Sir John Redwood MP writes: The sad end of the Queen’s life will be felt by us all. She has been our Queen all through our lives, a source of stability and a well known presence at our great national events.
Over seventy years of peace and rising national prosperity the Queen brought many subtle changes to the monarchy. She judged the evolving moods and attitudes of the nation. She quietly modernised the way the monarchy works and how we can relate to it. As the titled head of a class conscious society in the 1950s, proximity to the court underwrote that culture. 70 years later the monarchy is more accessible to a diverse range of people with more relaxed attitudes to etiquette.
She lived for service to her nation, for her family and for the animals and sports that helped enrich her life. Our longest reigning monarch, she ranks alongside Victoria as a long serving Queen who helped create the spirit of an era. The U.K. modernising and rebuilding after the world war was self consciously the nation of the new Elizabethans. Our Queen throughout her seventy years stayed safely above politics and contentious opinions, the only way to ensure a constitutional monarchy flourishes.
The nation has lost its foremost diplomat and representative. She led the growth and work of the Commonwealth. Everywhere she went and in every country where had a role she created good will and graced many formal and entertaining events. I send my condolences to the royal family who have lost a mother, grandmother and great grandmother.
