A Tribute to Her Majesty the Queen: Ed's GMB interview with Susanna Reid and Ben Shepherd

 Friday 9th September 2022

The following is transcript of an interview given by Ed the morning after the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth was announced. A video clip of the interview can be found here.

Susanna:

Ed, you know what she was like in those very human moments because when you leave the government you meet with the Queen and so you've had an encounter with her at a time when you would perhaps need her to be at her most human?

Ed:

I did. And there was no constitutional reason, there was no duty as part of that. She just, as the monarch, wanted to meet every cabinet minister personally - she thought that was the right thing to do. By that point I was no longer a cabinet minister. I'd met her very many times doing my job in the Cabinet. I was invited by the Palace, I arrived in a taxi, walked in and waited with the Ladies in Waiting. I went into the normal place where we would have the Privy Council meetings. It was just the two of us, we had a cup of tea and she talked all about education, about social care, about the challenges in our society, about kids growing up and having the best chance.She was so knowledgeable and I think, for the first time, I saw what it was that all of those 15 Prime Ministers had valued: the wisdom and the interest and the care.

She was a person who, and I think this was a conscious choice for her, she always made every person she met feel special. She was meeting thousands of people, world leaders, but she knew every time she met someone like me, an outgoing Cabinet minister, that it was a really special moment. She always made you feel as though you were the most important person, whether that was on a visit and chatting with members of the public in the street, or someone like me.

I walked out that day - I had no government car anymore - I bought an ice cream and walked through St James's Park. And I thought 'I'm the only person in this park who has actually just been to see the Queen'. It was very special. 

Ben:

What impact will this be having at No 10 and with the Government with regard to political protocols, the business of politics - the economy is in a state, and it needs addressing, very quickly, and yet we have this huge and momentous thing that has happened?

Ed:

Of course the government, the civil service, have been preparing for this moment for many years, rehearsed many times. But Liz Truss has only been the Prime Minister for two days and for her this will be entirely new, she won't have had a chance to do any of that preparation. Lots of things will be very unusual for the next week or so.

But there's a more fundamental thing going on. I sat last night with my daughters watching the news with them,  and they were gripped because, whether you are 18 or 85, the Queen has been our monarch all of that time and suddenly she's no longer there. It does make you reflect about the past but also feel as though a new era is starting. That's a very important moment: for a Prime Minister to lead us into that. 

It's really important not to underestimate what we're losing here. She plays a hugely important constitutional role and as a private adviser to the Prime Minister. I do think, though, that she made the most important leadership speech in my lifetime: the words that she issued at the time of the pandemic, the night Boris Johnson had gone into hospital. The way she brought the nation together, reassured people who felt very alone, the 'we will meet again' words - incredibly powerful and binding, giving people hope and optimism. 

It's important to remember, when you think about her preparation, this was a girl who in the 1940s was in Buckingham Palace with her dad, the King, at a dark time. From the earliest age she was preparing to lead the nation through, as she did many times, through celebration, winning the World Cup, the Olympics, but also to know what it was to lead in dark times. 

The last time I ever met the Queen was behind the stage at the Royal Albert Hall. Rather bizarrely I’d been asked by the BBC to perform a George Formby song, 'When I'm Cleaning Windows', with Frank Skinner, Harry Hill and a big George Formby band. Afterwards we were there with the Queen. And, by the way, she had a great sense of humour, I can't tell you the things she would say. We were a bit delayed and Frank Skinner was a bit slow coming forward. The Queen turned and yelled 'Frank - Come On!' And Frank Skinner froze, thinking the monarch has addressed me by saying 'Frank, come on!'

She said to me 'I'm so moved by seeing you all singing that George Formby song. Because he came to visit us at the Palace in the early 1940s and we were such fans and it was so important what he was doing for our nation'. But it was so important what she and her dad were doing for our nation. And because she has experienced what it was to see leadership in dark times, in the darkest times of recent years she absolutely rose to the challenge of leadership - and we've lost that.

So for Liz Truss, and for the King, we move into a new era with great responsibility but without her decades of knowledge and understanding and wisdom and leadership. It's a big loss.