This week, to mark her platinum jubilee, Queen Elizabeth II gave a tell-all TV interview. No, of course she didn’t — she’s the Queen, and she hasn’t sailed to her 70th anniversary on the throne by adopting the tactics of mere politicians and celebrities. Already Britain’s longest reigning monarch, she is one of the very few people who make the news simply by carrying on.
Elizabeth II is the best known of all Britons, yet she reveals little. Biographers have found other royals ready to open up, but she remains a closed book. Aged 96, she has given at most one interview (a 2018 “conversation” about her coronation), and limits herself to brief offhand remarks and an annual televised Christmas message. She is seen but not heard — as on this long holiday weekend, when she appears on a Buckingham Palace balcony to survey the jubilee pageantry.
Britons love her for this discretion. Four-fifths have a favourable opinion of the Queen, putting her clear of the next most popular royal, Prince William. Sales of official platinum jubilee souvenirs have been suspended due to “unprecedented demand” — a blow to those in urgent need of a £225 gold-finished teacup and saucer.