As the nation mourns, Team Truss plays up the PM’s role in proceedings
Your weekly dose of gossip from around Westminster.
ByQueen Elizabeth
Elizabeth II was Queen of the United Kingdom from 1952 through to her death in 2022, the longest-reigning monarch in British history. Find here all of the New Statesman’s latest content about Queen Elizabeth II, or visit our related section pages on the Royal Family and King Charles III.
The NS Poem: Floral Tribute
A new poem by Simon Armitage.
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Leader: The Queen held together a restive kingdom
She was intertwined with modern Britain and its self-identity. Her loss, at a time of national crisis, is disorienting.
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The right-wing press were dismayed by the lack of dissent from the royalist consensus
The BBC let them down so badly that even the Daily Mail was compelled to admit that the broadcaster “caught…
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How the Queen changed Britain
Elizabeth II’s legacy and example will endure. But the certainty she provided has gone.
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King Charles is popular – but for how long?
Republicans hoped this was their biggest opportunity to make their case in decades.
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The Queen’s death has become an opportunity to bash Meghan
She’s condemned both for not turning up to royal events, and for daring to appear in public.
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Portraits of a Queen
From regal paintings to punk collages, images of Elizabeth II have alternately humanised and glorified her.
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The pomp and ceremony of the Queen’s death is mad – and madly interesting
Highlights from the TV coverage include King Charles’s velvet mourning coat and Liz Truss’s extraordinary bum-curtsy.
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Anti-royal protests show the value of parliament’s supremacy
Liberties are most at risk while emotions are running high.
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Support free speech and you must support the right to criticise the monarchy
If the Queen was custodian of a free society, we should defend the right to protest against the institution she…
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We should celebrate Charles and Camilla’s very modern love story
The two lovers were torn apart by antiquated notions of morality that now seem not just sexist, but downright cruel.
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How to play the Queen
Elizabeth II’s reign was shaped by television. How will portrayals of her on screen determine her legacy?
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Are these performative tributes really “what she would have wanted”?
Peperami, Screwfix and Ann Summers are commemorating a queen known for her discretion and stoicism.
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From the NS archive: A man born to be king…
21 December 1979: Christopher Hitchens on Prince Charles and the development of the commercial monarchy.
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This is a surreal form of grief, circling like a mawkish TikTok feed
People who are not expecting to cry will cry. Grief is the price we pay for love. It’s really weird…
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How will Scotland respond to King Charles?
The Scottish government has declared its interest in a royal head of state, but there are republican voices of discontent…
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Is a nationwide blackout on fun really what Her Majesty would have wanted?
Events like football matches and Prom concerts are surely the perfect place for communal grief and celebration.
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What happens now the Queen has died?
The UK will enter ten days of national mourning and parliament will sit on Friday and Saturday for MPs’ tributes.
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Why unionism needs the monarchy
The Crown and the military are still the most important symbols of Britishness.
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