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Posted Sunday, April 2, 2005; 09.48BST
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| PRINCE ANDREW |
| A photograph taken by her son, Prince Andrew, at Windsor for TIME |
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No matter how irrational may be people's desire to invest their love of country in a single person, the Queen's well-polished routine still resonates. In February she went to Reading, 65 km west of London, to open a hospital wing. She stepped out of the limousine wearing a lime green suit; the townspeople cheered and the hospital's cooks pressed their faces to the windows. As officials and doctors gave her a tour, the corridors were lined with hundreds of staff, patients and families who cheered and waved flags. Teenagers laughed and gave each other high-fives for snatching good snaps of her with their mobile phones. Charles Anderson, who had suffered a mild stroke, said the Queen "is very warm, very easy to talk to. Helluva job she's got. I wouldn't want it." She stopped to chat with Linda Patterson, whose arm was in a cast after breaking her thumb. "I think I'm going to cry, I'm so excited!" Patterson said a few seconds later — and did.
The assistant private secretary on duty, Edward Young, pointed out the Queen's professional skill: at just the right moment she turned to give the cameras a perfect backdrop of happy, flag-waving children. The emotional pitch was not quite the hormonal exchange of former U.S. President Bill Clinton working a rope line, but in her subdued way the Queen is a rock star whose charisma is curiously magnified because she seems to have no desire for the fame she cannot escape. As her limousine crawled away (she deadpanned to the chauffeur who tested it at the factory that its most important quality was how it handled at 5 km/h), she had accomplished her goal, which Young describes as "seeing and being seen by as many people as possible, and for them to go away feeling something special."
It is a balmy period in her 54-year reign. The tabloid fodder of Charles and Diana, Andrew and Fergie, the death of her beloved mother at 101, are all behind her. Charles is at long last married to Camilla, which according to courtiers has reassured his parents about his long-term soundness; Princes William and Harry appear to be well launched. Robert Lacey, one of the Queen's biographers, says the long-running Windsor saga has resonance with the public once more. She has become a matriarch in autumn, presiding over "a family happy once again, the more credible for the traumas they have been through." Her country is prosperous and generally content with her performance. According to a 113-page Ipsos MORI poll commissioned by Buckingham Palace in January and seen by Time, only 19% would like to switch to a republic — one more percentage point than in 1969. "This is the most stable measure in British polling," says Robert Worcester, who presented the poll to palace staff. No matter how you break down the respondents — young, old, ethnic minorities, Londoners, non-Christians, local opinion leaders, readers of the Sun tabloid, readers of the "quality" dailies — no more than 25% of any group wants to dump the royals. Even after a decade of tumult for the Windsors, 68% of Britons want to retain them. "That's astonishing," says Sunder Katwala, head of the Fabian Society, a think tank affiliated with the Labour Party. "It represents an absolute failure for British republicanism," to which he is instinctively sympathetic. In fact, there's no real debate at all on the future of the monarchy in Britain. Republicans want to abolish it, so won't discuss reform. The government won't touch the subject with a barge pole. So what should be uncontroversial proposals, like an end to the ban on the heir to the throne marrying a Catholic, are never discussed. Intelligent debate about what kind of monarchy Britain should have in the 21st century has disappeared "into a kind of Bermuda triangle," says Katwala.
Just a few years ago, few would have predicted such an outcome. That republicanism has no political traction after a period when many Windsors acted less as exemplars than as reality-TV stars is due largely to the Queen. She may be remote, but her dedication to duty gets widespread respect. It could hardly be otherwise. Since 1952, she has received more than 3 million letters, hosted around 1.1 million guests at her garden parties, and made 256 official overseas visits to 129 countries. Asked to explain his mother's relationship with the country, Prince Andrew says: "It's slightly complicated for people to grasp the idea of a head of state in human form, but I would put her appeal down to consistency. In their eyes, she's never let them down." Still, the battering the Windsors took in the 1990s, especially the emotional gusts during the week after Diana's death when the Queen seemed to be a stonyhearted defender of a hollow status quo, has left the family permanently on guard. According to the Ipsos MORI poll, 81% think Britain will have a monarchy in 10 years, but only 32% think it will in 50. Says one of her senior aides: "One can never be complacent." Walk around Buckingham Palace — a combination of family home, hotel for foreign dignitaries, stage set for national ceremony, rambling office complex and art museum that reflects the Queen's jumble of roles — and complacency feels far away. If you think of the palace as Monarchy Inc. and compare its operations to a decade ago, the production line has been thoroughly overhauled — a process begun before Diana's death but accelerated in its wake. "People who view us as a Victorian institution aren't looking beyond the front of the building," says David Walker, an air vice marshal who is now master of the household, responsible for all public and private entertainment. In 2000 the palace didn't have e-mail. Now it has a full-fledged secure network and a snazzy website with an intranet under development. Staff can get BlackBerries.
