Queen is ‘dedicating herself anew’ as diamond jubilee year begins
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This article titled “Queen is ‘dedicating herself anew’ as diamond jubilee year begins” was written by Stephen Bates, for The Guardian on Monday 6th February 2012 00.01 UTCThe Queen is issuing a message of thanks to the public on Monday morning on the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne.
In a statement from Buckingham Palace, the 85-year-old monarch promises to dedicate herself anew to the service of the country, and echoes a call that she made in her Christmas message for the restoration of a national spirit of togetherness.
The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh will spend the day at Sandringham, the Norfolk mansion where her father, George VI, died in his sleep on 6 February 1952.
The couple were out in the snow on Sunday, for a service at West Newton church, on the estate and being greeted with flowers from well-wishers. They visited the local Sunday school in the village hall, but a 90th anniversary parade by the Royal British Legion, in King’s Lynn, which the duke had planned to attend, was cancelled due to the weather.
The Queen’s message says: “Today, as I mark 60 years as your Queen, I am writing to thank you for the wonderful support and encouragement that you have given to me and Prince Philip over these years and to tell you how deeply moved we have been to receive so many kind messages about the diamond jubilee.
“In this special year, as I dedicate myself anew to your service, I hope that we will all be reminded of the power of togetherness and the convening strength of family friendship and good neighbourliness, examples of which I have been fortunate to see throughout my reign and which my family and I look forward to seeing in many forms as we travel throughout the UK and the wider Commonwealth.
“I hope also that this jubilee year will be a time to give thanks for the great advances that have been made since 1952 and to look forward to the future with clear heads and warm hearts as we join together in our celebrations. I send my sincere good wishes to you all.”
Responding, David Cameron praised the Queen’s dignity and authority, guiding and uniting Britain and the Commonwealth over six decades. To view her as a glittering ornament was to “misunderstand” the constitution. “Always dedicated, always resolute and always respected, she is a source of wisdom and continuity,” he said.
Cameron, the 12th PM of the reign, who was not even born until she had been on the throne for more than 14 years, added: “All my life and for the lives of most people in this country she has always been there for us. Today and this year we have the chance to say thank you.”
The main focus of the celebrations will be the first weekend in June, extended by two successive bank holidays, when there will be a riverboat pageant of 1,000 vessels sailing down the Thames through London, expected to be attended by a million spectators, an open-air concert at Buckingham Palace, and a service at St Paul’s Cathedral.
anti-monarchy group Republic, which said its members would demonstrate peacefully against the pageant, argued that schools and the BBC should not be overly enthusiastic about the celebrations.
The Queen and duke are due to visit many areas of Britain and Northern Ireland in the summer, and other members of the royal family are visiting Commonwealth nations, starting in March with Prince Harry in his first official solo tour, to the Caribbean and Latin America.
On Mondaya jubilee website, is being launched with news about events during the year and two newly commissioned photographs of the Queen. There will also be commemorative postage stamps and a charitable diamond jubilee trust, led by Sir John Major, to raise money for medical research and education across the Commonwealth.
The former prime minister said the trust would “identify charitable projects that would enrich the lives and opportunities of all its citizens to provide a lasting legacy”.
The anniversary was not met entirely with unalloyed joy however as some economists said the June holiday could dent GDP by 0.5% in the second quarter as firms closed and people took extra leave, though they conceded this could be made up by sales of jubilee souvenirs, food and drink purchases for street parties, and tourist revenue.
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British royal news
Calls for relaunched Britannia were stage-managed
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It is a project for which the outpouring of support seems to have come from nowhere. In the past week, calls for a new royal yacht to be commissioned in the Queen’s diamond jubilee year have been made with enthusiasm by politicians, business leaders and newspapers.
But on closer scrutiny it seems the support is part of a well-choreographed campaign to make the yacht a reality. The project has had the backing of the royal family, a national newspaper, and the tacit support of at least two major organisations, for more than two years, suggesting last week’s enthusiastic headlines have been a long time in the planning.
The campaign can be traced back to the mid-1990s when a powerful group of industrialists and monarchists, anticipating the scrapping of the royal yacht, devised a replacement that would not require funding from the taxpayer.
