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to reassure the Commonwealth. Unlike the Queen’s Speech at the State Opening of
Parliament, when she is merely the mouthpiece of the Government of the day, the
Christmas broadcast is her own which she writes with Philip’s help. ‘The new links with
Europe will not replace those with the Commonwealth,’ she said. ‘They cannot alter our
historical ties and personal attachments with kinsmen and friends overseas. Old friends
will not be lost. Britain will take her Commonwealth links into Europe with her.’ In
terms of realpolitik and, indeed, the views of her Government it made no sense, but
Elizabeth meant what she said; it was her coded message of personal support to the
Commonwealth. Later that year, according to Campbell, ‘she positively insisted, against
Heath’s wishes, on attending the next [Commonwealth] meeting in Ottawa’.
Much of Elizabeth’s time over this and the following years was to be devoted to
overseas tours intended to reassure the ‘white’ countries of the ‘Old Commonwealth’ –
Canada, Australia and New Zealand – that Britain’s new European commitment would
not diminish the links between them. The fact was that they already had been weakened
by the strains and shock of Britain’s earlier abortive attempt to enter the EEC; as far as
the ‘Old Commonwealth’ was concerned, things could never be the same again. Britain
had signalled that her interests lay with Europe and that the ‘historical ties and personal
attachments’ of which Elizabeth had spoken would inevitably weaken. In Canada the
Toronto Star, hitherto a supporter of the Crown connection, for the first time
editorialized as to whether the time had not come for Canada to have its own head of
state instead of one who belonged to a foreign country. On a six-day visit to Australia
that year, 1973, Elizabeth signed what was designed as a first formal step towards
cutting the umbilical cord with Britain, the Royal Styles and Titles Bill, introduced by the
Labour Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam. This stated categorically that when the Queen
was in Australia, she would be referred to only as ‘Queen of Australia’ and not, as
hitherto, as ‘Queen of the United Kingdom and of Her Other Realms and Territories’. In
1975 the dismissal of Gough Whitlam by the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, the
Queen’s representative in Australia, gave further impetus to anti-British sentiment and a
questioning of the validity and desirability of the connection with the British Crown. 5
In Britain the industrial unrest which was to dog the remaining years of the decade
had caused Heath to call a crisis election to be fought on the issue ‘Who Governs
Britain?’ (the Government or the unions). Elizabeth flew back from Canberra on 28
February 1974 in time to hear the result. To general astonishment the Government lost,
involving her in a constitutional question. The Labour Party, headed by Wilson, won
301 seats, the Conservatives 297 with 14 Liberals and 9 Scottish and Welsh nationalists
holding the balance. But, although the Labour Party had won four more seats than the
Conservatives, it had received fewer votes and achieved a smaller share of the popular
vote than at any general election since 1931. The result had produced the first hung
Parliament since 1929. Heath, therefore, decided to try to form a government with the
support of the Liberals, asking Elizabeth’s permission to do so. Elizabeth could have
refused, but she did not. As incumbent Prime Minister Heath was perfectly within his
rights to act as he did. Denis Healey, who was to be Chancellor of the Exchequer in