Harry Mount
Why Does the British Monarchy Survive?
Harry Mount and Tanya Gold | Why Does the British Monarchy Survive | 07.06.22
- Well, hello Harry and hello Tanya, and a very, very warm welcome to all of our participants. Welcome back, this is our third session on lockdown today, and I am thrilled and proud to introduce Tanya Gold, who of course is the daughter of our very own, Trudy. And Tanya is going to be in conversation with Harry Mount. And before I hand over the two of them, they will just be discussing why the British monarchy survive, so that is a hot topic at the moment. Tanya, for those of you who don’t know her or have met her as a freelance journalist, she writes for “The Spectator,” “The New Statesman,” “Harper’s Magazine,” “The New York Times,” and others. She won feature writer of the year at the 2009 British Press Awards and Art and Culture Story of the Year at the 2015 Foreign Press Association Awards. Well, welcome Tanya. I’ve been asking for you for two years and you have finally landed. So today is an auspicious day and we are absolutely thrilled to have you Harry with us. Harry Mount is an editor of “The Oldie Magazine.” He was a leader, writer, a New York correspondent at “The Daily Telegraph.” His books include “How England Made the English” and the top 10 bestseller, “Amo, Amas, Amat… and All That” So honour, as I said, I’m thrilled to have you with us and I’m going to hand over to the two of you. Thank you very much for joining us, and Lauren, to you, thank you as always.
- Well, thanks so much and thanks so much to The Lockdown University, it’s extremely exciting to join you. So as you said, Tanya and I are going to talk about why does the British monarchy survive? And in fact, we’re talking at a very exciting moment for the British monarchy, for the British government, because as we speak, the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, looks like he’s about to be toppled. And in fact, he’s going to be speaking to the Queen tonight, possibly as we speak. And if as looks certain, he’s going to resign over the next couple of days, then eventually a new leader will be elected and he will have to resign to the Queen, and the Queen will appoint the new Prime Minister. And that’s one of the reasons why I think the British monarchy survives is ‘cause at times like this of crisis, actually, if as I’ve been doing spending all day walking around London, there isn’t a feel of crisis in the air because people feel deep down, the majority of people, feel at ease because the monarchy is there. It happened most strikingly in 2010 when Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, didn’t want to resign over six days, he was in Downing Street, trying to get a government together.
And there wasn’t a feel of national crisis because we felt there was the Queen as a backstop, if you like. And there is an illogicality to that of having a non-elected hereditary post like this, I like to call it a kind of beneficial brainwashing. The Queen and the monarchy have been the background to all our lives, you now have to be over 75 to remember King George VI, the Queen’s predecessor. In fact, my father also a journalist, Ferdinand Mount, remembers George VI dying when he was 12. The teacher took them all into the playground and all the boys in the school burst into tears. Now, that may not happen on that sad day when the Queen dies, but I think it might well happen again that this person we don’t know, we feel this tremendous affection for. And as I say, it’s I think because she and the monarchy, more generally, the background to our lives. So someone like Paul McCartney’s just turned 80, Rolling Stones are in concert here in London, they’ve been around for 60 years, which is an enormously long time.
But the Queen has been the background of so many people’s lives, you’d have to be over 100 to remember a time when she wasn’t around, when she was born 96 years ago, she was extremely famous, She became even more famous in 1936, in the abdication crisis, when it became clear that she would be the future Queen. So that’s why I think it survives as a logical, hereditary role, because of this beneficial brainwashing, as I call it. I dunno what you think, Tanya.
- Good evening, it’s lovely to see you, Harry. Thank you everyone for having us at Lockdown University, I’m really proud to be here for the first time. And I think Harry, after your speech, I can see exactly what our roles are going to be tonight. I think you are going to be the person speaking in defence of the monarchy, which is very easy to do when we have a monarch like Elizabeth II, and we will come to how exemplary she has been shortly, I’m sure, and at length, because it is very difficult to argue against monarchy when you are dealing with a figure like Elizabeth II but nonetheless, I shall try. So I will be the Republican in your midst. I was interested in what you said today, Harry, about how walking around London you said you felt a sense of security. And I think it is true that when you have a benevolent monarch, neither of us know what it’s like to have a non-benevolent monarch, because thank God in England when we have them, we tend to get rid of them pretty fast, you do have a sense of security.
I’ve always seen, as soon as I began to think critically about this family, as soon as I began to think about them critically, I began to see them as a sort of pre-Christian thing. I’ve seen paintings and photographs of the Queen in vast robes like the garter robes and the Order of the Thistle taken on some hill in Scotland. And she looks exactly to me like a sorceress. And I’ve also heard that people write to the Queen a lot. My son wrote to the Queen and got a very civil letter after wishing her a happy birthday. But I’ve heard that people even write to the Queen to ask for football tickets, for impossible to get football matches. So I think what what you were talking about is how there is this benevolent, kind, wise, all seeing woman, presiding, I mean, and don’t allow me to speak for you.
No, no, no, no, I’d agree with that.
At the apex of our society and while that happens, we’ll be safe, we’ll be fine. And while that is a wonderful thing to feel, And I am not immune from it myself, I think we all imagine, everybody who lives in Britain probably imagines they have a personal relationship with the Queen. I like to call her the Queen in your mind or the Queen of your invention. But I would argue security in Britain, today, I’m really not so sure, we could talk about all sorts of things that are falling apart. Inflation, I believe we’re at our lowest ever against the dollar, unemployment is 5 million, Child poverty is heading for 40%, and I don’t want to turn this in any sense into a left or right argument because we agree on so many things. But I wonder whether that security is, I suppose I’m calling it a fool’s paradise, a mirage. And though I have a huge amount of respect for Elizabeth II, which I will go into later, I’m sure, and rather less for other members of her family.
