Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Lord Pickles Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Pickles (Con)
My Lords, as a schoolboy, I read The Queens and the Hive by Dame Edith Sitwell. The book describes the court of Queen Elizabeth I. There is a description of her Privy Council, towards the end of her reign, facing fear and confusion over what a change of sovereign would mean. Even the oldest counsellor on the Privy Council had known only one monarch. The Privy Council of Good Queen Bess was much smaller than the one I joined in 2010, but I can sympathise with the dilemma. I have just celebrated my 70th birthday but on the day I was born, the Queen was already on the Throne. She is the only monarch I have ever known; my grandparents’ generation would live through six different sovereigns.
The late Queen was born into a turbulent world. Britain was recovering from the First World War, the Russian civil war was barely over, European royal families were dropping like ninepins and revolution was everywhere. We know that this story ends happily, but it was not preordained. Our country could easily have slipped into becoming a republic. It did not because of the way the monarchy adapted to the modern world. Admittedly, the modern monarchy was built on her grandfather’s good sense and her father’s example of public service, but the modern monarchy is now built around her late Majesty’s sense of duty and service; it is in her image.
Her late Majesty led by example and was keen to push good causes along. I have had personal experience of this latter point. In 2005 she became the patron of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and stayed for a full 10 years. His Majesty King Charles III replaced her as patron when he was the Prince of Wales. He has proved to be equally enthusiastic and generous with his time. I should declare I am the vice-president of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
Her late Majesty learned about the horrors of the Nazis as a teenager. She had a deep appreciation of the importance of survivors. In 2015, 70 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, she reminded us:
“Many refugees and survivors of the camps and ghettoes found a home in the United Kingdom and have given us their energy and commitment.”
To the surprise of many at a Holocaust memorial event in 2005 at St James’s Palace, she broke with royal protocol to mingle with survivors. We have a description of what happened from a friend of many in this Chamber, the late Rabbi Lord Sacks:
“One of her attendants said that he had never known her to linger so long after her scheduled departure. She gave each survivor—it was a large group—her focused, unhurried attention. She stood with each until they had finished telling their personal story.”
At this reception, the Roma and Sinti were included for the first time; two Romany survivors were presented to Her Majesty.
In 2015, Her late Majesty visited Bergen-Belsen, where 50,000 prisoners were murdered by violence and neglect. She was accompanied by her beloved husband the Duke of Edinburgh. They walked together among the mounds of the mass graves. There was no pomp or ceremony of any kind. The BBC movingly described them as
“just a couple from the wartime generation taking their time to reflect and to pay their respects.”
On the visit, the royal pair met one of the liberators of the camp, the former pilot Captain Eric Brown. The Queen asked him what sorts of scenes greeted the British troops when he arrived. He said:
“I told her this was just a field of corpses … She was listening very carefully. I would say she was quite affected by the atmosphere here.”
For many survivors, the Queen and the Royal Family are synonymous with the welcome they received in the UK. Let one of them speak for them all. Joan Salter MBE said:
“I came to the UK as a child survivor of the Holocaust in 1947 and I remember the excitement surrounding the Queen’s coronation. For someone who came from so much upheaval and trauma, the Queen has been an important symbol of wisdom and stability for me.”
Many of us could say the same thing.
Our late Queen now rests in the arms of the Almighty. She may do so with the certainty that her legacy of duty and service is safe and secure. God save the King.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, I will talk about music, but will concentrate largely on animals, which were so loved by our late Queen, as we have already heard from all around your Lordships’ House. It is a great honour and privilege to be able to pay tribute to such a much-loved monarch.
I was fortunate to serve on the committee for the Queen’s Medal for Music and repeatedly saw how the Queen embraced nervous recipients and talked at length, putting them at ease and making them feel comfortable. They were all charmed. On one occasion, sitting next to Her Majesty during a fiendishly difficult piano piece with fistfuls of notes, we remarked how three hands would really be useful. The soloist departed, came back to take a bow and stumbled as she came on to the stage. There followed the observation: “Three feet would be good too.”
From three feet, to four: the royal corgis, of which we have heard much—they would expect nothing less—were always put to dutiful use. We have heard examples of it. It is quite a clever use of these animals. I make no excuse for repeating a story some noble Lords will already have heard. On my BBC Radio 3 programme, “Private Passions” and in his book, the war surgeon David Nott recalled how, returning from Syria and in a state of terrible post-traumatic stress, he was placed next to the Queen at a lunch at Buckingham Palace.
Her Majesty said, “Tell me about things in Aleppo now.” David was in such a completely paralysed state that he found himself unable to speak. Sensing his hurt, the insightful monarch summoned a footman to fetch the biscuit tin. She passed the tin to David, who, momentarily, in his confusion, thought this was a royal command to eat one of the dog biscuits. He then realised that he was being invited to feed the aforementioned quadrupeds. As, now distracted, he did so, the Queen touched his hand, saying, “Now, that’s better, isn’t it?” Her Majesty had, through her insight, rescued and relaxed him and set free his tongue.
