Її Королівська Величність та її прем'єр-міністри
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/jubilee/article3431491.ece
The Queen's Prime Ministers: Winston Churchill (1951-55) whose assistant private secretary during the war, Sir John Colville, later wrote: “He was an old man whose passions were spent, but there is no doubt that, at a respectful distance, he fell in love with the Queen”
PA
Anthony Eden (1955-57): the Queen is said to have thought Eden “mad” for invading Egypt during the Suez crisis
PA
Harold Macmillan (1957-63): amid serious security worries surrounding the Queen’s visit to Ghana in 1961, Macmillan wrote in his diary: “She is grateful for concerns about her safety, but impatient of the attitude to treat her as a woman”
The Sunday Times
Alec Douglas-Home (1963-64): although he was described to the Queen by Macmillan as “steel painted as wood”, Douglas-Home and his sovereign briefly bonded over their shared taste for dogs, rain and shooting
Topham Picturepoint/PA
Harold Wilson (1964-70, 74-76): Wilson enjoyed perhaps the most relaxed meetings with the Queen of any prime minister. He was allowed to smoke his pipe in her presence, and famously described his visits as “going to see mother”
PA
Edward Heath (1970-74): according to John Major, Heath fell asleep at a dinner held for the Queen and all her surviving past prime ministers. He repeatedly vetoed requests by the Queen to express her sympathy with her people’s economic hardship in her 1973 Christmas message
PA
James Callaghan (1976-79): Kenneth Rose, the constitutional historian, said Callaghan took his duty of trust to the Queen so seriously that he would not even tell her private secretary about the nature of their discussions
David Ashdown/Getty Images
Margaret Thatcher (1979-90): her rapport with the Queen is understood to have been tense. They clashed when the US invaded Grenada in 1983 and the Queen summoned her Prime Minister in the middle of an emergency Cabinet meeting
PA
John Major (1990-97): “One can say to the Queen absolutely anything. Even thoughts you perhaps don’t want to share with your Cabinet at a particular time, you can say to the Queen - and I did”
Rebecca Naden/PA
Tony Blair (1997-2007): Although he took Her Majesty’s yacht Britannia out of service and rescheduled his meetings with her to give him time to prepare for Prime Minister’s Questions, Blair had a cordial - if slightly strained - relationship with the Queen
Getty Images
Gordon Brown (2007-2010): unlike his predecessor, Brown was careful to observe the minutiae of palace protocol - except when he took a wrong turn at a banquet in Windsor Castle and the Queen was heard to remark: “The Prime Minister got lost”
Kirsty Wigglesworth - WPA Pool/Getty Images
David Cameron (2010- present): praises the Queen’s “abundance of great British common sense”
The Queen in her Golden Jubilee year with the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and former Prime Ministers - Baroness Thatcher, Sir Edward Heath, Lord Callaghan and John Major
Terry O’Neill/Getty Images
My weekly hour with her is vital, says Cameron. She cuts through the fuss
She may be an unelected head of state who lives in a palace, but for David Cameron there is one invaluable quality that the Queen has in abundance (one that is not necessarily shared by all his colleagues): common sense.
Her ability to “cut through the fuss” on the vital issues of the day is the one quality which makes the Prime Minister’s weekly audiences with the Queen invaluable, Mr Cameron writes exclusively in a new book, Diamond Jubilee Opus.
“Meeting the Queen is a crucial part of my week,” Mr Cameron writes. “Some might assume this is just a tradition; a ritual that has hung on with no real relevance to today. But that could not be further from the truth. Against all the noise and combat that is British politics, this is a quiet hour to take stock with someone who understands the broad sweep of events; who after 60 years at the heart of our national life knows politics may swing this way and that, but for whom certain values and ideals remain deeply important.”
He goes on: “My weekly hour with the Queen is vital because I get to draw on all those qualities: her knowledge; her commitment; her time-tested wisdom. Above all she has an abundance of what I’d call ‘great British common sense’; the ability to cut through the fuss and see what really matters. That is invaluable to me, as I’m sure it was to the other 11 prime ministers she has worked with.”