I think that as a Jew and as a social democrat, as somebody who values social democracy, from my study of Weimar and for being a Jew, really more than anything, and often I wish that we gave social democracy the same kind of care and attention and a love and obsession as we give our monarchy in Britain. As I said, I don’t trust it. I wonder whether it is really a political system for adults or if we can get something better, which isn’t determined, on a woman who comes randomly to the throne, being as excellent as this one has been.
- I’m going to be very boring and agree with you. I do agree, this country is in terrible crisis. What I’m saying is that having her there as this backstop gives a lot of people, the majority of people who support the monarchy and the Queen, a greater sense of reassurance than if she wasn’t here. So when you have a political crisis like we’re going through at this very moment, it makes things easier for lots of people in their minds. I’m not at all denying this country is in a terrible state. I think we should also talk about, we’ve just had the Platinum Jubilee, celebrating the Queen’s 70th anniversary of being on the throne.
It seemed to me, which often happens at these events, I didn’t think it was going to be such a big deal, not least because I, in a very, very pedantic way thought we should have been celebrating it on the 6th of February this year, which is actually the day she came to the throne in 1972. But it would’ve been pretty cold and miserable. But actually I do think it was a tremendous success, and thousands and thousands of people came of their own free will to the Mile, just down the road from my office where I’m speaking today. And so it does show the extraordinary popularity of the monarchy, her popularity figures, the Queen, all politicians, not least Boris Johnson and Joe Biden would kill for, they’ve hovered between 60 and 80% throughout her reign. They took one big dip in 1997 when Princess Diana was tragically killed, that’s an extraordinary level of popularity. But, so Tanya, how did you think the Platinum Jubilee went?
Well, I thought it was brilliant. It’s another reason why people enjoy the monarchy so much. I think it’s about, at the moment, the Republicans in this country about 20%. So you are completely right, about 80% of the people would prefer to have a monarchy than not have a monarchy. It’s the spectacle, it’s the drama. And also I think it feeds into this sense of English exceptionalism because we are now, I believe the senior monarchy in the world after we lost the Habsburgs, the , all these royal families falling after the Second World War, and then of course before then as well. So we’re the senior monarchy in the world and we have the furniture going back to the 18th century, And it’s beautiful and it allows us to sort of buy into this Ruritanian fantasy. And often it’s said, isn’t it? People talk about giving the royal family less money and having a sort of smaller, maybe Nordic or Netherlandish royal family, where they’re always wandering around on bicycles. And then of course monarchists say, well, if we’re going to do it, let’s do it properly. But but it’s an appealing thing to watch and it’s interesting and it’s distracting. So yes, I think that’s very successful.
And you’re right, plenty of monarchies have gone over the last, particularly over the last century or last 150 years, but there are still plenty of others around the world. I think it’s undeniable to say though, that the British monarchy is the most famous in the world. And why do you think that’s the case?
Oh, we’ve been here, well, I’m not sure we’ve been here the longest, but 1000 years and then being at the centre of an empire, I think really helped. And I think that’s another reason why the monarchy endures, and I’ll come to Elizabeth II’s connection to success in the Second World War later. But England ruled, what was it? One fifth of the globe 100 years ago, eyes were on us, and we have all this furniture, Buckingham Palace, Central London, our culture has been imported throughout the world, and people see it and they recognise it.
And also I’d say that with, with some exceptions, obviously, but for the last century or so, we’ve largely been on the side of the goodies. A friend of mine said a very good thing about the series, “Downton Abbey.” He said you couldn’t do a German “Downton Abbey” for obvious reasons. And by the time they got to 1914, the posh family in the German “Downton Abbey” wouldn’t be very popular. And I’m not saying Britain’s behaved perfectly over the last century or so, but the reason why that series goes on being popular and takes the characters right up till the, what was the last one, the '30s, is because generally speaking, the British were goodies in the 20th century.
Am I allowed to annoyingly interject and say that I believe that the portrait of the noble family in “Downton Abbey” was ridiculously misrepresented? And I’m slightly embarrassed to have-
Completely agree with you, yes. But you could still make the series in a way that you couldn’t have made the German version.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. But I think it was another fairytale.
Yeah, definitely, yeah, yeah. So let’s talk about the Queen. Is there something remarkable about her as a person?
You know what, I hate to say it, but just so much, and I think about this a lot, and I think the moment in my life when I was most impressed as to condescending, awed, was during the Diamond Jubilee, and you remember Harry, we had this flotilla on the Thames of these hundreds and hundreds of small boats, and they had a replica, I believe, of Elizabeth I’s barge. I may be wrong, correct me if, if I am. And she stood on.
Yeah, the Gloriana, yeah.
And she stood, she didn’t sit down, she stood, and she would’ve been, what, 86 years old. And she stood on the barge for four hours and her family stood with her, and she would not sit down and she would not go downstairs, and it was raining and her husband was hospitalised after that. And I think if there is a contract between monarch and people, I think that expresses it perfectly. There was a humility to her behaviour, an understanding of the great honour we do her by elevating her. I just thought it was extraordinary. And I think a lot about, I mean, Winston Churchill very famously said, “That if I’d wished to design a woman to be Queen of England, I couldn’t have done better than Elizabeth II.” And I think two things that are very important are that first she didn’t know she would be Queen until she was nine or 10. Because of course there was an expectation that her uncle, Edward VII, would become king and have children, of course he didn’t, and he abdicated. We may talk about that later.
