Do the Right Thing, Ma’am
Who can forget when a waiting nation looked to Her Maj for a lead in the national mourning, on the occasion of the death of her daughter-in-law? And if we hadn’t actually entertained such sentiments ourselves, thankfully Michael Sheen and Helen Mirren were on hand to illustrate, in The Queen, how the PM intervened in this conundrum for protocol.
Well now it’s time for another entreaty from her loyal subjects. It’s about this £12m, Ma’am. You know, the great wodge of cash your son has got to pay this woman whom he’s apparently never even met. It’s just not good enough to keep schtumm about where the money’s going to come from, and I’ve got a few ideas for making sure it doesn’t come out of the public purse.
How about flogging off one of your family’s properties? Let’s have a look down the list to see if there are any going spare. How about this one? Llwynywerned, a 192-acre estate on the borders of the picturesque Brecon Beacons National Park. It’s owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, but what an opportunity for a show of brotherly love!
But perhaps it’s a bit small: despite all that land there are only three bedrooms in the house. Maybe Craigowan Lodge, with its seven bedrooms, would be more appealing. It’s only one mile away from Balmoral – think of the scope for popping over to borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbours! The only snag might be finding a buyer for one of these properties who wasn’t also Russian, Chinese or Saudi.
I know what you’re thinking: aren’t these historic properties held in trust by the Crown for the nation? Well if the properties are off limits, how about selling off some of the race horses? She owns more than 100 of the buggers, so I’m sure she wouldn’t even notice if, say, ten off them trotted off to pastures new. Their immaculate provenance would surely be worth at least £1m apiece. Throw in a car or two, and perhaps an Old Master painted on an off-day, and there’s your £12m.
My point is, it’s time for a grand gesture. If many of her subjects are having to choose between heating and eating, the least the royals can do is signal their willingness to share in the national ‘doing without’, however painlessly. (It would be the equivalent of the Queen Mother refusing to leave Buckingham Palace during the Blitz, so she could share with Londoners the risk of being bombed out.)
I feel there are other occasions when they could have tried to show a bit more solidarity. I always thought the wedding of Charles and Diana should have taken place in Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral – a fabulous building equal to St Paul’s in grandeur (and what a fantastic foil to The Dress that pinkish-red sandstone would have been!). What better way to have bridged the North/South divide and shown a commitment of the whole nation in the face of industrial decline?
It’s not as though Her Maj is incapable of such actions. Look at the time the opted to drive the visiting Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia herself, knowing full well that she was exercising a right not then available to the Crown Prince’s subjects.
Gesture politics may be unpopular, but I don’t think a bit of gesture royalty would come amiss. If you can’t take a bold tradition-bashing step in your Platinum Jubilee year, when can you?