"Friends say Queen "exasperated and frustrated" at legacy of Blair decade."

[Macaw]

The photo on this link :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

is eloquent in showing HM's distaste for her PM's company.

 

[Barrie]

The Queen would never be quoted as speaking out against the Prime Minister even though he did turn into Bush's lapdog. This is one lady who watches her words.

[Macaw]

I agree, Barrie, but just once, it seems, she did let something slip....

"The Queen has not let her views be known to even her closest aides and friends over whether she believes Mr Blair was right to join the United States in invading Iraq....

".........her concerns are no surprise to John Daw, a farmer and the former chairman of the Devon branch of the National Farmers' Union. When he met the Queen at County Hall, Exeter, in May 2002 following the foot and mouth crisis, he told her: "I don't think Tony Blair and this Government understand the countryside."

"He said the Queen replied with a rare indiscreet remark: "I know. I tell him that every week when I see him."

[Elspeth]

I wonder if she really said that or if he just said she did. It would be a real departure from her usual style to say something like that in public.

As for this part of the Telegraph article: "She has been "deeply concerned" by many of New Labour's policies, in particular what she sees as the Prime Minister's lack of understanding of countryside issues, her closest confidants reported," I don't think her closest confidants are given to reporting anything - that's why they're her closest confidants.

Mind you, with the way Tony Blair has been consistently dismantling as much of the royal-related aspects of society and trying to marginalise the monarchy, along with the evident hostility of his government to rural issues and the strident anti-monarchy attitude of Mrs Blair, I can well imagine that the Blair years haven't been the Queen's most favourite of all her reign.

[Macaw]

He may be making it up or distorting it, who knows?

But all agree that it is rare to unheard of for her to make any inappropriate comments. 

The article does say there is no personal animosity and that she appreciates what he has done on Northern Ireland.

[Barrie]

It is very silly of this man to use the Queen to make his professional gains. IF the Queen feels this way she would have kept it to her closest family and friends.

[Summer]

Was it the fox hunting ban that sent QEII over the edge?  She didn't seem to mind other Prime Ministers (Churchill, Thatcher etc.) who sucked up to the US.

[Barrie]

What do you mean summer? Thatcher and The Queen disliked eachother immensely.

[Elspeth]

Well, but it was always said that nobody curtseyed lower than Mrs Thatcher, and she seemed to agree with most other PMs that the Queen was a useful colleague. I think she was fairly fed up with Charles's interference in political issues, but so have a lot of other politicians been. Tony Blair is the first PM who seems to have gone out of his way to undercut the role of the monarch and to try to turn the monarchy into a figurehead rather than a branch of the government. And the way the Labour government has treated rural issues must have rankled with a countrywoman like the Queen. Fox hunting might well have been the last straw, though; I think that was taken by a lot of people as a declaration of war on the countryside by the Blair government.

[Barrie]

I have a feeling that history may be very hard on Mr. Blair.

[Macaw]

We don't have to wait for history.

Already, every paper carries articles that are 100% negative about him.

[Elspeth]

I don't think that's entirely fair of them, but he's going to pay dearly for his apparently unquestioning support of George Bush, and I think that his attempts to sideline the monarchy might be seen as a symptom that he prefers the American way of doing thing to the British way, which won't go down all that well.

[Summer]

What do you mean summer? Thatcher and The Queen disliked eachother immensely.

Well, Thatcher challenged the old established class system, which indirectly challenged monarchy. I've heard that QEII and family mocked Thatcher in private, but I've never heard the queen publicly voice complaint against Thatcher.  She seemed quite supportive of Thatcher's Falklands war and didn't seem to have a problem with Gulf War I.   The queen's feelings about Blair seem to be uniquely hostile.  And although always diplomatic, I got the feeling that she was slightly uncomfortable on this last visit to the US.

But I'm thousands of miles away from the UK and I don't usually follow British politics.....

[Macaw]

I have read that the Queen Mother "adored Mrs Thatcher".