Documents filed at Companies House show the Future Ship Project for the 21st century, known as FSP21, secured Buckingham Palace’s support at least two years ago and probably as far back as 2009. According to the organisation’s accounts for the 12 months ending 31 January 2010: “Agreement has been achieved with the palace that the FSP21 will provide royal apartments for use by the head of state.”
The accounts show the organisation, which will also use the ship to train young sailors, has spent the past three years seeking to raise £80m by exploiting its “contacts with trusts and industry, livery companies, schools and local authorities”.
They also note that “a national newspaper will raise public awareness of the project next year [2011]“, suggesting that at least one title, thought to be the Daily Mail, had pledged its backing for the plan at least two years ago.
Two dinners held on board HMS Warrior, the Victorian warship berthed in Portsmouth, were used to market the project to potential donors. And the accounts confirm a business committee was established and that “letters have been sent to individuals and organisations seeking support”.
The initiatives seem to have been a success. As far back as January 2010, the organisation, which is a charitable trust, revealed it had high hopes of securing funding from two major donors despite the “difficult fundraising climate”, a reference to the recession that was then gripping the UK.
The accounts note: “Particular interest in the project has been expressed by British Antarctic Survey and Edexcel, who are the project’s science and education partners respectively.”
Edexcel is owned by the FTSE 100 company Pearson, and describes itself as “the UK’s largest awarding body offering academic and vocational qualifications and testing to schools”. It has major contracts with the Department for Education, whose secretary of state, Michael Gove, has been a vocal cheerleader for the project.
An Edexcel spokesman said: “In 2009, we had some initial conversations with the group about the educational aspects of their plans, and said we would be happy to offer our expertise in support, if and when the project came to fruition. We have not been closely involved with the project since then.”
Last autumn, Gove wrote to David Cameron, stating that FSP21 “looks to be a highly commendable project, both for its contribution to our scientific knowledge and for the opportunities it offers to young people. I believe that approving this ship to become a royal yacht would be an excellent way to mark the Queen’s diamond jubilee.”
David Willets, the business minister, also wrote to the prime minister last year urging him to back the plan.
Last week the government said it would “react favourably” to the project, which is believed to be backed by the Prince of Wales and Princess Anne. In addition to royal events, the yacht would be used for trade and business events. It is expected to have room for “300 people – 200 trainees, 65 crew, 35 VIPs and passengers”.
It also emerged that Cameron had written to the project’s chief architect, Rear Admiral David Bawtree, a deputy lieutenant of Hampshire who represents the Queen in the county, giving his full support for the new 4,000-tonne, four-masted yacht last autumn.
On Friday, one of the Tory party’s biggest donors, Lord Ashcroft, announced he was donating £5m to the project. Ashcroft said “the murmurings … of a privately financed replacement for Britannia are hugely heartening, even if there is a very long way to go to make this happen”.
The murmurings were being made even before 1997 when the Labour government took the historic decision to decommission the royal yacht Britannia in its first year in office, a move that was greeted with dismay by the royal family.
Interviewed in Our Queen, Robert Hardman’s book about the monarch, Tony Blair indicated he regretted the decision. “I think if it had happened five years into my time [as prime minister], I would have just said ‘no’,” Blair said. Britannia is now a tourist attraction in Leith in Scotland.
Anticipating the Labour government’s decision, a group of businessmen formed the Cadland Consortium, which floated the idea of a privately financed yacht that would double as a training vessel. The idea was later supported by the then Labour education secretary, David Blunkett, who enthused about how it could raise “educational aspirations”.
Although the project fell out of favour, several of its supporters refused to let it die. Bawtree, who is a director of Visor Consultants, a private security company, continued to make the case to potential donors. He has been supported by his fellow directors, Maldwin Drummond, former commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron, and Graham Robb, an adviser to the DfE.
John Blashford-Snell, the explorer and founder of the Scientific Exploration Society, has also been an enthusiast for the scheme, explaining on the society’s website: “In overcrowded Britain, as our wide open spaces are reduced, the peaks of the popular national parks are being worn down by hordes of hikers. Yet on our doorstep we have the finest adventure training area of all – the sea.”
Last week their dream to replace Britannia, the 66th royal yacht in an unbroken line stretching back to 1660, came significantly closer to reality.