He added: “My audiences with the Queen have revealed many more of her qualities. She has a vast, intricate knowledge of foreign affairs. If there’s an event in a far-off country - whether an election, a coup or a riot - I can guarantee that Her Majesty will not just know about it, but have chapter and verse on it.
“A lot of that comes from her personal ties with many heads of state and prime ministers. The Queen understands in a very human way that global relations are not just about trade flows and treaties, but friendship and charm - and she is particularly assiduous about promoting friendship within the Commonwealth.”
During the course of her reign she has changed from a young, inexperienced Queen who sought the wisdom and advice of her prime ministers to one who was on the throne long before her latest prime minister was born.
Tony Blair remarked recently: “Though conventionally it’s supposed to be prime ministers briefing the Queen, I found it a genuine exchange ... she had a very clear and shrewd sense of where people would be on political issues.”
Winston Churchill, her first prime minister, did not embark on their relationship with great hopes. When George VI died in February 1952 Sir John Colville, his private secretary, found Churchill tearful and anxious. “I tried to cheer him up by saying how well he would get on with the new Queen, but all he could say was that he did not know her and that she was only a child.” By 1955, however, Sir John recalled, “He was madly in love with the Queen. His audiences had been dragged out longer and longer and very often took an hour and a half [instead of an hour].” What, Sir John asked him, did they talk about? “Oh, mostly racing,” Churchill replied.
While stories of Margaret Thatcher and the Queen being in open conflict may have been exaggerated, the two women had little in common. Mrs Thatcher is said to have found her annual visit to Balmoral an unmitigated purgatory of green wellies and dogs.
Diamond Jubilee Opus, a luxury limited edition volume to be published in September, will have 800 large-format pages 50cm square and will weigh 37kg (82lb), will cost £2,500. In addition to the main print run of 2,012, a copy will be sent to every secondary school.
The Queen's Prime Ministers: Winston Churchill (1951-55) whose assistant private secretary during the war, Sir John Colville, later wrote: “He was an old man whose passions were spent, but there is no doubt that, at a respectful distance, he fell in love with the Queen”
PA
Anthony Eden (1955-57): the Queen is said to have thought Eden “mad” for invading Egypt during the Suez crisis
PA
Harold Macmillan (1957-63): amid serious security worries surrounding the Queen’s visit to Ghana in 1961, Macmillan wrote in his diary: “She is grateful for concerns about her safety, but impatient of the attitude to treat her as a woman”
The Sunday Times
Alec Douglas-Home (1963-64): although he was described to the Queen by Macmillan as “steel painted as wood”, Douglas-Home and his sovereign briefly bonded over their shared taste for dogs, rain and shooting
Topham Picturepoint/PA
Harold Wilson (1964-70, 74-76): Wilson enjoyed perhaps the most relaxed meetings with the Queen of any prime minister. He was allowed to smoke his pipe in her presence, and famously described his visits as “going to see mother”
PA
Edward Heath (1970-74): according to John Major, Heath fell asleep at a dinner held for the Queen and all her surviving past prime ministers. He repeatedly vetoed requests by the Queen to express her sympathy with her people’s economic hardship in her 1973 Christmas message
PA
James Callaghan (1976-79): Kenneth Rose, the constitutional historian, said Callaghan took his duty of trust to the Queen so seriously that he would not even tell her private secretary about the nature of their discussions
David Ashdown/Getty Images
Margaret Thatcher (1979-90): her rapport with the Queen is understood to have been tense. They clashed when the US invaded Grenada in 1983 and the Queen summoned her Prime Minister in the middle of an emergency Cabinet meeting
PA
John Major (1990-97): “One can say to the Queen absolutely anything. Even thoughts you perhaps don’t want to share with your Cabinet at a particular time, you can say to the Queen - and I did”
Rebecca Naden/PA
Tony Blair (1997-2007): Although he took Her Majesty’s yacht Britannia out of service and rescheduled his meetings with her to give him time to prepare for Prime Minister’s Questions, Blair had a cordial - if slightly strained - relationship with the Queen
Getty Images
Gordon Brown (2007-2010): unlike his predecessor, Brown was careful to observe the minutiae of palace protocol - except when he took a wrong turn at a banquet in Windsor Castle and the Queen was heard to remark: “The Prime Minister got lost”
Kirsty Wigglesworth - WPA Pool/Getty Images
David Cameron (2010- present): praises the Queen’s “abundance of great British common sense”
The Queen in her Golden Jubilee year with the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and former Prime Ministers - Baroness Thatcher, Sir Edward Heath, Lord Callaghan and John Major
Terry O’Neill/Getty Images
My weekly hour with her is vital, says Cameron. She cuts through the fuss
She may be an unelected head of state who lives in a palace, but for David Cameron there is one invaluable quality that the Queen has in abundance (one that is not necessarily shared by all his colleagues): common sense.
