A private audience: The Queen and her prime ministers
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 14 September 2022
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Over her reign, Queen Elizabeth II saw more prime ministers than any previous monarch. What relationship did she have with them and what happens behind closed doors at the private weekly audience?
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Guest: Sir Anthony Seldon, contemporary historian and author 'The Impossible Office?: The History of the British Prime Minister.'
Host: Manveen Rana.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is what it sounds like when people win big with a national luxury. |
| 0:18.0 | Will you be next? |
| 0:22.0 | The national luxury. |
| 0:24.0 | Could be you. |
| 0:26.0 | The rules and procedures apply. Players must be 18. |
| 0:40.0 | Over her seven decade reign, Queen Elizabeth II saw more prime ministers come and go than any other monarch in history. |
| 0:50.0 | She would stand beside them at state occasions and set out the priorities of each of their governments in the Queen's speech at the annual state opening of Parliament. |
| 1:04.0 | My Lords and Members of the House of Commons, my government's priority is to deliver a national recovery from the pandemic. |
| 1:15.0 | It makes the United Kingdom stronger, healthier and more prosperous than before. |
| 1:25.0 | But it was her weekly meetings or audiences at Buckingham Palace where the relationship between the head of state and head of government would really develop. |
| 1:36.0 | All of her prime ministers were required to attend to give an account of their work |
| 1:44.0 | and receive private council from a woman who bore witness to the major events of modern British history. |
| 1:52.0 | Don't forget she's been queen longer than any of this was ever prime minister. |
| 1:56.0 | One thing about the meetings with a queen, nobody is there, just the corgis and you could speak in absolute privacy. |
| 2:04.0 | And her 15 prime ministers tell a story of a rapidly changing world during her reign. |
| 2:16.0 | Her first prime minister was of an age to have charged on a horse with a sword at the last cavalry charge of the British army at Ahmedabad to have fought in the First World War. |
| 2:28.0 | And her current prime minister wasn't even born when she ascended to the threat. |
| 2:42.0 | You're listening to stories of our times from the times and the Sunday times. I'm Manvin Rana. |
| 2:48.0 | Today, the monarch and her prime ministers. |
| 2:59.0 | So I'm Anthony Selden and I'm here in Maidenhead. |
| 3:14.0 | Sir Anthony Selden, to give him his full title, was knighted in the Queen's birthday honors for services to education and modern political history back in 2014. |
| 3:25.0 | But that wasn't the first time he met the monarch. |
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