Queen Elizabeth II: 65 years on the Throne
Drew Gray explores what the Queen’s record breaking reign can teach us.
In September 2015 I penned a blog entitled ‘God bless the Queen, long live the republic!’ in which I spoke about being a ‘romantic monarchist’ at heart but a ‘staunch republican’ in my head.
17 months on and as the Queen approaches her Sapphire Jubilee, which marks 65 years on the throne, I’ve been asked to post my most recent thoughts on Her Majesty and her record-breaking reign.
In her time the Queen has had 13 Prime Ministers, from Churchill (who was in office when she was crowned) to Theresa May who wasn’t born when her reign began. She has met countless leaders of Commonwealth countries and entertained world leaders including Haile Salassie, de Gaulle, Lech Walesa, Nelson Mandela, Putin, George W. Bush and Barack Obama — and none more controversial (well not yet anyway!) than Emperor Hirohito (in 1971) — if only the corgis could talk!
We are lucky in this queen I think; she is a consummate professional who hardly ever sets a foot wrong. There were some grumbles when Princess Diana died but largely her reign has passed off without anyone really being able to criticise it. Republicans like myself may look forward to a day when the Windsors (actually of course, the Saxe-Coburgs, a German dynasty not an English one) no longer ‘rule’ by accident of birth but instead we have an elected head of state, but few complain about the job Queen Elizabeth II is doing.
I was quite concerned for her at Christmas 2016. In a year that had seen so many famous names pass away (from Bowie to George Michael) I feared that Her Majesty’s much reported ‘flu’ might prove too much for her. Fortunately she survived 2016 and while she has ‘slowed down’ shows no sign that she is ready to give up the reins (pun intended) just yet.
And when I look at how well the experiment with elected heads of state is going at the moment I wonder how confident I am with what the future holds, and with the whole republican ideal.
True our own elected leader (Mrs May) is not elected at all, and Vladimir Putin’s election would not bear too much independent scrutiny, but Donald J Trump is the elected leader of the most powerful nation on the planet (if only by the electoral system they have in the States).
Democracy has also given us Brexit, and while Nigel Farage may never have made it inside the Houses of Parliament as an elected representative the new leader of UKIP (Paul Nuttall) may just make it in Stoke.
So voting is all very well in principle but look at the consequences.
Is anyone that confident that the ‘great British public’ can be relied upon to elect a ‘sensible’ head of state in the aftermath of the abolition of the monarchy. President Blair anybody, President Farage, or Johnson?
Maybe we’d go for the ‘popular’ or ‘celebrity’ ticket?
President Lineker, or Beckham, or perhaps President Judi Dench (at least she knows a bit about the secret service….)
We live in changing unsettling times. When the ‘leader of the free world’ tweets grumpily at 4 in the morning and fake news stories get as much coverage as true ones — when politicians are allowed to get away with painting bald lies on the sides of buses and we are told to respect democracy by people that haven’t been elected to the position they hold.
So in this crazy world we live in perhaps Queen Elizabeth II is a constant, an anchor in troubled seas, a symbol of something we can rely on. I’m still pretty sure that she should be our last monarch but perhaps I can be persuaded to let the mad parade continue for a few more years if the alternative is as bad as it might be.
