LONDON (Parliament Politics Magazine) – In her tribute to the late Queen at Balmoral this week, PM Liz Truss said that the Queen shared with her the extensive knowledge of governance and praised her as “the rock on which modern Britain was built.”
The PM said that she called King Charles III on Thursday night to express her sorrow and to promise him her “loyal service” in “our new Caroline age.”
On Friday, the first of two days of tributes, MPs in morning dress shared their memories of meeting the Queen. Boris Johnson was among those who spoke. Johnson met the Queen on the day he resigned on Tuesday.
Truss remarked that 70 years later, “life has paused again” referring to the time when King George VI died and in the words of Sir Winston Churchill, the Queen’s first prime minister, the king’s death “stilled the clatter and traffic of 20-century life in many lands”,
“As we meet today, we remember the pledge she made on her 21st birthday to dedicate her life to service,” she continued.
The entire house will agree – never has a promise been more perfectly fulfilled, Truss remarked, to murmurs of “hear, hear.”
Every day, the Queen would take her red box of papers and give her approval to numerous pieces of rules and legislation, Truss told the House of Commons.
When the Queen had tea with Paddington Bear to celebrate her platinum jubilee and joined Daniel Craig’s James Bond at the opening ceremony of 2012 London Olympics, Truss said, “She was willing to have fun.”
Ms Truss said as the PM that the country owed King Charles “our loyalty and dedication. Truss concluded by saying, “The crown endures. Our nation endures. And in that spirit, I say: God save the King.”
Although the “Elizabethan age may now be over, her legacy will live on forever,” Labour leader Keir Starmer said.
He remarked that all politicians are “united in mourning … this great country’s greatest monarch. For the vast majority of us, it feels impossible to imagine a Britain without her.”
Starmer continued that “in spirit, she stood among us” and that the Queen “will always be with us”.
“The late Queen would want us to redouble our efforts, to turn our collar up and face the storm, to carry on.
“Because as one era ends, so another begins … As he ascends to his new role with the Queen Consort by his side, the whole house, indeed, the whole country, will join today to wish him a long, happy and successful reign,” he added.
Johnson also attended as a backbencher for the first time since he gave the late monarch his resignation.
The Queen, he claimed, “showed the world how to give, how to love and how to serve”.
Johnson added: “She saw off her 14th prime minister and welcomed her 15th. And I can tell you in that audience, she was as radiant, knowledgeable and fascinated by politics as ever I can remember, and as wise in her advice than anyone I know – if not wiser.”
