THE Queen’s illness and the portrayal of Princess Diana in a new film were the issues raised by columnists and contributors in the newspapers.
The Daily Express
Vanessa Fletz said the Queen must be far from comfortable ‘because if she could possibly have masked the pain, disguised the strain and made her way to the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday she would most definitely have done so.’
“The mere idea of the Queen, aged 95, desperately disappointed not to be able to pay her respects to those who sacrificed their lives so future generations might enjoy the luxury of growing up in peace is troubling,” she said.
She said that, given her mother lived to be 102, we had come to expect the Queen to be immortal.
“Almost no one alive is old enough to remember a time when we didn’t bless her whenever our national anthem strikes up, or when hers was not the face on our currency and the silhouette on our stamp,” she said. “She pierces the very root of our subconscious. The Queen doesn’t “do” frailty. She doesn’t take to her bed. She is unlike any other 95 year old. “Long to reign over us” means a heck of a lot longer than this, Your Majesty.”
The Guardian
The Windsors screenwriter Bert Tyler-Moore said their programme was often having a go at the institution of the monarchy rather than the individuals; ‘an institution that embodies the idea of hereditary privilege, one in which you can attain a position of power and wealth purely by an accident of birth, is surely fair game.’
“Diana, with the tragedy surrounding her death, is a trickier character to tackle – as the makers of The Crown and Spencer have discovered,” he said.
“When our soap opera villain, Camilla, sings about her, it’s about jealousy, the fact that years after her death the British public still love Diana and will never love Camilla in the same way. I suppose we will have to tread a bit more carefully with Diana – given her status as a queen in public hearts (some members of the public, at least)”
The Independent
Sean O’Grady said he thought he heard God Save the Queen being sung ‘even more lustily and loudly’ by the crowd at the Cenotaph.
“Long to reign over us” was a poignant line for veterans especially, with the Queen, in whose name they served, unable to attend the proceedings,” he said. “There are very few people around, after all, who can remember at first hand life before Elizabeth II. It may be all very irrational, because business and life will go on, but still “a moment”, and the advent of a new monarch, albeit an old face, will be unsettling.
The Prince of Wales, above all, knows he has a hard act to follow. He’ll no doubt do his best and all that, but in a hereditary system, there’s no choice in the matter.”
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