The Queen: Elizabeth II and the Monarchy

"Yes. Ben was the head of Goldsmith College and I got to know him a little bit before his sad and premature death. For a Labour Party man, he had a very keen and sceptical eye of the royal scene. He was also given very good access, for once, by the Palace. Because his credentials were both left-of-centre and academic. He was a worthy adversary, very much up to the job. I think he painted a very skillful portrait of the Queen , who has always been quite an enigmatic, elusive character. He painted in rather more subtle shades than the caricatures – for example, he looked at her relationship with Prince Philip, and I think he was particularly good at looking at her relationships with politicians and the wry way in which she observed these things. Yes exactly – but obviously we never see those qualities. She is someone who is always slightly stony faced. She found Diana just puzzling; she couldn’t really make her out. Diana was always very respectful of the Queen. When I was asking her questions about the Queen, she would never dream of criticising her. But there was this feeling that the Queen should have been tougher on her son and his relationship with Camilla. Diana always felt that she inevitably sided with her son in the face of overwhelming evidence that he wasn’t behaving properly. She is very indulgent of her grandchildren in a way she wasn’t with her own children, which is a typical way for grandparents to behave! I know – I am a grandfather. When William was at Eton, he would go off to what he called WC, which was Windsor Castle, to have tea with his granny every weekend. He used to tell his chums he was off to the WC!! Yes. And obviously as a little boy he didn’t know who the Queen was, so she has always been granny to him."