Rayner clings on – but for how long?

0:03The Telegraph.

0:09This episode is sponsored by ZocDoc. Have you been putting off a doctor's appointment or need a dentist and you don't know where to start? We've definitely been there and that's why we use ZocDoc. Actually, over the holidays, Michael had a dental emergency and seemingly every office was closed. but we hopped onto ZocDoc, found an in-network dentist, had great reviews, saw real-time appointments available, which was key. It was on New Year's Day and booked an appointment in just minutes. It took so much of the stress out of the already stressful situation. ZocDoc makes it easy to search and compare over 250 ,000 local in-network providers across more than 200 specialties.

0:52So you can find the right doctor or dentist and book instantly. Taking care of your health just got easier. Download the ZocDoc app today and book that appointment on your to-do list. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C, ZocDoc. Hi, this is Monica Reinagle of Nutrition Diva. Today's show is sponsored by Nature Raised Farms. Grocery shopping can be a little overwhelming, especially if you're reading labels. And in my opinion, chicken shouldn't be complicated, Which is why I appreciate Nature Raised Farms. It's chicken that's just chicken. And their lightly breaded chicken nuggets are free from gluten, dairy and soy.

1:31Look for Nature Raised Farms on your next grocery trip and feel more confident about your choices.

1:42She's still hanging by a thread, Tim. Angela Rayner remains in post for now. We're going to be discussing why it's going to be very, very difficult for Keir Starmer to sack her. We're also talking to Royal Watcher Valentine Lowe about Elizabeth II and her ministers, King Charles, and what life might be like under King William. Welcome to The Daily Tea with me, Tim Stanley. And me, Camilla Tominey.

2:16Tim we'll get on to our fabulous royal chat with Valentine Lowe and his new book Power and the Palace where he spills very many royal secrets in just a moment but before that we must speak about Angela Rayner day two and I'm amazed she's made it to day two she's still in post now it's not for want of trying by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves I'm not sure Reeves and Rainer are friends in the Cabinet. No, they're probably not. OK, so Rachel Reeves has said that it is, quote, on all of us to understand the tax rules. Then again, she would say that because she is Chancellor of the Exchequer and that is also HMRC's official line.

2:53Yes. One of the strange things about the Angela Rainer defence, it's all about my child, it's about my divorce, it's about my complex living arrangements. I'm not aware of the HMRC normally saying, well, whether or not you pay this amount of tax depends on your personal circumstance. No, and we should be mindful of, albeit denied, strongly denied rumours, that the time when Rachel Reeves cried in the Commons may or may not have followed a row with the Deputy Prime Minister. So there's tension there. We've had Starmer come out basically continuing to defend his deputy. Now, why does he have to do that?

3:31as our colleague Gordon Rayner has written, it's on the Telegraph website, well, he needs her like Blair needed Prescott. He needs her as his old Labour left-wing buffer. And also she's in a strong position, isn't she? Because if he tries to remove her, perhaps she could be removed as housing secretary because that is a PM appointment. If he moves to remove her as deputy prime minister... Which I think he would have to do because if you're bad enough to lose your ministerial job, why would you stay on as deputy leader of the party? But that's elected by the members. Yes. She could turn around and say, all right, well, let's ask the members whether they want to get rid of me as your right-hand woman.

4:13And actually, who knows what might happen at conference or beyond. Maybe the members might turn around and be sympathetic, show the sort of sympathy that Peter Kyle showed last night. Can we discuss the science and technology secretary's defence of his colleague? This quote, because I just think it's so interesting, and bearing in mind Peter Carl is the MP for Hope, so one could almost say she's his constituent. Indeed. Mr. Carl told LBC, quote, I see Angela being treated very differently to lots of other people. Whatever walk of life, you're in public life or not, you should be free to live and spend your spare time wherever you please.

4:52Just because it is Angela with her accent and her background, people are treating her in a way they wouldn't if a Tory MP who was born into wealth had a second home, which many of them do already. Yes, of course, we all turn a blind eye to Tory scandal. Especially Angela Raider. Angela has never pointed out someone else trying to avoid tax. Angela would never bring it up because she respects other people's right to live wherever they like. It's amazing that even when they're drowning in their own hypocrisy, Labour still believe they're the goodies. So privately educated, right-leaning, God forbid Tory, you're a scumbag, probably not just a tax avoider, but an evader.