Because I think it probably doesn’t make for sanity, being told you are going to be Queen of England when you’re older. And another thing is people may not be so interested in my obsessive interest in Elizabeth the Queen, the Queen mother, who I absolutely believe was a monster. But I think she was the star in that house. And one of Elizabeth II’s comments when she was young, and I believe until her mother died, “Was we must never upset mommy.” So I think she learned to be quite nurturing. And of course the third is the war, which is she lived in Windsor during the war, and she would’ve seen the bonds drop on Slough. And I think that makes you a serious person. And so when she was entrusted with this duty, she said yes. And unlike our prime minister, she took it very, very seriously.
And there’s also another aspect, I’d say, I dunno when you would say any of our characters are set, but she, by some random genetic inheritance, happened to be even as a little girl, very dutiful and a worrier. There are these famous diaries by Crawfie, the nanny, to the young Princess Elizabeth and her younger sister, Princess Margaret Rose. And they’re very moving these diaries and they described the little Princess Elizabeth, who, as you say, before she knew she’d be Queen, but getting up in the middle of the night to make sure her shoes were properly lined up together. She was a neat freak and kept things very, very neat, while already her younger sister was a slightly wild, messy, naughty one. And many, like with most of us, much of her character was already set up as a little girl. She said in a very moving passage in the diaries of her nanny, if she becomes Queen, she at that stage doesn’t think she will be, she’ll pass a law to make sure no one’s ever horrible to horses. Horses go on being one of her great loves throughout her life.
A brilliant law.
A brilliant law. And somebody put it well in all the acres of coverage during the Platinum Jubilee, that she feels very strongly the truth, which is an extraordinary genetic, course of luck that she became Queen, she doesn’t think she deserves it, she doesn’t think she’s particularly special. So unlike an awful lot of people who are privileged from a young age, she doesn’t believe she really deserves it. So she keeps on working, thus, as you say, her standing in the freezing cold, aged 86. And she hasn’t gone mad with a fame and privilege. And that’s an extraordinary stroke of luck, isn’t it?
I just thought of another example. Do you remember when Prince, there was a party at Downing Street? I’m sure people are aware of the Party Gate scandal, which is part of the reason the Prime Minister may leave tonight. And there was a party at Downing Street, when we were under restrictions, we weren’t supposed to have it, it was the night before the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral. And as soon as I saw that story, I thought, “Okay, that’s it, he’s toast now.” And then a story came out saying that Boris Johnson, after the Duke died, had offered the Queen an easing of restrictions for the funeral, so she didn’t have to have a socially distanced funeral, she could invite as many people as she wanted. And she declined this because she vowed to uphold the law. So there’s another, you can see the contradiction between our elected leader, Boris Johnson, and our not elected leader, Elizabeth II. I don’t think I’m doing my argument any favours here, but if you can be lucky with the monarch, you can be unlucky.
Yes, yeah, yeah. And thus you had those incredibly moving pictures of her standing alone in the choir stalls of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor for the funeral of her husband of almost 75 years. Tanya, you’ve written a lot about the Queen. One of the great things she’s famously done is never, ever, ever give an interview. And most of us open our mouths and immediately people realise, what appalling, blithering idiots we are. By her saying nothing, we can transfer our own wishes about what she’s like to her. In all your articles and researches, what do you think she actually is like?
Do you know what? I couldn’t tell you. As I said, I have a Queen of my invention, we all have a Queen of our invention and I’ve been to her houses and I advise people to go to her houses too, particularly to Sandringham, which is the only royal residence where you’re actually allowed into the private rooms on the ground floor. So I fantasised, I’d pick up her wifi signal, but I didn’t, I think she’s funny, my fantasy Queen in my head is that she’s funny and that she’s drol. But I mean, if you look at the art made about the Queen, Alan Bennett wrote a play about her in which she was a blue stocking. You write the Queen you want, and I think we come back, I’m not going to sit here and imagine that I know what she’s like because I think part of her gift is I think I wrote in “Harper’s,” a good mirror will grant reflection to anyone who walks past.
And because she has never given an interview, because she has never ever said, I think this or I think that, and everything we know about her, we have to merely surmise. Though she does have these amusing spokes cousins who come out and say this is why the Queen enjoyed this or the Queen laughed or didn’t laugh. And I think if you can’t be sure who she is, it makes it far easier to love her and to identify with her. So I just think it’s another one of her extraordinary skills. I mean there are things that you know to be true. Like she loves horses and dogs, probably 'cause they don’t know that she’s the Queen. I also think a happy marriage was very central to her being as good at her job, and it is a job as she has been, I don’t think you can do that if you are lonely, but I dunno, have you met her?
I haven’t, no, I, I saw her from a distance the other day at Prince Philip’s memorial service in Westminster Abbey, but I was about 100 yards away. But you do hear stories, there are two very good stories I was thinking about today, which are true, told by close friends. One is that when she’s at gatherings with lots of people and a mobile phone goes off, she says, “Oh, do answer it, it might be somebody important.” There’s quite a good way of playing with her fame. And then there’s another very good story about her walking through the greater state at Balmoral with her private detective. And she came across a tourist who didn’t recognise her 'cause she was in her head scarf and her mac, and the tourist said to her, “Have you ever met the Queen? I believe she lives near here.” And the Queen said, “Well, I haven’t,” but pointing at the policeman, she said, “I think he has.” And the tourist asked the police what she’s like, and she said, “Well, I’ve only met her several times, I think she’s very nice.” But anyway, they went away and the tourist was none the wiser. But I think that’s very good, clever way of modestly playing with her supersonic fame. And we must deal with the question of she’s now 96, none of us lives forever, on the sad day when she dies, what will happen to the monarchy, do you think, in the long run?
