One's new best friend: The Queen, Michelle and the new touchy-feely protocol
By Michael Thornton
Last updated at 11:58 AM on 3rd April 2009
Harmless gesture? Michelle Obama with her hand on the Queen's back as they met at Buckingham Palace
She is not renowned for public displays of affection. Which made the Queen's decision to put a friendly arm around Michelle Obama's waist at a Buckingham Palace G20 reception - prompting the U.S. President's wife to return the gesture - so utterly astonishing.
Finding herself next to Mrs Obama, the Queen remarked on their height difference. As she did so, her hand edged towards the small of Mrs Obama's back. Mrs Obama responded - and even rubbed the Queen's shoulder - before both women moved gently apart after about ten seconds.
The sight of the Queen publicly hugging another woman astonished other guests. An onlooker said: 'It was a pretty simultaneous gesture. We couldn't believe what we were seeing.'
It was an electrifying moment of palpable majesté: A breach of centuries-long protocol when the friendly and outgoing Michelle Obama put her arm round the Queen.
It now appears, however, that it may have been the Queen who made the initial move. In any case, it was the first time that anyone can remember in her long public life that she has put her arm around another woman.
'A mutual and spontaneous display of affection and appreciation,' was how a Buckingham Palace spokesman hastened to describe it.
But the protocol concerning the sovereign has been set in stone for generations. 'Whatever you do,' courtiers are apt to warn, 'don't touch the Queen.'
Who can forget the furore that erupted in 1992 when the then Australian prime minister, Paul Keating, put his arm round the Queen's waist at Canberra's Parliament House, and found himself lampooned as 'the Lizard of Oz' for his faux-pas.
And everyone remembers the expression of frozen distaste on the Queen's face at the opening of the Millennium Dome when Tony Blair seized hold of the royal hand and shook it up and down during the singing of Auld Lang Syne.
(scroll down to see video of the Queen and Michelle Obama's friendly chat)
Break from protocol: Michelle Obama puts her arm around the Queen, who reciprocates, as the pair chatted after a group picture of the G20 leaders was taken
After about ten seconds the Queen pulls her arm away
Mrs Obama gives the Queen's shoulder a gentle rub
The two women move apart but continue their friendly conversation
If ever there was a woman conspicuously not attuned to the touchy-feely nature of political correctness, it is surely Elizabeth II, who has inherited the essentially shy and aloof character of her grandmother, the imposing, ramrod-straight and awe-inspiring Queen Mary, who died in 1953, the year of this Queen's coronation.
The Queen has always possessed a highly-developed sense of the duties imposed by her constitutional position. Spin, however, has never been her bag. She always had distinct reservations about Tony Blair and his circle.
Because of this, she may well have had more than a few reservations about the wave of euphoria on which Barack Obama swept to power, hailed as 'the new Messiah'.
The First Families of England and America posed for photographs before enjoying a 20-minute chat over tea
Michelle Obama shakes hands with the Queen as they arrive at the Palace
Yet equally, she must have a shrewd appreciation of the historical and psychological significance of Obama's rise.
She knows that he represents the frustrated hopes and dreams of millions hitherto treated as an oppressed minority. Her ancestor George III, the last British ruler of the American colonies, presided over a society based on slavery and racial discrimination.
Elizabeth will have had no illusions about the importance and sensitivity of this week's meeting with the first African-American President of the United States.
She knew that the eyes of millions worldwide were upon her, and that any false move could have been disastrously misconstrued.
If Obama's unexpected gift of an iPod was reciprocated more formally by a silver-framed photograph of the Queen and Prince Philip, it should be remembered that, behind the scenes, Elizabeth, despite her restrained image, has been a moderniser in royal life.
This is the woman whom Nelson Mandela still calls 'my friend Elizabeth'. The woman who, when her mother objected to a lady-in-waiting cycling across the forecourt of Buckingham Palace in a headscarf, retorted: 'Oh Mummy, you're behind the times. These days, girls just don't wear hats.'
In 1976, when President Gerald Ford asked the Queen to dance at a White House dinner, she kept her cool and smiled serenely when the United States Marine Band launched into a loud rendition of The Lady Is A Tramp.
And when she heard that former American President and peanut farmer Jimmy Carter had once affronted the Queen Mother by kissing her full on the lips, she reportedly laughed out loud.
So while the embrace between the Queen and Michelle Obama has been, to put it mildly, a surprise, there is an exception to every rule, and this was surely one of them.
