The Royal diplomat

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2022

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After 70 years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II is the world’s most high profile global figure and a unique exemplar of diplomacy and soft power. Much of her role takes place behind the scenes. She came to the throne in 1952 at a time of crisis and as the British Empire disintegrated in the aftermath of World War Two. The Queen’s role as constitutional monarch and head of the Commonwealth placed her at the heart of global crises. We recall how she visited Ghana, Zambia and South Africa as a diplomatic envoy, helping to mediate in the racial politics of post-colonial Africa. From her first state visit to the US in 1957 to repair the transatlantic relationship after the Suez crisis, to the historic 2011 visit to Ireland, we show how reconciliation has been a major theme of the Queen’s reign.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What goes into making the business daily podcast from the BBC World Service?
0:04.8	Well first we take a cup full of business news. Naturally.
0:08.0	Then we add a healthy measure of technology.
0:10.0	Mmm. Along with a pinch of exciting innovation.
0:14.0	Business daily from the BBC World Service. Find out more at the end of this podcast.
0:26.0	Hello and welcome to Windsor Castle.
0:29.0	I'm Emma Barnett and you're listening to the Royal Diplomat on the BBC World Service.
0:34.0	This is a story about perhaps the world's most famous woman known and recognized throughout the globe.
0:41.0	My grandparents were first lady in president but this is the first internationally famous woman that I had met.
0:49.0	She was amazingly magnetic.
0:52.0	She is the only monarchy who has realms outside her own Britain.
0:57.0	She is a global queen.
1:00.0	We lived in the country where there are a lot of chiefs and we know that they do have power.
1:07.0	More power, some power and the queen have loads and loads and loads of it.
1:12.0	But the story of Elizabeth II, queen of the United Kingdom, is also a story about a global stateswoman.
1:20.0	A public figure who in her 70 years on the throne has had an extraordinary influence at the centre of world affairs.
1:28.0	I really cannot think of any occasion where her majesty put her foot wrong.
1:35.0	It's about the performance of power, the public face of a country and she has been the ultimate ambassador for the UK since 1952.
1:45.0	I was her 12th Prime Minister. She had started with Winston Churchill and she had been to all these Prime Ministers.
1:50.0	She has seen it all and heard it all. She is a brilliant diplomat.
1:58.0	If she has, as a former British Prime Minister, says, seen it all and heard it all, the rest of us have rarely been allowed into her world.
2:07.0	Before this programme, I've been speaking to people who have, people who from Ghana to Ireland, Germany to the United States, know Queen Elizabeth and have seen her diplomacy in action.
	...

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