Parliament’s poignant tributes to the Queen

That so many people have wanted to say something about how the Queen touched their lives, whether or not they met her, shows quite how powerful her service was. The tributes this afternoon in the House of Commons were moving because they showed the breadth of that service, from the way she carried out her constitutional duties with the government to her personal impact on many members of the House. When parliament pays tribute to someone who has just died, the cloying phrase ‘it was the House at its best’ quickly emerges. This is self-regarding, because what today’s tributes showed was not the best bits of MPs but the best bits of the Queen.

Liz Truss was the Queen’s last Prime Minister, and surely the last politician to have seen her, too, given she was only at Balmoral on Tuesday afternoon. The Prime Minister’s tribute to her was thoughtful and sincere: she spoke of the wisdom that Elizabeth II had shared with so many leaders, herself included.