The Queen’s Legacy

I mean, the Queen, she she was an icon. She was like, it was unbelievable. Do you have a story? Do you have something to tell us that you can share? It was the greatest honor for Prime Minister that, you know, there you are on a Wednesday evening. You get in the car, you drive up the mile, you go to Buckingham Palace, you walk through the door, you step over the corgis, try not to wake them up. And there you are with the world's greatest public servant for an hour. No one in the meeting taking notes. There's just the two of you. And you know, every Wednesday, every week, every Wednesday while Parliament was sitting. And it's just an enormous honor. The problem was always, though, that you you realized as you were sitting there explaining, you know, why the health service wasn't working properly or why the economy wasn't growing properly. You thought to yourself, I'm saying all these things. I'm her 12th prime minister. She started with Winston Churchill. She's literally heard every excuse in the book. You know what? Is there anything else I can say? And also, her experience was extraordinary. So, you know, you'd be saying, oh, I just met the president of this or the prime minister of that. She'd sometimes say, oh, yes, I remember. Yes, the Iranians, as I remember, going to stay in Iran before the Shah. And you think, my God, the experience this person has got, you know, advice. Would she lecture? Would she? No, no, she absolutely was very, you know, understanding of the constitutional position, which is, you know, the queen, now the king, is our head of state. Now the formal part of the constitution, a great unifying force for the country, a great focus for the world. But underneath that, the politicians are fighting it out and making decisions. I mean, I like our system. It works. It works well for us. Sad you guys, you know, you gave up when we were on George the third. One day, you know, we're going to have a new George in town. Maybe you maybe come back in. But no, it's it's an enormous honor. And you know, so she absolutely respects the sort of constitutional position. But you're very lucky as prime minister to have someone who visited over 100 countries, 70 years of experience on the throne. You so much to have that as your someone who's listening and asking questions. And you always came out of the meeting, even if you hadn't actually solved any of the problems, you sort of came out thinking, I know better now than when I went in what I need to do. It was like so she was talking to this great public servant. So she would talk to you in a way that you kind of worked through issues. Well, it's sort of the way as it trying to explain why something isn't working and how you're trying to fix it to someone who's been hearing this, these stories for 70 years and has had 11 prime ministers before you is is a pretty good form of therapy.