Our matchless monarch inspired and anchored the nation… pray King Charles and PM Liz can do the same
EVERYTHING changed with the death of Queen Elizabeth II on Thursday.
A new king’s head on our currency and our stamps. Wrong-uns serving time in His Majesty’s prisons, at His Majesty’s pleasure.
Top barristers, including lifelong republican Sir Keir Starmer, are now King’s Counsels for the first time since George VI. If there is ever another TV series, it will be Kavanagh KC.
Newspapers hot off the press, selling out wherever they are on display. Print is king!
Yet, as the French would say, everything remains the same. Politics goes on, just as the world continues to turn.
So while the nation mourns a matchless Elizabethan era, Liz Truss — anointed during its dying hours — is sitting in Number Ten today weighing the implications for her own newly minted reign as PM.
READ MORE TREVOR KAVANAGH
Will the loss of the most universally admired monarch in history blow her crisis-stricken administration on to the rocks?
Or will those global tributes to a life well led through war and peace unite the nation in the face of economic and political adversity?
Any politician worth her salt would discretely milk this pulling-together mood over the autumn as the full impact of the emergency hits home.
It is not difficult to imagine what the Queen herself would have advised during one of her fabled private audiences . . . a steadfast, disciplined response to the colossal financial challenges facing every family in the land.
Most read in The Sun
Famous falling-out
We must hope King Charles III will be equally balanced and wise.
Some would argue Liz Truss has already made a strong start with help for the hardest hit, war against inflation and a vow never to risk energy shortages again.
It is certainly rash in the extreme for grumpy Jeremy Paxman to dismiss the new PM as a “pipsqueak”.
We will learn more of her plans to keep Britain out of the deep freeze in the coming weeks.
If anything, it is the ten-day period of official mourning — perhaps too long for an impatient social media world — that has thrown a few spanners in the works.
We need an extra bank holiday like a hole in the head at a time when the priority is to increase productivity after Covid and working from home.
The FA and Premier League decision — against official advice — to cancel all professional matches this week is inexplicable.
So is the move by one council to scrap lessons on recycling for school kids — perhaps more of an excuse for another day off.
Parliament is also out of action at a moment when crucial political debate should be running hot and strong.
The Queen herself was no novice at the political game. She might not have supported any particular party and could not vote.
Certainly no Blairite
But, although Labour PM Harold Wilson was one of her favourites, it is hard to see her as a socialist after what they did to her grandfather King George V’s Russian cousin Nicholas in 1918.
Nor would she have been a right-wing Tory.
Margaret Thatcher suspected she might have been a Social Democrat back in the day when it was a real party under handsome David Owen.
There was a famous falling-out between the two women when our sister paper, The Sunday Times, published a leaked Palace attack on Mrs Thatcher for opposing sanctions against apartheid South Africa in the 1980s.
Her Majesty was certainly no Blairite, rating “Call me Tony” her least-favourite Prime Minister.
She was particularly miffed after he hijacked the death of Princess Diana 25 years ago, dubbing her “the People’s Princess”.
Her thunderous face spoke volumes when Mr Blair forced her to link arms for a round of Auld Lang Syne at the Dome at the turn of the new Millennium.
Boris Johnson fared little better — though he was known to make the Queen laugh on occasion, including during their final 40-minute meeting last week, when he tendered his resignation at Balmoral.
In fact, Her Majesty was a small “c” conservative, opposed to unnecessary change for the sake of passing political fashion.
As someone who watched her money very carefully, the Queen might have made a shrewd Chancellor of the Exchequer.
She spoke for millions during the 2008 crash by asking: “Why didn’t anyone see this coming?”
Deft political touch
The monarch certainly had strong views about Scottish independence, urging people to “think carefully before voting” in 2014.
After all, the United Kingdom during her reign was just as much the United Queendom.
David Cameron, a distant relative, slipped down her list of favourites after blabbing that the Queen “purred” down the telephone when he rang to say the canny Scots had done as she had asked.
As our sovereign, Her Majesty obviously had strong views on sovereignty — especially when it moved centre stage during the historic vote to reclaim it for Britain in 2016. It was all kept hush-hush, of course.
But as this newspaper exclusively reported that year, the Queen and Prince Philip were ardent Brexiteers.
“You could almost hear shouts of ‘Out! Out! Out!’ echoing around the Palace,” said one source.
It remains to be seen if King Charles possesses his mother’s deft political touch.
As Prince of Wales, he bombarded ministers with his infamous “black spider memos” ranting about issues close to his heart. Top of the list were global warming and climate change.
Will they be raised again now that Mad Vlad Putin has plunged the Western world into a catastrophic energy crisis?
Will the new King grasp what Extinction Rebellion and the Green loonies refuse to comprehend?
That we cannot allow the citizens of this country to go cold or hungry this winter?
Read More on The Sun
That we must utilise the high-quality coal beneath our feet, the oil under the North Sea and the gas available from fracking?
To her credit, Liz Truss — appointed by the King’s mother as her 15th Prime Minister with almost her dying breath — understands completely.