Tributes to Her Late Majesty the Queen

Damian Green Excerpts

Saturday 10th September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)]

Like many others, I suspect, my initial reaction on hearing of the Queen’s death was not just sadness and regret, but a peculiar sense of uncertainty. How could the world continue without this magnificent woman playing a central role in the background of all our lives? Also like many others, I was privileged and lucky enough to meet the Queen a number of times and can add to the testimonies of many other Members about her warmth, kindness, vast depth of knowledge, razor-sharp mind and fabulously dry sense of humour. My best evidence of the latter was one of those Privy Council meetings that takes place when a new member is appointed—I am happy to report to my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) that it was not his—and involves a lot of kneeling, moving, kneeling again, holding a Bible, kissing and talking. Politicians are good at words, but many of them are not very good at choreography and I vividly remember one occasion when somebody got it badly wrong. There was chaos. My right hon. Friend was nothing on that. As hon. Members can imagine, it provoked silent but extreme hilarity and glee among all the close friends of the poor wretch who had got it so badly wrong. I looked across and the Queen’s face was completely impassive, but the look in her eyes told me that the person biting their tongue hardest in that room was Her Majesty.

One of the Queen’s greatest personal attributes was that, despite being royalty all her life and the monarch for 70 years, she did not have a trace of self-regarding pomposity. But her many personal attributes were not enough to make her a great leader—she had so much more than that to give. Particularly, she had a genius for necessary reform, for taking an ancient institution of huge importance and changing it little by little so that it stayed relevant in fast-moving times. She enabled the monarchy to remain ancient and modern. It is an extraordinary achievement.

Even in the last 48 hours, we have seen that the new King is proceeding along the same path, with the televising of the Accession Council and the unexpected walkabout at Buckingham Palace yesterday. Those tell us that King Charles will preserve the traditions of the monarchy while keeping it fit for the 21st century and beyond, so we can be assured that we will continue to have a people’s monarchy. There can be no greater tribute to the late Queen, and no better platform for the new King, than that we can say with great confidence, “God save the King”.