First meeting: President Obama and his First Lady Michelle talk with Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace
French President Nicolas Sarkozy stares intently at U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with the Queen listening in
Of course, the Windsors can, indeed, be very grand and swift to put down any attempt at over-familiarity.
When the former Labour minister Chris Mullin asked the Duke of Edinburgh if 'Charles' would approve of some ultramodern design, Philip swung round on him and snapped witheringly: "Charles who?'
And the Queen, on being told that the rabidly anti-monarchist MP the late Willie Hamilton was 'really a very kind man', responded glacially: 'He hides it well.'
Yet Elizabeth II has loosened her stays to a remarkable degree in the 57 years since she inherited a disintegrating Empire, and became the ruler of 32 individual nations, half of which have subsequently become republics.
Year after year, she processes to her throne in the Palace of Westminster for the Opening of Parliament, and reads aloud the Queen's Speech, not a single word of which is her own, and is forced to announce measures that must often be complete anathema to her.
She has come to accept, with remarkable equanimity, situations that would once have been unthinkable, like her eldest son's unmarried mistress holding court at Clarence House, the Queen Mother's former palace.
The Queen handled Prince Charles and Camilla's wedding with dignity and tact (pictured with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon)
She then weathered the highly controversial wedding of Charles and Camilla in a Windsor register office - an event still regarded as illegal by many constitutional historians - though she had the wisdom, as a sovereign, to put public opinion first and to absent herself from the actual ceremony.
Of course, there are those who find the Queen dull, staid and unimaginative, but she is a complex character, and it is necessary to look beyond the rigid hairstyle, and the often unfashionable clothes and hats.
It is her faultless grasp of what is expedient that marks her as a great constitutional monarch.
As she advances in years - she will be 83 this month - there are those jockeying for position among the cronyist clique of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall who continue to express the opinion that the Queen should abdicate.
But her impeccable handling this week of the inaugural visit to Britain of America's first black President and his wife demonstrates why this must never happen.
Her instinctive decision to break with stuffy royal protocol and to put her arm around Mrs Obama was somehow just right for this occasion.
Above all, it reminds us that the Queen is a safe pair of hands in what is possibly the world's most difficult job.
She must give no thought to making way for her infinitely less wise and far from well-advised son and heir.
The G20 line-up at Buckingham Palace
Who's who
Back from left: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund; Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations; Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organisation; Abhisit Vejjajiva, chair of Asean and Prime Minister of Thailand; Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of Italy; Taro Aso, Prime Minister of Japan; Mirek Topolanek, President of the European Council;Professor Mario Draghi, chairman of the Financial Stability Forum; Robert Zoellick, President of the World BankMiddle from left: Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia; Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada; Dr Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany; Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Prime Minister of Spain; Dr Jan Peter Balkenende, Prime Minister of the Netherlands; Kgalema Motlanthe, President of South Africa; Barack Obama, President of the United States of America; Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister of Turkey; Dr Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India; Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission; Meles Zenawi, chair of Nepad and Prime Minister of Ethiopia.
Front from left: Lee Myung-bak, President of Korea; Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France; King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud GCB GCMG, of Saudi Arabia; Hu Jintao, President of China; Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; Queen Elizabeth II; Luiz Innacio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil; General TNI (Ret) Dr H Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President of Indonesia; Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, President of Mexico; Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, President of Argentina; Dmitry A Medvedev, President of Russia.
Explore more:
- People:
- Kevin Rudd,
- Camilla Duchess of Cornwall,
- Barack Obama,
- Gordon Brown,
- Nicolas Sarkozy,
- Jimmy Carter,
- Tony Blair,
- Manmohan Singh,
- Dominique Strauss-Kahn,
- Jan-Peter Balkenende,
- Michelle Obama
- Places:
- Edinburgh,
- Germany,
- Wales,
- Turkey,
- Indonesia,
- Japan,
- Mexico,
- Brazil,
- Ethiopia,
- Argentina,
- Australia,
- Thailand,
- China,
- Italy,
- Spain,
- The Netherlands,
- India,
- Russia,
- America,
- Buckingham Palace
- Organisations:
- White House,
- World Trade Organisation
Saturday, 19 February 2011
One's new best friend: The Queen, Michelle and the new touchy-feely protocol | Mail Online
via dailymail.co.uk
Flickr - projectbrainsaver
www.flickr.com
|