Well, her popularity figure is 75, William, who is very like her, I believe, and we can come to that later, is 66%. And Charles is a mere 50. I think, I mean, it’s really impossible to say because as you said, it’s been a very long reign. None of us here know what it’s like to have a country that the Queen was not at the head of. But having said that, I am sure that every monarchy rises or falls with the quality of the monarch. And I mean, we’re not living in the Middle Ages anymore. You know, we’re not going to say you can be Queen because if not, our lands are going to be burnt and she’s going to stick a sword through our neck. I feel that the monarchy is a sort of, I said British exceptionalism earlier, a sort of toy, a boon, something that makes us separate from other countries and that we enjoy. But I think if we stop enjoying it and we stop admiring it, it will be amazing how quickly it leaves. So I think people will be devastated, I think the newspapers will write in some sense a lot of nonsense, like they always do. But I don’t think that Charles is anything like as temperamentally suited to be monarch as she is, because I think he’s spoiled.
Yes, I agree, he’s not in the same league as her. But at the same time, I would say for the reasons I stated at the beginning about that beneficial brainwashing that actually he, born in 1948, is 74 later this year, you’d have to be pretty old, you have to be over 80 really to remember a time when he wasn’t plastered all over the papers. So I think again, he’s the wallpaper to our lives, which was extremely effective in shoring up the monarchy. But how could he possibly? Sorry.
He talks too much, I mean, at some point I’m going to have to start talking about how I think that the monarchy is not only a ridiculous system for a serious country to have, but is also desperately cruel to the people that we’re elevating, and maybe we’ll come to that in a minute, but he talks too much. He talks about his pain, and if you’ve created what is essentially a God, and you may disagree with me about this, if you’ve essentially created a God to protect you, you are not going to want him to be sad or to cry or to say that his wife didn’t understand him and must he have a new wife? And I just look at Charles and I just think it’s so desperately sad because he’s obviously got decent instincts, but he just looks like a man who’s just been on the one hand ignored, and on the one hand told he’s wonderful all his life.
No, no, I agree, again, that he hasn’t imbibed the famous rule of monarchy, of which his mother does so well, of never apologise, never explain. There’s a story that in the '80s when his marriage was going so badly with Prince Diana, that he consulted Sir Peregrine Worsthorne, the marvellously named late editor of “The Sunday Telegraph.” And Prince Charles said, “What should I do?” He was getting bad press over the failing marriage. And Peregrine Worsthorne said, “Don’t say anything, never appear on TV.” This is before his famous admission to adultery with the interview with Jonathan Dimbleby, “All you must do is behave like your mother, open lots of buildings, visit lots of charities, cut lots of ribbons, unveil lots of plaques.” And Prince Charles buried his head in his hands and he said, “Oh no, that means I’ll just become a cypher, a nothing.” Exactly right, yeah, and he’s obviously incapable of doing that. Now, another huge story about the royal family of recent years has been Prince Andrew consorting with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and paying a reputed 12 million pounds to avoid any appearance in any trial. Now, has the monarchy suffered real damage with Prince Andrew’s terrible behaviour?
I think it exposes, I think, Andrew’s behaviour exposed its constitutional weakness, which is you don’t know who you’re going to get. You might get a saint or you might get an imbecile who consorts with women who have been trafficked and doesn’t even then have the humility to offer a heartfelt apology. I think it’s impossible to say what damage he’s done yet, because as we’ve sort of been talking about, everything is in stasis while we have the Queen, who by the way, paid the 12 million, people seem to think. I mean, Andrew’s just, I mean he’s just pathetic, isn’t he?
You only have to watch that car crash of an interview, which I’m sure many of the viewers tonight saw, it was an exercise in how not to do an interview. And again, he should have followed his mother and never done an interview in the first place. But it is an exercise in extreme stupidity, isn’t it?
I mean, the most riveting thing I read about Andrew is there was an interview, I think it was in the Daily Mirror with his maid, and nobody wanted to be Prince Andrew’s maid because he’s so rude. And she said that he rang and made her walk up, I think it was five flights of steps to close his curtains. He wouldn’t even close his own curtains. And I think that’s a really important point here, because I think that in families such as this, where there’s so much at stake, I mean, isn’t it a truism that the, and we’re going to come to Harry and William in a minute that the first born and second born sons, always hate themselves, always hate each other, because Charles is apparently going to get everything, but it doesn’t look like he’s made him happy. And Andrew’s going to get nothing and he looks really miserable too. So I suppose there’s a serious point to the maid testimony, which is I think this is no life. I mean, could I ask, the participants here to ask themselves whether they would want for their beloved children or grandchildren, could they think of any worse fate than to be a member of the British royal family? And I was going to actually ask you, Harry, whether you think in many ways, it’s been so much easier for the Queen because she was established as a beloved figurehead before the age of mass media. Literally, we torture these people, I mean, we torment them, we chase them around.
Yes, yeah, no, I agree. I used to think what could be nicer than to be called Prince and live in an enormous palace, but actually, it would be miserable and the rise of, as well as media, social media, the smartphone, so everyone could take a photo of you the whole time, I think it would be hell on Earth. We’ll move on to Prince Harry, who is preparing, one imagines, another series of attacks on the royal family in his memoirs, which he or his ghost writer is currently writing, it’s due out later this year. Do you think this will cause more damage to the monarchy or do you think Harry and Meghan are basically finished as major forces affecting the reputation of the monarchy in this country?
Well, British monarchists despised them, the polling goes, I mean, I think Harry used to be the second most, was for a while the second most popular member of the royal family, YouGov poll it every couple of months. And now he’s roundly despised, I don’t think British monarchists could care less what he has to say. And I think they sort of shot their bolt with the Oprah interview where they accused an unnamed member of the royal family of being a racist and said that Meghan had received no help or support for suicidal tendencies. So I mean, I think it’ll be irritating. As I said, I didn’t think it’s actually that unusual or a very strange thing to have happened. But again, it’s impossible to tell until the Queen goes.
