“Bye bye Bo-” There was already a sense of history in the air when, at 13:02 on Monday 5 September, the music finally stopped.
In the streets of Westminster, a protester called Steve Bray has been playing his 20-second long Bay City Rollers inspired jingle, Bye Bye Boris, on loudspeaker and on repeat for three full years. And there he was, at very long last, finally pressing the stop button.
Arguably, we should have realised, right then, that this would be an even more historic week than was already taking shape.
We were outside the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre. I, as it happens, had travelled there on the Elizabeth Line, via the Pret at Stratford station, where a piece of paper with Queen Elizabeth II’s face on had been exchanged for a ham and cheese croissant. Afterwards we walked back toward Big Ben, or to give it its proper name, the Elizabeth Tower.
There’s always a strange feeling when a prime minister changes, even when it comes around as frequently as is currently the case. There’s been a lot of upheaval, of late. Already many people have spoken and written of how, for as long as anyone can remember, there has been one constant, reassuring human backdrop to the life of the nation.
“In times when nothing stood / but worsened, or grew strange / there was one constant good: / she did not change,” wrote Philip Larkin, words that have been quoted many times in the last 72 hours. One wonders what Larkin might have made of those words being repeated again this week, their sentiment unchanged, given that he wrote them fully 45 years ago.
In a Newsnight documentary, an ageing Mick Jagger was once asked: “None of you are getting any younger. How long do you think you can keep this up for?” “Oh a while yet I reckon,” he replied. It was broadcast in 1982. Hanging around forever is not as uncool as you might think.
The now overfamiliar rituals of a change in personnel at 10 Downing Street took on a slight twist, this time, the cars to the palace replaced by private jets to Balmoral, which took far longer to land than had been anticipated, and set in motion a delay that would cause Liz Truss to sweep in to that famous street in the middle of a summer-ending downpour.
The customary photo was released, of the new prime minister and the same old Queen, shaking hands and smiling. This photo, naturally, has already been analysed more than all the others ever shall be. That single still picture would be her final semi-public outing.
Around Westminster, it was stated time and time again that prime minister Truss would be getting off to a ferocious start. Her “in-tray” would be sufficient to terrify even the most experienced of her predecessors. It was also commonly agreed that the biggest moment of her premiership would happen on its second day. That was when she had to stand up in the House of Commons and set out exactly what she was going to do to avert an economic catastrophe on a scale arguably not seen in this country in a hundred years. With energy bills forecast to rise from £2,000 a year to £8,000, a very large percentage of the population had spent the summer staring down the barrel of destitution in a state of abject terror, while the Tory party avoided the question and argued with itself. An utter shambles.
One wonders exactly how she’ll feel about this seismic moment being over before it began. She’d set out details of a £150bn direct state intervention. Queen Elizabeth II had 15 prime ministers. Many were embroiled in wars and scandals and widespread social unrest. But precious few of them ever had to pull the trigger on anything quite this big.
The finer points of it are a matter that Westminster will have to come back to. The immense magnitude of the moment was kicked out from under it when Nadhim Zahawi began whispering, first to the prime minister and then to others on the front bench, seemingly sending shivers of pure terror into all who heard them.
It also became very much a matter of when, not if, the hours of absurd speculation about the colour of the ties of various BBC news readers would give way to certainty. For the second time in two days, private jets were scrambled to Aberdeen airport.
People of every political hue, of every nationality and every background all seemed to love the Queen, and all for the very same reason. Because she very deliberately dealt only in the kinder, gentler side of life – at least publicly. No controversial words ever left her. In seven full decades – longer than that, in fact – under the most piercing public spotlight, she scarcely uttered an opinion on anything at all.
Whether that is a virtuous way to live one’s life is a matter of personal taste, but it does not make life easy for those who must fill three, four, five, six hours and counting of live television, about a person who has very deliberately furnished them with nothing of any interest to say.
Huw Edwards had been saying nothing to Nicholas Witchell and Nicholas Witchell had been saying nothing back for 300 unforgiving minutes when the former was finally given clearance to announce what he already knew. “Queen Elizabeth II has died.”
The note was brought out to the palace gates. A lectern was brought out 10 Downing Street – again – and there was Liz Truss – again – 72 hours into the job and somehow having to lead the entire world in grief for arguably its most cherished human being.
For the millions of people who can’t possibly not have known that this moment was coming, who possibly day dreamed about it from time to time, but still couldn’t quite picture it, the unknown aspects of the ritual have been peculiarly reassuring. Everything really does just carry on.
And for those of us who are still not fully convinced by the idea of monarchy (and there are a few of us, at least 95 per cent of the world’s population, for a start), there have been a few more instances to ruminate upon. One might be how easy it is now to see quite what not just the Queen, but the monarchy itself stands for. It places admirable human qualities far above any kind of exclusionary patriotism, or nationalism.