The Queen had a much-loved red Labrador called Sandringham Sydney. As chairman of the Royal Ballet governors, I had to write an annual report to our royal patron. I could not resist naughtily adding a handwritten postscript:
“On another matter, arguably of less national importance, I have a red descendant of Sandringham Sydney who has produced puppies and my brother-in-law is so besotted with his puppy that he dreamed he put him down for Eton.”
I had two letters back. One rather formally acknowledged the Royal Ballet report, but the other was clearly revelling in the concept of putting a dog down for Eton. I loved the idea that my missive was replied to with two compartmentalised communications—the formal and the humorously canine. From then on, whenever I met Her Majesty, the problems of preserving and continuing that red colour through the work of the Sandringham kennelman would be a welcome byway from the usual niceties of retrograde inversion and music that perhaps were a little difficult to comprehend on occasion.
Let us move on to another favoured creature. It is a great sadness to me personally that my brother-in-law, Michael Bond, did not live to see Paddington Bear—his creation—charm the nation and Her Majesty. Was not that sequence a wonderful example of the great sense of fun that Her Majesty had? Her sense of mischief and delight in the absurd, which she bequeathed to her children, underlined her ability to connect with people and laugh at the unforeseen.
Finally, has not the Queen somehow continued her benevolent influence, as parliamentarians here and in the other place have, in my humble opinion, risen above themselves to make such eloquent and moving tributes? So too did our new King, Charles III, passionately. Long live the King.
Queen’s Speech
Lord Pickles Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Pickles (Con) [V]
My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend Lady Fullbrook. We have been friends for many years, since long before her distinguished career as a councillor, council leader and Member of the other place. She led her council with great style, committed to producing quality services at an affordable price. That commitment to public service was further evidenced by her time in the other place. Her full title refers to Dogmersfield, which is Anglo-Saxon for a field of waterlilies—a fitting title for a noble Baroness.
I would like to say a few brief words in support of the election Bill. Many of the measures are based on recommendations that I made to the Government a few years back. Voter fraud is, by its very nature, covert and difficult to prove. A system that relies on trust is vulnerable to manipulation. We have ignored those concerned with the administration of elections, and overseas observers, for too long. Now is the time to make our ballot boxes safe.
The most important provision is on postal votes: banning party campaigners from handling postal votes altogether; stopping the practice of “harvesting” by limiting the number of postal votes that one person may hand in on behalf of another; extending the secrecy provisions that currently protect voting in polling stations to absent voting, so that it will be an offence for anyone to attempt to find out who a postal voter has chosen to vote for; and requiring those registered for a postal vote to reaffirm their identities by reapplying for a postal vote every three years. Postal voting will remain on demand but require renewal every three years. The total number of people for whom someone can act as a proxy would be limited to four, regardless of their relationship.
There seems to be opposition verging on hysteria to the sensible provision of voter ID, which would bring the United Kingdom in line with other democracies. In this respect, the Government have moved further than I recommended by insisting on photo ID. I am relaxed about this for two reasons. First, the number of people possessing photo ID has increased since my report. The pandemic has given that a push. Secondly, the Government have shown flexibility about what photo IDs are permissible. We are no longer restricted to passports and driving licences, but a much wider selection—including various concessionary travel passes, work pass cards, Ministry of Defence cards and blue badge parking permits, and even my OAP bus pass—would qualify. The result is that 98% of the voting population has a form of ID that would qualify. That figure, for ethnic minorities, goes up a further percentage point to 99%. The Electoral Commission and the OSCE support the measure; both organisations have warned about Britain’s vulnerability to voter fraud for years. Neither organisation would support voter suppression.
I agree with the Labour Minister’s assessment introducing this same measure for Northern Ireland in 2003:
“The measures will tackle electoral abuse effectively without disadvantaging honest voters.”—[Official Report, Commons, 10/7/01; col. 739.]
I also agree with the Labour official on the introduction of photo ID for Labour Party elections when he said,
“It is rare members have no form of ID.”
The Bill contains sensible measures that will make our ballot boxes safe.
Anti-Semitism: University Campus Incidents
Lord Pickles Excerpts(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Pickles (Con) [V]
My Lords, I am pleased to see the growing number of universities that have adopted the IHRA definition of modern anti-Semitism. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Mann, for his encouragement of this endeavour. As the UK head of delegation to IHRA who persuaded the Prime Minister to adopt the definition, I am concerned that this non-legally-binding definition should be maliciously misrepresented as a constraint on either academic freedom or free speech. The definition expressly states that criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic. If academics cannot find a way to criticise the Israeli Government without having to resort to anti-Semitic tropes, it speaks volumes to both their paucity of language and their real motivation.