Her ability to “cut through the fuss” on the vital issues of the day is the one quality which makes the Prime Minister’s weekly audiences with the Queen invaluable, Mr Cameron writes exclusively in a new book, Diamond Jubilee Opus.
“Meeting the Queen is a crucial part of my week,” Mr Cameron writes. “Some might assume this is just a tradition; a ritual that has hung on with no real relevance to today. But that could not be further from the truth. Against all the noise and combat that is British politics, this is a quiet hour to take stock with someone who understands the broad sweep of events; who after 60 years at the heart of our national life knows politics may swing this way and that, but for whom certain values and ideals remain deeply important.”
He goes on: “My weekly hour with the Queen is vital because I get to draw on all those qualities: her knowledge; her commitment; her time-tested wisdom. Above all she has an abundance of what I’d call ‘great British common sense’; the ability to cut through the fuss and see what really matters. That is invaluable to me, as I’m sure it was to the other 11 prime ministers she has worked with.”
He added: “My audiences with the Queen have revealed many more of her qualities. She has a vast, intricate knowledge of foreign affairs. If there’s an event in a far-off country - whether an election, a coup or a riot - I can guarantee that Her Majesty will not just know about it, but have chapter and verse on it.
“A lot of that comes from her personal ties with many heads of state and prime ministers. The Queen understands in a very human way that global relations are not just about trade flows and treaties, but friendship and charm - and she is particularly assiduous about promoting friendship within the Commonwealth.”
During the course of her reign she has changed from a young, inexperienced Queen who sought the wisdom and advice of her prime ministers to one who was on the throne long before her latest prime minister was born.
Tony Blair remarked recently: “Though conventionally it’s supposed to be prime ministers briefing the Queen, I found it a genuine exchange ... she had a very clear and shrewd sense of where people would be on political issues.”
Winston Churchill, her first prime minister, did not embark on their relationship with great hopes. When George VI died in February 1952 Sir John Colville, his private secretary, found Churchill tearful and anxious. “I tried to cheer him up by saying how well he would get on with the new Queen, but all he could say was that he did not know her and that she was only a child.” By 1955, however, Sir John recalled, “He was madly in love with the Queen. His audiences had been dragged out longer and longer and very often took an hour and a half [instead of an hour].” What, Sir John asked him, did they talk about? “Oh, mostly racing,” Churchill replied.
While stories of Margaret Thatcher and the Queen being in open conflict may have been exaggerated, the two women had little in common. Mrs Thatcher is said to have found her annual visit to Balmoral an unmitigated purgatory of green wellies and dogs.
Diamond Jubilee Opus, a luxury limited edition volume to be published in September, will have 800 large-format pages 50cm square and will weigh 37kg (82lb), will cost £2,500. In addition to the main print run of 2,012, a copy will be sent to every secondary school.