But I think they’ve sort of got their big guns gone. And I think Harry’s really interesting as well because when I look at Prince Harry, we all remember watching him walk behind the coffin when he was 12. And it feels, in retrospect to me, like a sort of obscenity that we were even invited to watch him, to watch him do that. And he’s talked about how he has PTSD from the death of his mother. And I’m sure you know Harry, that in the last years of Diane’s life, when she had given up her police protection, photographers used to follow her around and shout at her and spit at her and call her terrible names, to try and get a photo of her angry that they could sell for more money. And they witnessed all of this. And I think there’s a big dialogue in British journalism about Prince Harry’s spoiled and Prince Harry’s ungrateful and all this and all that and they still want to live in a big house and be famous.
And I suppose the point to that is it’s almost, they say it’s almost impossible to recover from fame, I imagine it’s even more impossible to recover from being royal. But when I look at him, really, all I feel is pity because I just think what happened to him was so shocking. And you could really argue his father. My belief is that he walked behind the coffin to protect his father’s reputation. 'Cause I understand Charles was very worried that he was going to be cat called and people would hiss at him or someone would even maybe try to kill him. But if he was with his handsome sons, then he was in less danger. And I mean, and if that is true, it’s brutal. But when I said earlier about when when we look at monarchy, we look at this fairy tale and this dream, and it’s also lovely and beautiful and safe. I mean, are they safe? Is Prince Harry safe? Was Princess Diana safe? Whether it will make the throne secure or not for his brother William, I can’t say, I think William is brilliantly temperamentally, suited. I’ve just finished a long profile of Prince William. I think he’ll be a brilliant king, but I dunno if he’ll be a very happy one.
Yeah, I mean, I think another story, I’m not saying your one is wrong and my one’s right, is that not surprisingly, Prince Harry and Prince William didn’t want to walk in that agonising procession behind them their mother’s coffin and Prince Phillips said, I’ll walk if you walk. And so they went with their nice grandfather, who who knows what the real story is. Yeah, you wrote a brilliant piece about Prince William. There’s a theory that purely by luck in a way that you do end up with the right monarch in the end. So Edward VIII not temperamentally suited to doing it, so he abdicated, Georgia VI took over. George V had an older brother, Prince Eddie, who was very, very wild and dissolute, who died in the late 19th century causing great mourning across the country. But actually, so the Victorian insiders say, it was ultimately, for all the sadness, a great relief, 'cause George V was better than Prince Eddie would’ve been as king. But so you having followed Prince William, in fact you saw him in the flesh, didn’t you? What did you think about him as a person having written your article?
My main insight about William is I think he’s the classic parental child, it’s a psychological archetype. And they grow, you get a parental child in a family where the children are not emotionally nourished. And I don’t doubt for a moment that his parents both adored him, but they were pretty wrapped up in their own stuff. And I just want to say that even sitting here, analysing this for you, makes me feel a little bit queasy, because I feel like I’m part of the problem. What right do I have to pick over a man that I’ve never spoken to and say, he is this, he is that? Anyway, believe he is very, very kind. The only job he ever wanted for himself was to be a helicopter rescue pilot, literally flying out into the middle of the Irish Sea and winching people off and taking very sick children to hospital. And I just think if you want to do a job like that, it’s because you want to heal people, and psychologists, make that what you will. I think he’s very controlling and he has to be, he’s the most litigious royal we’ve had yet. And again, he has to be. He has been perfect. And I suppose when I think about that, I think about what has it done for the part of you that very much like his grandmother, the Queen, the part of you that that is a real person and a soul and doesn’t necessarily want to be perfect. Well, we’ll never know what that William is. I’m sounding much too emotional about this now. I really liked him, I could see his kindness and his concern for other people, and I could also see his ability, sorry, his desire to do the right thing, to always do the right thing.
And he’s clearly happily married. And Duchess of Cambridge, his wife, seems temperamentally suited to the job as well, don’t you think?
I think I called her as careful and controlling as he.
Yes, and she actually has imbibed the lesson of her grandmother-in-law of not saying anything or being too emotive. I mean, she does give the odd interview, she’s just taken some photos of her mother-in-law, Camilla, for “Country Life Magazine.” But it’s a very safe, measured way of presenting herself to the world, which seems to be very wise.
Yes, absolutely, absolutely. I think I’ll be very good at it. I’ve written the word class on a post-it note.
Right, yes, go on, it’s a big subject. What do you want to say about it?
Well, I think we need to move away from talking about how great some of them are and how great others of them are. And I just want to talk a little bit about the idea that the monarchy is apolitical because I don’t really believe the monarchy is apolitical. I mean, it can say obviously, of course very famously, the Queen can’t vote and she can’t say, oh, I think the Labour party are great. Actually some of her more deranged admirers., Sometimes they, have you heard the rumours that the Queen is a socialist? Sometimes people like to say, oh, she’s a lefty.
Well, that’s the thing of her saying nothing, you can project whatever you want onto her, yeah.
But I believe that the monarchy, it’s very pretty and it’s covered in doilies and flowers and actually when I went to Buckingham Palace, I had the greatest tea I’ve ever had in my entire life, which seems sort of kind somewhat fitting, but I’m saying.
What was good about it, what was it the scones?
All of it, it was perfect.
first then jam, I hope.