5:40This is what you said to Miriam Cates. And you deserve, frankly, to have no respect whatsoever. But no, good old Angie, the politician of the people, she left school with no qualifications. Yes. She should be cut more slack. No, I'm sorry. She should be cut less slack because she's saying she's one of us. It's the hypocrisy that I think is so wound me up. I would like to give Angela Rayner a second chance. I honestly would. I saw the interview with lots of other people did. I didn't know her private circumstances because it was under an injunction which she asked to be lifted. All credit to her for that.

6:17It's a difficult situation. People make choices and decisions in their private life. I would respect. And I'd normally be inclined to say, have a second chance. But the two things that irritate me are one, the hypocrisy that she has built a career out of attacking the Tories. That's what a deputy leader is. They're the attack dog. And she's gone after so many people, some people who I know, whose lives have been made very difficult by those sorts of challenges and accusations. The other thing that annoys me what Peter Carl is saying is this idea that she is the definition of working class or she's the most working class member of the cabinet or just all eyes are on her because she is the embodiment of the British working class.

6:53No, Parliament's full of working class people who haven't done what she's done or behave the way she does. I resent it when Labour tries to turn her into the queen of the working class. Milby and Bragg is working class, right? You can be working class and articulate and have qualifications and do your job well and not avoid taxes. And look, it is unfortunate that she has now had graffiti sprayed on the front of that seaside property. Oh, it's hideous. It's horrible. Which reads tax evader. Yes, I feel for her on that point. There's no excuse for that. There are another couple of contradictions at the heart of this story as well that we noticed before we came on air.

7:30First of all, you have a video of Angela Rayner in 2020, so sort of in the aftermath of clapping for carers and COVID, praising the NHS for saving her premature son, who was born at 23 weeks. Now, he was then born with disabilities, but we subsequently found out that actually she sued the NHS for wrongdoing. Again, right to do. I'm totally with her. She can do that. Angela is a good Tory. She can do that. But she doesn't mention that in her Praise for the NHS video. In fact, she takes the NHS to court. OK, she can do that, but there's a contradiction there. And we're supposed to ignore all of this because she has an accent.

8:11I always love it when David Starkey begins his speeches by saying, ladies and gentlemen, I am free to say whatever I like about the prime minister because I am the son of a toolmaker. Yes, indeed. His point being that this weaponisation of identity, like it's a shield, you can just pull it out whenever there's an attack. Well, you people are just being nasty to this lady because she's working class and she's got an accent. That doesn't get you off the hook. But lots of people who are working class and have got accents don't make those kind of mistakes and those sorts of life choices. The only reason why I mentioned that Telegraph follow up, and let's be honest, it was this newspaper that broke the news of her being able to avoid the 40 grand stamp duty in the first place, is that this is running and running now.

8:52What was the rule in politics? You know, if a story is still a story on day five, it's a resignation event. And this is going to get worse because the Sunday papers will be digging into all of this as well as we speak. So there are going to be more revelations at the weekend. Is the reform conference in danger of being overshadowed tomorrow as Nigel Farage was when he was making his freedom of speech pitch in America? Yes, possibly. Yeah. I mean, I suppose if she was going to be quite vindictive and calculating, she could resign tomorrow and wipe out the conference in Birmingham completely. Yeah.

9:26Then again, if she also hangs on, the question they must be considering is, do we want her overshadowing the Labour conference in about three weeks' time? Yes. Because it will be all about her, her appearance, what she's doing. Even if they sack her, by the way, she's still presumably going to go and she'll be given a hero's welcome. So it's going to be embarrassing either way. Yeah, it might be like Boris Johnson turning up at the Tories that year and completely overshadowing Theresa May with queues around the block for his speech. Yes. I mean, let's be honest. If we go to conference, she's been sacked or resigns and she's there.

