Diamond Jubilee

Peter Tapsell Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Tapsell (Louth and Horncastle) (Con)]

At the time of the last diamond jubilee, the Father of the House was Charles Villiers. He had started his distinguished political career in the Parliament of King William IV, had sat in this House continuously for 63 years, and was aged 95. By comparison with him, I am a mere parliamentary debutante.

However, I vividly remember the fireworks that celebrated the silver jubilee of Her Majesty’s grandfather, King George V, in 1935. The hit tune of the time was “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze”, a prophetically accurate description of Prince William today.

Shortly before the debate on the Loyal Address in 1897, Villiers sent Queen Victoria his personal gift as Father of the House of a parasol. I have presumed to follow his example. His parasol was dressed in Chantilly lace. Mine has not been dressed in French lace; it has been dressed in Nottingham lace, from the city that first sent me to this place 53 years ago.

For my generation, the abiding memory of our Queen is her stunning beauty when she came to the throne. There is nothing more inspiriting in the whole world than a beautiful woman.

The bedrock of her success has been the constitution—not our constitution but hers, because she has always had the most astonishing stamina. In 1953, accompanied as always by the indomitable Duke of Edinburgh, she travelled 53,000 miles. In 1977, the year of her silver jubilee, she travelled 56,000 miles. I once asked a courtier how she did it, to which I received the characteristic reply: “By not eating salads, shellfish and water melon while travelling.”

The Queen’s great-great-grandmother was Empress of India at a time when one quarter of the globe was painted red. She has lived through years of worldwide and often revolutionary change. In the single year of 1960, 16 African countries achieved independence and became sovereign member states of the United Nations. What was to be the role of the Crown in this new world? Her Majesty saw the challenge and seized the opportunity. She made the monarchy mobile. In the second year of her reign, she delivered her Christmas message to Britain and the Commonwealth from New Zealand.

Although always impeccably attentive to her duties in the United Kingdom, she threw herself, with wholehearted energy and commitment, into a new world role as the Head of the Commonwealth. She has visited nearly every member of it, many of them tens of times, from the north Atlantic to the south Pacific. Since her visit to Tuvalu in the south Pacific, sea levels around that threatened island have actually fallen. How jealous King Canute must be!

Her Majesty has presided over 18 Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings. These have not always been plain sailing. In 1979, the choice of Lusaka as a venue was a matter of controversy. Zambia was surrounded at the time by warring countries—Mozambique, Southern Rhodesia and Angola—and some thought it dangerous or politically unwise for her to go. Her Majesty made it publicly clear that whoever did or did not go, she was determined to be there. The Lusaka conference was a great success. It was even widely reported that Her Majesty’s only female Prime Minister in Britain had much enjoyed her foxtrot with Kenneth Kaunda.

Of a reign spanning nine Prime Ministers and 12 Presidents of the United States, and notwithstanding her triumph among us here at home, I believe that future historians will record that the impetus and character that she has uniquely given to the Commonwealth will be remembered as her greatest achievement. How fortunate we have been to be reigned over for 60 years by a lady of such poise, grace and beauty—the exemplary daughter of an enchanting mother.

I conclude by repeating the exquisite words of a poet and parliamentarian composed in honour of a queen of hearts of an earlier era—words that are absolutely true of our own beloved Queen:

“Tell me, if she were not designed

The eclipse and glory of her kind”.