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Queen’s jubilee flotilla will be privately funded
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The £10m cost of the Queen’s diamond jubilee flotilla on the Thames in June will be met entirely by private sponsorship and gifts from individuals, the organisers have said, with the government so far refusing to lift a 20% VAT levy that will add £2m to the bill.
The pageant of 1,000 boats from the Albert bridge to Tower bridge on Sunday 3 June is expected to attract more than 1 million spectators lining the river banks.
At the same time a free party will be held in Battersea Park, south London. The events will be broadcast live on the BBC, ITV and Sky.
Lord Salisbury, the Conservative peer who chairs the foundation organising the river fleet, said the Treasury had not yet agreed to lift “the hell of a chunk” of tax, and said the Queen did not want public expenditure on the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of her accession.
He said: “The Queen does not want to feel she is asking the public to contribute to the bill. She is very sensitive to that kind of thing at this time.”
Some backbench MPs from across the main parties have signed an early day motion in the Commons – an expression of opinion highly unlikely to be debated or endorsed by the government but mainly used for publicity of a cause – calling for a minister to be appointed to consider the possibility of building a privately funded royal yacht for the use of the royal family, students and scientific research.
This week Michael Gove, the education secretary, proposed a ship to replace the royal yacht Britannia, which was scrapped more than a decade ago, as a “gift from the nation”. Signatories to the early day motion included the Tory MP Julian Brazier, Labour’s Kate Hoey and the Liberal Democrat Bob Russell.
Organisers of the flotilla have secured sponsorship from Sainsbury’s – Lord Salisbury said organisers did not wish to “go a bit downmarket to make it a Tesco pageant” – and are still seeking other potential backers.
Prince Charles, who originally suggested the idea of the floating fleet, has agreed to be the event’s patron. Other, as yet unspecified, members of the royal family will also attend the pageant.
Boris Johnson, London’s mayor, described the event as potentially more exciting than the Olympics two months later. “Let’s create a platform for the summer like no other,” he said.
The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh will travel with the flotilla downriver on the ebbing tide in a decorated tourist cruiser, the Spirit of Chartwell, accompanied by boats of all shapes and sizes, from coracles and sea kayaks to Australian surfing boats, American whalers, second world war landing craft and a survivor of the Dunkirk 1940 little ships rescue fleet.
A rowing barge replica of an 18th-century royal barge – as painted by Canaletto – will also take part. Organisers said nothing like such a procession had been seen on the river for 150 years.
Led by a floating belfry ringing out celebrations from eight bells named after members of the royal family – the largest, a half-ton vessel still being cast, inevitably named Elizabeth – the flotilla will trail upstream for seven miles and take an hour and a half to pass a fixed point on the route. Onboard some of the boats will be orchestras playing Handel’s water music, pipe bands, the band of the Royal Marines, a junior brass band and the London Philharmonic orchestra.
Carol Ann Duffy, the poet laureate, is composing a folk song, and a group of nine film composers including John Lunn, writer of the Downton Abbey theme tune, has been commissioned to write a new version of the water music.
Applications to provide boats were three times oversubscribed, the organisers said.
On the 14 bridges under which they will pass, space will be made for spectators from charitable organisations. At Tower bridge, the flotilla will be met by a mile-long line of sailing ships too large to go further upstream.
The more demotic Battersea park celebrations will include a fun fair, dancing and music, morris dancing and a temporary pub called The Diamond Geezer, which is likely to be crammed with pearly kings and queens. The public are being invited to bring homemade cakes to be distributed to revellers, who will be served free teas from trolleys. A portrait of the Queen made out of fairy cakes will adorn the occasion.
The Sunday events will be the centrepiece of the four-day weekend’s diamond anniversary celebrations. On the Saturday, the Queen will attend the Derby, on the Monday there will be a concert at Buckingham Palace and on the Tuesday, a thanksgiving service at St Paul’s Cathedral.
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Lord Ashcroft offers to pay £5m towards royal yacht
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A controversial Conservative peer has promised to pay up to £5m towards a royal yacht, it emerged on Friday. Lord Ashcroft, who has given more than £10m to the Tory party and is now a government adviser, said he would fund a replacement for Britannia, decommissioned in 1997. The former deputy party chairman, 65, told the Daily Mail he would donate the money as part of a plan to give away much of his fortune before he dies. “The nation lost a wonderful asset in 1997, and talk at the time of replacing her with another royal yacht quickly seemed to disappear,” he said.
