a bit rich.
FOR an event designed to draw attention to the plight of the planet and those already suffering the effects of climate change, all Cop26 seems to have done so far is remind us how spectacularly out of touch so many of the so-called great and good really are.
With one exception. One small, white-haired, beady-eyed nonagenarian with a mind like a steel trap and a sense of decorum combined with quiet humility that, frankly, knocks all these preening popinjays into a cocked hat.
I’m talking about the Queen, of course. A woman whose decades of experience have taught her that wealth and power don’t always go hand-in-hand with wisdom. A monarch whose greatness comes not from the material trappings of royalty but from a long life dedicated to duty.
When she speaks, the world listens. And not because she speaks loudly or forcefully, or because she surrounds herself with symbols of power. We listen because she is calm, wise and a little magical.
Yet she remains so very human. Her speech, delivered via a video message from the White Drawing Room in Windsor, saw her dressed in green with a butterfly brooch on her shoulder, echoing the photograph on the nearby table of her late husband the Duke of Edinburgh in a cloud of butterflies in Mexico in 1988.
As she acknowledged, with great fondness, his role in highlighting the issue of the environment as far back as 1969, I was reminded of the sheer scope and magnitude of their 73-year partnership. And her praise for her son Charles and grandson William were as touching as any proud mother’s.
But at no point did she indulge in self-pity or ask for our sympathy. She was there, despite her poor health, to fulfil her duty. And that is what she did, with quiet grace.
If she realised she was staging a bit of a PR coup, it didn’t show. But that’s what it was.
Against the backdrop of all those motorcades and private jets and hot air-emitting climate protesters, the simplicity of her no-frills message was as refreshing as a bright spring morning.