I believe I just had sandwiches and cakes, it was minute and perfect and delicious. And they’d probably just served tea to about 3 million people, it was a garden party throughout the sort of life of the kitchen, so that’s probably why it was perfect. So what I’m trying to say is let’s move aside, you talked about the Duchess of Cambridge, presenting herself beautifully. And she’s lovely. But if we can move away from all this loveliness, are we not really? And I think as a Jewish person, I think it’s important to try, well not only do Jews look at the sweep of history, but monarchs have not always been kind to us. So are we not really dealing with a family that is canny enough and ruthless enough to have hung onto a throne for 1000 years? And to say that they have no political position, I think is ridiculous because presumably they have a political position, which is they should be where they are. I’m just trying to…
Yeah, I think that’s fair enough. Last month, Prince Charles addressed the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, to all the members of the Commonwealth, their heads of state, the heads of the government, 'cause the Queen’s the head of their state. And he said, which I’m sure he believes, it’s entirely up to you, this is a voluntary club. If any of you want to go, and Barbados did leave last year, of course you should be allowed to. And I think the same applies to the monarchy here. He’s obviously desperate to come king, he wants to become king. But let’s imagine there was a revolution tomorrow or a referendum tomorrow, a majority of the people said they had to go. I think they would go, but of course-
It would be amusing to watch them not go like Boris Johnson, what choice would they have?
Yeah, I think the funny thing is, isn’t it? That actually for all that goldfish bowl aspect you talked about, of the hell of basically being a member of the royal family, it’s striking how many of them are keen to hold onto privileges. So Fergie and Princess Diana are keen to hold onto the HRH, Her Royal Highness title, Prince Andrew is very keen for his two daughters to do royal duties. So these things, these tasks that might seem slightly thankless, they are quite keen on. And there’s another question about this, which is, it is being suggested by Buckingham Palace, or it’s happening, that the monarchy from now on will be a much more slimmed down version with the concentration of duties on the Queen, Charles and Camilla, William and Kate and their children. Do you think this is right? So you jettison the cousins, the Kents and the Gloucesters, who are first cousins of the Queen. Do you think that’s right, this new slimmed down monarchy?
Well, I’d favour it if I was a monarchist because I don’t think that the public will just support a vast extended family living in incredible luxury. Oh, and if we are talking about the Duke of, sorry, Prince Michael of Kent, I just want to remind listeners that his wife, Mary Christine, Princess Michael of Kent, her father was an SS officer and he joined the Nazi party in 1930 before it was fashionable. I just wanted to make that point that they’re not all lovely. Oh, and the important point about Princess Michael of Kent is I don’t believe that she has ever actually expressed any regret about that. Do I think it’s right to jettison? I mean, I don’t want to pay for them. I think it’s more an acknowledgement from Charles and William who are running the show now, that people simply just won’t have it. And the bigger the family you have, the bigger the chances that one of them is going to consort with a predator or all sorts of terrible things will happen. It will make them more secure. It’s a tightening, it’s control, the world has changed.
Yeah. I mean actually, in fact, we don’t pay for them. The Queen pays for.
Out of the sovereign grant, yeah, I know.
Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah.
And it never goes down, only up.
Yeah. And so we’re coming towards the end of our chat before any questions come in. And so just finish on your thoughts about if the monarchy were to be abolished in this country, what are the alternatives? I always annoy you by saying, do you really want President Simon Cowell?
Yes.
What do you think the alternations are, would the alternative work, and would they be preferable?
I very much like the idea of leaders that I can get rid of through the ballot box. I do wonder, when I think about my republicanism, whether it is I, that is the child, thinking, if we have an elected president, everything’s going to be great when it’s quite likely we end up with absolutely somebody, somebody terrible. But I suppose the point I’d like to finish on is one of the most important things that I think the British monarchy does is I think it upholds the class system in this country, so well. I think I once called it parent and press officer to the class system. And it may be a bit of dart throw at you so close to the end. But we’ve talked a lot about the impact of the class system on this country, and I believe it is still here and it is so damaging. I mean, just look at Boris Johnson, old Etonian, unfit to be prime minister, but let’s give it to you anyway and burn our country down. And I’m sorry to say, that no matter how admirable this woman is, she is still at the top of that. I just think we got lucky, to be honest. Will a presidency be terrible? Yes. But how about trusting the people? Maybe.
I think you’re right about the classes, it’s undeniable that in a country where you have a hereditary monarch and you still have a hereditary peers in the House of Lords, if you give a legal foundation to the class system, it’s obviously stronger. Well we’ve you’ve got some questions coming in, which I’ll ask you Tanya, Shelly Shapiro has put a extremely good question. What about all the tourist money from all over the world that the monarchy brings in? And I’d say that’s under undeniably true, I happen to be bicycling past Buckingham Palace today, lovely sunny day. And there were the tourists gathered in their hundreds around Buckingham Palace.
Well, yes, but I believe the most visited country in the world is Italy, well correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but I do know that France and Italy and also America have vast numbers of tourists and they’re all republics. And even if it is true that it’s good for tourism, and I know that’s an argument that is often used, I think if you want an elected head of state rather than a someone who has inherited the crown, I’m not sure it’s that’s much, it wouldn’t make a difference, it wouldn’t make a difference to me. But yes, it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful.
Yes, and we’ve got a question from Tom Davy, and he asks, in a constitutional monarchy, can the people reduce their standing? So I hope I understand your question right, Tom, that given that they are basically only there by consent, can we, the people play around with their position in the government of this country?
Do you want to take that one?
I’d say it’s actually very difficult. It has happened 11 years ago, I think it was the constitution or the law was changed so that if, it would now be Prince George, were to have a series of children and the oldest one was a girl and the others were boys, she would become Queen. So it does happen, but very rarely, I suppose actually that’s a good example of very slowly the monarchy does reflect what’s going on in society. I would say that it’s rather good to have a bit of a lag, people like the monarchy being, I suppose, if not behind the times, they are essentially an ancient concept. So I don’t think it matters that it’s quite slow there, but it does very slowly change.
