How Blair betrays the Crown

Peter Oborne reveals the calculations that led the Prime Minister to ditch the royal wedding in favour of the Pope’s funeral

Fifty years ago, almost to the day, Winston Churchill retired as prime minister at the grand old age of 80. On the eve of his retirement the great man gave a private dinner for the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and a very small number of family and friends. It was agreed in advance between the Palace and 10 Downing Street that there should be no speeches. However, at the end of the dinner the Queen did propose a simple toast to ‘my prime minister’.

Churchill then rose to reply. Those present later recalled the look of slight panic that showed itself on the face of Clementine Churchill at this moment. Winston Churchill was a great preparer of his speeches: even seemingly off-the-cuff remarks were often crafted in advance. On this occasion, Clemmie knew, he had prepared nothing, and she was alarmed at what he might say.

But the old man got it exactly right. Raising his glass for the loyal toast, the prime minister stated that it was the same as that which he had drunk as a young subaltern in Bangalore in 1898, some 57 years before. Only then, he said, he had drunk it to Queen Elizabeth’s great-great-grandmother. Churchill spoke poetically of ‘the sacred causes, and wise and kindly way of life, of which Your Majesty is the young and gleaming champion’.

This relationship between the young Queen and Winston Churchill, like the friendship that developed between Queen Victoria and her first prime minister Lord Melbourne 120 years before, set the tone for relations between Buckingham Palace and Downing Street for decades to come. In the case of the present Queen, there have been certain ingredients, above all a profound and impregnable fastidiousness.