When Her Majesty succeeded her father in 1952 she was monarch of an Empire in the process of being ended in collapse by her Ministers and a United Kingdom glued together by increasing social spending and promises for the future. It was pinch and scrape for most but there was a hope for better things.
By 1977, at 25 years the glue had begun to fail because much of the spending had been badly handled and too many promises could not be afforded. So her Ministers had opted for a rough and ready merger with Europe, dumped what was left of the vision of Empire, collapsed the nation’s finances and had brought in the IMF to supervise her Silver Jubilee.
In 2002, at the 50 year Golden Jubilee the difficulties in her family and other changes made the celebrations more muted. Especially in that she now had Ministers pathologically resentful about being upstaged by anyone or anything. This lot on the back of cheap oil and cheap money had sold out to financial interests and allowed Europe to collapse our sovereignty.
So in the 2012 Diamond Jubilee, Her Majesty will be presiding over Ministers who have witnessed the collapse of Europe triggered by a collapse in the financial sector with all the prospect of a collapse in any real future for the UK. The question now at the end of 2011 is which Ministers might these be?
There are all the signs to an ancient election watcher that the Prime Minister could be in process of getting his nags to the starting tapes for an early snap election when the runes and the weather forecasts are right. Could it be February?
If he calls the race right we could be looking at a Conservative Government very different in membership from the present Coalition Collection, now going at sale price as the lease runs out.
If he is wrong we will be looking at a Labour Government whose functioning model will probably resemble Fred Karno (see Wikipedia) more than any of the usual political philosophers. These Ministers could finish the job off in the way of collapses.
Either way the Olympics Ceremonies may be amongst the last she undertakes of a UK in any visible shape economically or politically. She will have gone from being the heir to a huge Empire to being the last monarch of the UK. What will History make of this?
By the time of the next Jubilee Her Majesty may find herself in Tamworth as Queen of Mercia, or if she is lucky down at Winchester as Queen of Wessex. If it is worse it will be Edinburgh as Queen of Scotland trying to sort out all the factions. The really bad one would be York or Durham as Queen of Northumbria.
The locomotive above was built for the LMS in 1935 and was named “Silver Jubilee” for King George V.
Happy New Year.
It would be interesting to know what views Her Majesty has ever expressed on the whole EU venture. She gives the impression of never having said a word against giving away her ancient kingdom and we really ought to know if this is the case before it's too late.
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