David Cameron has endorsed the idea of a yacht after lobbying from the higher education minister David Willetts and the education secretary, Michael Gove. The idea, at one point described by Gove as a gift from the nation to the Queen on her diamond jubilee, also has the backing of the Prince of Wales and Princess Anne, according to letters sent to the prime minister by Willetts.
The £60m yacht has so far found another £10m in backing from financial leaders in Canada.
The pledges come despite a storm of protest after the Guardian revealed ministers had discussed taxpayers paying for the yacht as a present to the Queen – prompting critics to accuse the government of being out of touch with the nation’s economic priorities.
Ashcroft has previously been criticised for failing to admit that he was not domiciled in the UK for tax purposes for nearly a decade after he received a peerage. Rajeev SyalThe political honours scrutiny committee repeatedly made it clear that Ashcroft’s elevation was dependent on him giving a promise that he would return to the UK and become a UK taxpayer. The peerage was agreed after Ashcroft gave a “solemn and binding undertaking” in writing that he would become permanently resident in the UK. Instead of becoming a permanent resident, however, he became a “long-term resident” – a distinction that allowed him to avoid paying UK income tax on all his worldwide earnings.
ENDS
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Royal yacht backers to launch public appeal for funds
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The backers of a new national flagship to be used by the royal family are to launch a public appeal for funds after they decided against seeking government money.
The £80m project originated as a replacement for the Royal Yacht Britannia and has won the private backing of the Queen and Prince Philip, according to project insiders; but construction is to be funded by members of the public and corporate sponsors.
The proposed 157m-sailing ship is to double as both a training vessel for young people and secure accommodation for members of the royal family when they are abroad.
The charity behind the project, Future Ship Project 21st Century, said it hopes public interest around the Queen’s diamond jubilee celebrations in June will help fill the project’s coffers.
The prospect of a vessel designed in part to host the royals being funded by the public at a time of austerity could cause political embarrassment, and Downing Street has been quick to say there will be no government money for the project, despite the suggestion by the education secretary, Michael Gove, that might be a possibility.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment on whether it approved of public fundraising for a ship to be used by the royal family or if the palace would contribute.
“The Queen’s office is aware of the project’s existence,” a palace aide said. “We are also aware that the prime minister has sent a message of support for the initiative to the project organisers.”
Leading British companies will also be asked to donate funds in exchange for naming rights to various decks and facilities on board. Companies listed in the FTSE 100 will be approached, said Rear Admiral David Bawtree, chairman of the FSP21 consortium, leaving open the possibility that firms from British American Tobacco to Marks and Spencer could be asked to contribute to the royal vessel.
So far two unnamed Canadian businessmen have pledged a possible £10m, but there are no other firm offers as yet.
“We will go for national fundraising and I hope that members of the public will contribute to this,” said Bawtree.
“People will support this, as I have seen when I have given talks about the project. The jubilee also lends itself to a national appeal.”
As well as Bawtree, a former commander of the Portsmouth naval base, the project organisers include Colonel John Blashford-Snell, who in 1968 organised the first descent of the Blue Nile at the request of Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia, and Maldwin Drummond, a past Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron. They intend to invite 220 young people on board for three-month training voyages and also use the ship for environmental surveys.
The decision to launch a national appeal comes after David Cameron gave his backing for the project, a key step in securing commercial sponsorship. David Willetts, the universities minister, had written to the prime minister urging him to support the four-sail ship after he was lobbied by Bawtree.
Gove also urged Cameron to back the project and called for “a gift from the nation to her majesty” to mark her 60 years on the throne.
The ship’s designer, Colin Mudie, said he had included a helipad to land twin-engine helicopters used by the royal family. There will be two VIP suites with sufficient security to host royalty and the vessel will also be equipped for industrial and commercial exhibitions and conferences, and provide corporate entertainment facilities.
“We of course kept the royal family informed, particularly because of Prince Philip’s links to sail training,” said Rosemary Mudie, partner in the ship design practice.
“We always understood they approved of it but couldn’t be seen to be saying it was a good idea for obvious reasons.”
The ship’s backers are understood to be keen for the vessel to be built in the UK and that goal would be jeopardised if the project received government money because tenders would have to be sought from across the European Union to meet public procurement rules.
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