{"id":3650,"date":"2011-05-19T11:20:56","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T09:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=3650"},"modified":"2011-05-19T11:20:56","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T09:20:56","slug":"the-queens-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/?p=3650","title":{"rendered":"The Queen’s Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

In terms of political significance for the people of these\u00a0islands, the\u00a0visit\u00a0of the Queen and Prince Philip to Ireland is one of the most important and historic of her long reign, perhaps the most significant of all. It is certainly the most overtly political. This could never be just a\u00a0goodwill\u00a0trip where the Queen was above politics. For\u00a0these\u00a0momentous four days, Her Majesty is <\/em>politics <\/em>in Ireland. Her speech to last night’s banquet of almost all who count in Irish public life was without doubt the greatest she has made. There were no platitudes or non-\u00a0controversial pleasantries. This was a moment of history when her audience sat in pin-drop silence, utterly still, a good few open mouthed. Almost all in the room were\u00a0speechmakers\u00a0of some kind. The Queen’s\u00a0performance\u00a0gobsmacked\u00a0them all. At the end they rose to give her a prolonged standing ovation. She deserved that. Every second.<\/p>\n

It is not just that it was a calm, perfectly modulated performance, read fluently from pages held in a rock steady hand (who else among us could do that at eighty five?) but it was the conviction in the voice, the sincerity of the tone, the weight of the words. Yes and these were her words. Many had been those who had contributed to the script, but perhaps more than at any other time, Her Majesty knew what needed to be said and said it she did. Her words will echo down the pages of history; they have already stirred \u00a0Irish hearts everywhere.<\/p>\n

It is true that there could have been more. There could have been an apology. Martin\u00a0McGuiness\u00a0could have been there. It is always possible to improve. But politics is the art of the possible and last night the Queen went as far, within the extraordinary sensitivites of the fraught and violent background of centuries of upheaval, as she could. It can today be said of the Monarchy, whose own recent history is not without blemish, that rarely has it served its people better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In terms of political significance for the people of these\u00a0islands, the\u00a0visit\u00a0of the Queen and Prince Philip to Ireland is one of the most important and historic of her long reign, perhaps the most significant of all. It is certainly the most overtly political. This could never be just a\u00a0goodwill\u00a0trip where the Queen was above politics. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malcolm-blair-robinson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3650"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3652,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3650\/revisions\/3652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}