And I think Tom’s point was a very, very good example of how sensitive they are to public opinion and how reactive, because that was absolutely the right thing to do, that the oldest child would inherit the throne, boy or girl. It’s fair and it makes sense, and actually the aristocracy has not followed them, they still have have male primigenia, not absolute primigenia. So I mean, I think that’s one of the things that they actually do very well and they did it when Diana died, they did come to London, they did lower the flag. And that’s another reason why they’re still here because they do react and they do change.
We’ve got a good question from Barbara Shaw. Do you think the monarchy is anti-Semitic? The Queen never visited Israel.
Well, I just don’t know. I highly suspect Princess Michael of Kent is anti-Semitic. I suspect they were all anti-Semitic in the 1930s, when it was part of aristocratic English culture to be anti-Semitic. I believe Princess Margaret once said something disobliging you about Jews that I can’t remember and so can’t repeat. I’d like to say that the Queen has never, I understand Prince Charles actually is philosemitic, and actually I do remember now the Duke of Edinburgh’s mother is in the Avenue of the Righteous in Jerusalem, because she saved a family, I think it was the Cohen family or the Levy family, so she has a tree in Yad Vashem. So that side of the family is definitely philosemitic. And I mean I find it impossible to imagine the Queen harbouring unpleasant thoughts about Jews. But as I said at great lengths earlier, how could I possibly know?
And we’ve got a question from Devora Fields asking, is it true that Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge’s grandparents were Jewish? I think her maternal grandfather was, I think that’s right, isn’t it? So I think like myself, I think she’s a quarter Jewish. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, there is I believe one Jewish maybe great-grandparent.
Sorry, go.
And Carol Middleton suffered a huge amount of snobbery when she married into the family. Though not, I believe because she’s part Jewish, but because she comes from a working class background, which among the British aristocracy you inherited, everything they have is considered, if you work, it’s somehow disgusting unless you’re the Queen, of course, which is why people love her.
Yes. But actually the Queen particularly is popular among the Jewish community in this country, isn’t right in most synagogues, there is a picture of the Queen there and she’s prayed for, is that correct?
Well I can only speak for reformed Jews, but we have a wonderful passive aggressive prayer that says may God in his everlasting kingdom, bless our sovereign lady, Queen Elizabeth.
We’ve got a very good question from somebody called Claudia. She doesn’t give her surname, but I think she might be very closely related to you, Tanya. And she says, in years to come, will Elizabeth II join the pantheon of the most celebrated English monarchs? Henry II, Elizabeth I, and Henry V. I think this is Claudia Gold, your sister, who is one of our leading royal historians.
I think absolutely, absolutely, she will. Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II. Suitability, luck. I didn’t really get to expand my point on how, because she was a beautiful young woman at the end of the war, and it was very close to when she became Queen, I think she was always associated with our victory in the Second World War, and of course she had very little to do with it. I mean, she was a mechanic in the army, which is the only job she’s ever had apart from being Princess or a Queen, which is another thing I really, really like about her.
You’re still stripping engine, apparently, yeah.
Yes, and sometimes like the car would stop in Kenya and she’d just leave it alone, it needs to cool down in her immaculate voice, which you’d do better than me. Absolutely, I think she’ll be remembered as a great Queen. Luck, suitability and longevity.
I got a good question from Susan Weers asking, how is Camilla viewed in Great Britain? I’ll say, 'cause actually-
You’ve met her.
Sat next to her, I sat next to her a few months ago at a lunch for the magazine I edit, and I’m not just saying this to be sycophantic, she’s extremely good company, she’s very funny and bright, very curious, asked lots of questions. And I think famously she was very unpopular, for understandable reasons when Diana was alive, and shortly after she tragically died. In fact, she’s 75 this month, I would say actually, she has become more popular in recent years, and I think she’s been pretty good at the job. And famously the Queen last year declared that she, Camilla, will be Queen Consort when she dies, which was a real vote of approval from the boss. What do you think, Tanya?
Oh, well I think people, when you say popular, I don’t believe she’s polled, I don’t know. I know people, the newspapers used to write horrible things about her and now they no longer do. And I mean I have no personal opinion on her. I would just, again, go back to the point I had before and have had all the way through, which is what a tragedy it was that he wasn’t allowed to marry her when he wanted to, when he was young, because she was believed to euphemistically have a past that is not be a virgin, so she was passed over and he had to marry a woman, I believe he’d met only three or four times before they got engaged and who he didn’t love and broke all their hearts. Yeah, she’s an alien to me, she’s a rich English lady with a tiara and a dog and she’s not one for the myths, not for me, she seems fine.
Yeah, I’ve got a good question from Elizabeth Britain who asks, hasn’t the Queen failed as a mother? And if you believe so, does this reflect on your attitudes to the Queen?
Do you want to start with that one or should I do it?
You do it Tanya.
Yes, I think it is in fact, you know, if you are pulling a woman out and breaking her down to her constituent parts, God, sacrificing your God. Yes, you could argue, she wasn’t there, she was working, they went on a tour, was it for five or six months when Prince Charles was young? And the stories are correct if I’m wrong, Harry, when they met up, you know, she shook his hand, she was a very, very distant mother. And so unsurprisingly her son is nervous and finds it difficult to form attachments. I mean, did she fail as a mother? I don’t think she was a very different mother to other mothers of her class at the time. And if it is true that she was a lousy mother and she was prepared to sacrifice her family to the throne, to the crown, well she’ll be a more famous and beloved Queen for it. Because in that what we want to see, subconsciously or not, whether we admit it to ourselves or not? What we want from them is sacrifice. That’s why I was moved to watch her standing in the rain because she gave me something of herself. And if she has been a bad mother to her children, she has given the rest of us something that belonged to herself or should have belonged to herself, and forgive me if this is getting a bit too airy fairy, but she chose to give to the state instead.
