38656356325923

One gets a great deal of friendliness. And Prime Ministers also get a great deal of understanding of their
problems – without the Queen sharing them, since she is outside politics. I think she weighs them up, but
doesn’t offer advice. She listens. Of course she may have hinted at things, but only on the rarest occasions do
I remember her ever saying, ‘Why don’t you do this, that or the other?’ She is pretty detached on all that. But
she’s very interested in the political side – who’s going up and who’s going down. But not so passionate
about MLR [Minimum Lending Rate].
Elizabeth, Callaghan said, showed a real awareness of her position and its
implications and, like any wise dynast, of what it takes to ensure the survival of the
monarchy:
The Queen has a deep sense of duty and responsibility in this [the political] area, and also sees it as a means
of preserving the Royal Family as an institution. If her Prime Minister liked to give the Queen information
and gossip about certain political characters, she would listen very attentively, for she has a real
understanding of the value of a constitutional monarchy. I think she is absolutely right to be on the alert. I
think the prestige of the monarchy could deteriorate if she didn’t work so hard at it… She really knows
about preserving the monarchy and how to conduct herself on public occasions. When to step into the
limelight and when to step out. She really is professional in her approach, and I admire her, and am very
fond of her. 8
David Owen, Foreign Secretary in the Callaghan Government, also spoke of
Elizabeth’s friendliness; her ability to behave naturally in a formal setting, the skilful
way in which she can have a knowledgeable and intelligent conversation about a
subject without giving a hint of her real views:
On Britannia, when the last guest goes, the Queen kicks off her shoes and tucks her feet under her skirt on
the sofa and talks about the people who’ve been there that evening in a vivacious way – her face lights up
and she becomes really attractive – so you realize how much is kept under control. She gets confidentiality
from people because they are treated in such a welcoming and considerate way.
He was impressed by the naturalness with which Elizabeth behaved under the scrutiny of
hordes of cameramen – she simply was not bothered with her image and had no ‘side’ to
her. 9 This too was how she struck the wife of Owen’s predecessor as Foreign Secretary,
Anthony Crosland, on the state visit to the United States in 1976 to commemorate the
bicentenary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. At a banquet held on 6
July in Philadelphia’s Museum of Art, Elizabeth was seated beside Mayor Frank Rizzo,
who frequently got up and went round the tables gladhanding the guests. Elizabeth’s
two ladies-in-waiting, the Duchess of Grafton and the Hon. Mary Morrison, were
outraged and complained to her afterwards about the Mayor’s behaviour. Elizabeth
herself remained completely unruffled. ‘What a fascinating man he is,’ was all she would
say. After spending three days on Britannia sailing from Bermuda to Philadelphia,
lunching and dining every day with Elizabeth and Philip, Susan Crosland, like Owen,
described it as ‘positively cosy’. She noted the great affection between Elizabeth and her
two ladies-in-waiting – ‘intimacy and little jokes’; she also noted the complete