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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/23/if-theresa-may-cant-trust-the-queen-it-bodes-ill-for-their-future-relationship
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| If Theresa May can't trust the Queen, it bodes ill for their future relationship | If Theresa May can't trust the Queen, it bodes ill for their future relationship |
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| When a leak emerges from Buckingham Palace, and especially when that leak tells us what the Queen supposedly thinks, interest is unsurprisingly intense. | When a leak emerges from Buckingham Palace, and especially when that leak tells us what the Queen supposedly thinks, interest is unsurprisingly intense. |
| Regal unknowability – as exemplified in the recent Netflix series The Crown, where the young Elizabeth II is portrayed as learning that she must stay publicly above the fray at all times – is an essential part of our image of the royal family, and so any claimed breaches in the facade are bound to be studied closely. | |
| On Friday, one such incident provoked strong interest among royal watchers: the news reported in the Times that the Queen was “disappointed” in Theresa May for refusing to tell her about her plans for Brexit, attributed to a “source close to the monarch”. How seriously should such leaks be taken? And who would reveal such a confidence? | On Friday, one such incident provoked strong interest among royal watchers: the news reported in the Times that the Queen was “disappointed” in Theresa May for refusing to tell her about her plans for Brexit, attributed to a “source close to the monarch”. How seriously should such leaks be taken? And who would reveal such a confidence? |
| To understand the provenance of any leak, the first question is: who benefits? If it was a senior courtier passing on palace gossip, the intention will have been to indicate a touch of monarchical exasperation at the government’s evident lack of a plan (the Queen would not be the only one). But it won’t have been officially authorised and the one certainty is that the Queen will not have been amused. | To understand the provenance of any leak, the first question is: who benefits? If it was a senior courtier passing on palace gossip, the intention will have been to indicate a touch of monarchical exasperation at the government’s evident lack of a plan (the Queen would not be the only one). But it won’t have been officially authorised and the one certainty is that the Queen will not have been amused. |
| In reality, the latest leak is more about May than the Queen. It confirms what Westminster gossip has long held: that the PM is a laborious decision-maker, almost to the point of constipation, and that her government – at least in September – had little idea how to go about Brexit. If May thought she could not take even the Queen into her confidence, it does not bode well for their future relationship. | In reality, the latest leak is more about May than the Queen. It confirms what Westminster gossip has long held: that the PM is a laborious decision-maker, almost to the point of constipation, and that her government – at least in September – had little idea how to go about Brexit. If May thought she could not take even the Queen into her confidence, it does not bode well for their future relationship. |
| The Queen’s relationship with her prime ministers – Theresa May is the 13th – has always been a source of speculation, not least because their discussions, including the weekly meetings, are confidential. Usually, no third person is present and no notes are taken. The Queen does not leak her views and certainly does not give a running commentary, so any gossip about what has passed between them can normally be traced to political sources. | The Queen’s relationship with her prime ministers – Theresa May is the 13th – has always been a source of speculation, not least because their discussions, including the weekly meetings, are confidential. Usually, no third person is present and no notes are taken. The Queen does not leak her views and certainly does not give a running commentary, so any gossip about what has passed between them can normally be traced to political sources. |
| What her more recent prime ministers know is that she has more experience of British and world affairs than any of them. Her first prime minister, Winston Churchill, was born in 1874, while three of her four most recent PMs were born after her reign had begun. She has seen every state paper and intelligence report since 1952 and met every minister and senior MP, as well as a quarter of all the US presidents who have ever lived, six popes and most world leaders and celebrities – and she has never publicly gossiped about any of them. | |
| The Queen tends to get on best with ministers who are confident enough to relax and gossip with her; she is thought to have got on best with characters like Macmillan and Wilson and less well with Thatcher, who – as Queen Victoria said of Gladstone – tended to lecture her as if she was a public meeting. | |
| She liked Alec Douglas-Home (a Scottish landowner like herself) and apparently David Cameron – younger than any of her children – despite his incautious leaking of her views on the Scottish referendum result in 2014, when he told the mayor of New York that she had purred down the phone when he called her with the outcome. (Cameron’s boast was probably an exaggeration, as she’d already have known the outcome by then – she listens to the BBC.) |