The Spectator

God bless the Queen

The Queen’s speech to the United Nations this week was a masterpiece.

issue 10 July 2010

The Queen’s speech to the United Nations this week was a masterpiece. A forum which hears so much from politicians with, at best, a passing grasp of world affairs was treated to the views of a head of state with half a century of experience and wisdom. As she so rightly observed, the most ‘sweeping advances’ she has seen came not at the behest of governments but because ‘millions of people wanted them’.

Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary-General of the UN, perfectly captured the characteristics of her triumphant reign: ‘grace, constancy and dignity’. ‘In a changing and churning world,’ he told the monarch, ‘you are an anchor for our age.’ She has stood apart from the emergence of a turbulent 24-hour news cycle, doing or saying nothing to bring the monarchy into disrepute. The standards she has quietly set become clearer still when the political class — and estranged members of the royal household — fall so woefully short of them.

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