Queen’s important speech edited amid tension
King Charles III’s late mother Queen Elizabeth II’s historic speech was reportedly edited over fears amid tension, a royal book has claimed.
A key Brexit pledge was deliberately omitted from the late Queen’s speech due to fears it fell under the umbrella of being “too overtly political,” according to a new report.
It has been penned in new book, Power and the Palace, by former Times royal correspondent Valentine Low.
According to a Whitehall source, the monarch’s duty to hold an apolitical role in proceedings sometimes led to “tweaks” being made in the Queen’s Speech.
“The tension comes in the drafting of the speech. If there are phrases in there that look too overtly political,” the insider told Low.
When analysing a speech, there could be: “An eyebrow raised at the other end of St James’s Park, which means, ‘No, I don’t think we can use this phrase or that phrase, because it’s come directly from political campaigning.’”
One such occasion concerned a reference to Brexit about “taking back control”, which was omitted by the Palace.
The source went revealed that this back and forth between the Palace and Government flared up on a few occasions during the premiership of Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
However, this was not always the case as former Cabinet Minister Sir Malcom Rifkind revealed the Queen had been “particularly pleased” with the Queen’s Speech she delivered in 2021.
In particular, the late sovereign appreciated the Government’s commitment to the “global effort to get 40 million girls across the world into school”.