What is the Palace thinking?

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): Pat Kane’s witty account of how Alex Salmond met the Queen focuses on the Scottish First Minister’s policy towards the monarchy, as you’d expect from a mover of Scottish Futures. But what does the head of the British state herself think? Some hints were set out in the new blog from BBC Scotland’s Brian Taylor. He quotes Elizabeth as saying on her Silver Jubilee in 1977, in the run-up to the first attempt at devolution, “I cannot forget that I was crowned Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland." While only last week, addressing the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Duke of York (who is the Queen’s second son, Wilson thoughtfully reminds us) said that the election of an SNP government has “rattled the timbers” of the Union. This reminded me of the great Charter 88 conference on Monarchy sponsored by The Times, which I helped organise in May 1993, in the aftermath of “annus horribilis” - a phrase used by her majesty to describe the year the Monarchy went pear-shaped. It was a brilliant event, from William Rees-Mogg and Elizabeth Longford to Sue Townsend and David Hare, with Tom Paulin speaking up for Milton, (It was later published as Power and the Throne). Who should be there from the palace but the bright-eyed Sir Edward Ford, adviser to both the Queen and her father, who died last year aged 96. He was the author of the "annus horribilis" phrase. His skill was to realise that the taboo on serious criticism of royalty had been broken and it was necessary to acknowledge not defy this. As Gordon Brown seeks a Britishness that is not defined by its institutions, we can be sure that the palace will have a view. Perhaps it will miss the skills of Edward Ford.