The average age of courtiers has gone down; their professional qualifications have gone up. Instead of being filled by discreet inquiries at a gentleman's club, the latest assistant private secretary's post was publicly advertised, and attracted over 400 applications. It went to an experienced financier. Focus groups probe whether staff are happy in their jobs; salaries have increased; there are "team away days" and rotations of staff to and from government departments and private industry, from which increasing numbers of senior managers are now drawn. "I think people expect we're very traditional and hierarchical," says Elisabeth Hunka, the human resources chief, who arrived at the palace from the clothing industry — "red carpets, long corridors. But there are a lot of highly able people here and a lot of humor, and it creates a buzz. It's a surprisingly democratic organization, because people pitch in. And the Queen sets a very good example. She's very hardworking and never seen to have airs and graces."
A crucial element of the overhaul has been financial. The palace now directly spends a lot of the money that different government departments used to spend on its behalf, which has allowed it to take control over its own operations, establish budgets and cut costs that might otherwise have continued on autopilot. (One example: the certificates people receive when they obtain honors are now generated by computer rather than calligrapher, saving $27 approximately 5,000 times a year.) There's more public disclosure too, in particular an annual financial report launched at a press conference and published on the Web. Last year the monarchy spent $64 million of public money (2.3% less than the previous year, adjusted for inflation) to fund its activities on behalf of the state, such as royal visits, the upkeep of palaces and official entertainment — the cost, as the palace is now media-savvy enough to stress, of a loaf of bread per citizen. Alan Reid, the former chief operating officer of the accounting and consulting firm KPMG who now serves as keeper of the privy purse, says the goal is "not a cheap monarchy, but a value-for-money monarchy." The Queen's natural frugality (except for her racehorses) is well known: footmen at the palace are told to avoid the center of the hallways to preserve the carpets, and she reminds people to turn off lights. Apart from Prince Charles, whose Duchy of Cornwall estate funds his private and official duties, and Prince Philip, she supports the other royals using her own money. Walker says, "If you look at the number of people and amount of expenditure supporting the head-of-state function, it's much, much cheaper than virtually any comparable country."
| From the TIME archive |
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What Michael Burgess is Looking For [January 19, 2004]
Why did Britain take more than six years to start the inquests into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed?
Crashing The Royal Party [July 7, 2003]
A Brief Look Back On The Annals Of Security
Why the Royals Miss Diana [November 25, 2002]
VIEWPOINT: As the butler mess proves again, she was the only one who understood Britain
Why We're Marching [November 24, 2003]
A young Londoner argues that Iraq isn't the only reason to protest Bush's visit
Butler in Right Royal Ruckus! [November 18, 2002]
London tabloids go to war over revelations from Princess Diana's former servant. Who says journalism doesn't pay?
Wedding Bell News [February 21, 2005]
After 34 years and a failed marriage for each, the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles are finally tying the royal knot. How the monarchy is remaking itself for a world that is increasingly blasé
Wedding Bell News [February 21, 2005]
After 34 years and a failed marriage for each, the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles are finally tying the royal knot. How the monarchy is remaking itself for a world that is increasingly blasé
Their Modern Majesties [June 3, 2002]
Europe's Royal Families are doing very well
A Ma'am For All Seasons [April 8, 2002]
Through scandal, war and turmoil, the Queen Mother endured
The Passionate Princess [February 18, 2002]
Her generation's royal wild child, Margaret lived — and loved — in the spotlight
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