And we’ve got Bernie C, quite rightly, referring to one of the children we haven’t talked about, which is Prince Edward and Sophie, the Earl and Countess of Wessex, actually, they having had a sort of slightly tricky period to begin with, seem to be more popular. And they are the ones who, according to the papers, see the Queen the most, particularly, Sophie gets on with her very well. They have had a sort of rehabilitation, wouldn’t you say?
Well, there were, Prince Edward made a bit of a fool of himself when he was younger with it’s a Royal Knockout, I urge you to watch on YouTube.
That was an embarrassing one, yeah.
And they made the press, it was a ridiculous sort of filmed game show in which they wore ridiculous costumes and they stuck the press in a pen. And then he came at the end, said, “Wasn’t it great?” And the press said, “Well, we haven’t seen it, we’ve been in here.” And he sort of stormed out and then he walked out of the Royal Marines. And then he tried to get a job in television, and of course that didn’t work out. And he had to go back to being a full-time royal, which now he’s doing really, really well. But I mean, I’ll just report the point I made now, when he wanted to be an artist and work for Andrew Lloyd Weber, that was what he wanted, that was what he wanted to be, and he failed at that. And so he went to do what everyone else wants him to be, which is, I’m not talking to people globally. I’m talking about people in Britain, which was a silent, compliant, quiet servant of the Crown and of us. And so, yeah, he’s getting great press now because of that.
And we’re getting close to the end, I think we’re time for maybe one or two more questions. Aviva Atlani writes, has the monarchy ever addressed its colonial barbarism? Well, actually last month at this Commonwealth gathering addressed by Prince Charles, he directly addressed the disgusting question of slavery and said how barbaric it was, Prince William said the same thing. But do you think that’s going to be a bigger and bigger question over in future years, the way the monarchy behaved in the past?
Yeah, and it should be, because when you think about the British Royal Family in Kenya, you think of pictures of Elizabeth II, as she ascended to the throne, sort of walking through Kenya while people worship her. I wasn’t even aware, and I studied history, that there were concentrated cramps, British concentration camps in Kenya, in the 1950s and '60s. And of course it’s all very well for Prince Charles to go, yes, it’s terrible now, but it’s a bit like that MP Richard Drax, the richest MP in the country and his family made money from huge plantations with enslaved people in the Caribbean. And he’s asked for reparation now, and he goes, well, it’s got nothing to do with me, well, we’ve still got the money, haven’t you mare? And so at some point I think it’s going to come out, how much money, if any, they actually made from it. Because I think words are quite easy, you know, it’s very easy to come out today now and say racism is bad. But there is a whole history to be written on this, and well, some of it’s been written and some of it hasn’t. But complicit for sure, they were the figureheads of an entire empire, you can’t untangle them from that.
And we’ll finish with a good question from Romi W, who asked, what do you make of series like “The Crown?” I must say I found it incredibly annoying that they purposefully got the facts wrong, because as we’ve been discussing tonight, it’s such a gripping, real life story, why play around with the truth? But at the same time, I did watch all the series and actually I think it’s ultimately helpful for, as I said, that expression, I used, beneficial brainwashing that a whole new generation of people are being exposed not just to the Queen, but to more minor members of the royal family. So it is adding to that buttressing effect of them being the wallpaper of our lives. Tanya, what did you think of “The Crown?”
Very, very effective hagiography, amazing hagiography. I mean, she was so lovable the first, the young Elizabeth in the first couple of seasons. She was adorable, she was decent and true and good and is she really like that? Again, I’m not sure, it’d be great.
I think there’s a good place to stop. And I’d like to say thank you so much to the brilliant Tanya Gold and to the wonderful Lockdown University for hosting us for this evening, thank you so much for-
Well thank you very, very much Tanya, and thank you Harry. And I want to add couple of words of my own experience. First of all, I happen to know the Queen’s granddaughter very, very well, and I’ve spent a lot of time with one of them. And she speaks about her grandmother very, very warmly. And it seems that the Queen has a very close and loving relationship with her grandchildren. So while she might not have been an available mom, I think she’s a much more available grandmother. And I actually shared a story with William, who I’ve also met a couple of times about an incident that I had, about his mother actually. My son, my brother was getting married and I had bought a dress at the shop and my little boy, David, at the time, he was baby, he had chicken pox. And I delayed and delayed and delayed going to get that dress because he wasn’t well.
And I was involved in other things and at the 11th hour, I jumped in the car, schlepped down to the West End in a pouring rain, it was four o'clock in the afternoon, I finally arrived in Brompton Road, looked for parking, it took me about a half an hour to find parking, I finally arrived at the shop, knocked on the door, and they came back and they said to me, we’re very sorry, come back tomorrow, the princess is inside, closed the door. I knocked on the door again, and I said, excuse me, where I come from, I’m the princess. And with that, they opened up and I went in and there she was and she was absolutely lovely, charming. And I spent 20 minutes with her. And she was like, you know, we were, I was a little bit older than her and showing off the dress, what do I think? And she was, she was terrific. And he loved that story, he was very warm, he relaxed, he chatted to me, asked about his mom.
So I probably saw a different William. And the same thing with Charles, I met him also through the arts and loves Africa, knew Swaziland and visited Swaziland where I grew up. So my experience with the royal family is very favourable, I’m a big royalist, I love them, I love the pomp, I love the ceremony, I love all the glamour. And I think England without the royal family would be a really sad England. So on that note, I just want to say to both of you, to Harry and Tanya, great, great pleasure and privilege to have you with us today. Thank you for joining us, thank you for being now part of the Lockdown Faculty and family. And we look forward to welcoming you again very soon. Thank you, Lauren, as always. And Trudy, you can be proud of your wonderful daughter, I’m sure she’s there listening, and Claudia, thank you everyone. Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Good night.
Thank you very much.
Night guys.