The Queen fights back

My father’s father’s father was a romantic Turkish politician who ran a small but distinguished conservative magazine, and whose career ended in a series of judgments that were romantic and certainly conservative, but unwise and sometimes reckless.

Most reckless of all was when my ancestor took it upon himself, as interior minister in the government of the last sultan, to sign the arrest warrant for Ataturk, now acknowledged to be the father of modern Turkey, and whose visage adorns almost every municipal building in the country. A short while later, my great-grandfather was having a shave in a place called Izmit when he was beaten to death and stuck in a tree. That is why my paternal grandfather, who was born Osman Ali, arrived in this country in search of what would now be called asylum.

I say all this to demonstrate that although I am of course British, and have far more English than Turkish blood, I have a predisposition to be sympathetic to those who have come to this country, in fear of their lives or not, with the intention of making a new start.