9:58You and I are going straight to that speech. Yes, of course. Of course we are. The reader's reaction is interesting. Yvonne Kennedy. Ignorance is not an excuse when dealing with HMRC, who are very clear that you and you alone are responsible for your tax affairs. Don't we know it? This is the rule every taxpayer in the country has to abide by, let alone the Minister for Housing. Rayner shouldn't have a leg to stand on if judgement is made on the same basis as everyone else. Russell Mowbray says, It's nothing to do with working class accents or that she's a woman. Thank you, Russell. She blatantly tried to avoid paying tax and has fallen foul of the rules by trying to do so.

10:34Tell all those prosecuted for inadvertently investing in illegal tax avoidance schemes or those who fall foul of the convoluted rules regarding benefits that she, Rainer, should be treated differently. In her position, she should have known all the rules and in trying to play the system, she created this scenario all by herself. Sacking is the least she deserves. But Jacqueline Wellman is a little more sympathetic. I'm no Labour supporter, she confesses, quite the reverse, but I feel for Ms Rainer. She's worked hard to get where she has and I'm positive she's not deceived on purpose but been advised wrongly.

11:08It's a shame if they sack her. And do get in touch with your views, not just about this, but the royal chat we're about to hear. The email address is thedailytea at telegraph.co.uk or via our socials, that's x, Instagram and the Tiki Tok, at Daily Tea Podcast. Coming up next, Queen Elizabeth II and her ministers, the personality of Prince and King Charles. And will Prince William make a good king? Or is he too stubborn?

11:42this episode is sponsored by ZocDoc have you been putting off a doctor's appointment or need a dentist and you don't know where to start we've definitely been there and that's why we use ZocDoc actually over the holidays Michael had a dental emergency and seemingly every office was closed but we hopped onto ZocDoc found an in-network dentist had great reviews saw real time appointments available, which was key. It was on New Year's Day and booked an appointment in just minutes. It took so much of the stress out of the already stressful situation. ZocDoc makes it easy to search and compare over 250 ,000 local in-network providers across more than 200 specialties.

12:25So you can find the right doctor or dentist and book instantly. Taking care of your health just got easier, download the ZocDoc app today and book that appointment on your to-do list. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C, ZocDoc. Hi, this is Monica Reinagle of Nutrition Diva. Today's show is sponsored by Nature Raised Farms. Grocery shopping can be a little overwhelming, especially if you're reading labels. And in my opinion, chicken shouldn't be complicated, which is why I appreciate Nature Raised Farms. It's chicken that's just chicken. And their lightly breaded chicken nuggets are free from gluten, dairy and soy.

13:04Look for Nature Raised Farms on your next grocery trip and feel more confident about your choices. What makes a great pub? Is it the beer, the hospitality, the history? I'm Will Hawks, journalist and co-author of The Telegraph's Guide to the UK's Best Pubs. I've visited thousands of them and enjoyed a few pints along the way in my search for pub perfection. Now I've had the job of whittling down the best of what the nation has to offer. Enter your postcode to see if your local made our list or filter to find your new favourites. Visit telegraph.co.uk forward slash best pubs today.

13:47Valentine Lowe joins us in the studio with his new book Power and the Palace, the inside story of the monarchy and 10 Downing Street. It's like a little reunion for us, isn't it, Val? Isn't it just? Because for many years, you and I spent a lot of time behind a rope, being told to wait for royals to arrive and then writing up what they did. Yes, wasn't it exciting? Wasn't it? Also, Val was like at the head of the royal reporter hierarchy because he was the pool captain. He was the one who would dole out the different royal jobs. Abroad. Abroad. I was foreign pool captain, not domestic. Indeed.

14:23And then I was always a little bit of a thorn in the dailies side because I'd be on the Sunday scraping around for exclusives, which would then annoy the dailies if I got anything. And could I be in the pool and could I not be in the pool? And it's a little bit of a nest of vipers, isn't it? Oh, it was a terrible time. Some people, I always tried to be very accommodating as much as I could. Other colleagues who won't be named now were less welcoming. Indeed. and they will say that recollections may vary about the poor. So you were initially at the Evening Standard, then at the Times. Now you're writing books.

14:55You previously came out with Courtiers. This is your follow-up book. And let's just talk about the two top headlines first of all. Queen Camilla. Queen Camilla was groped as a young woman and had to fight off her attacker with a high-heeled shoe. I mean, it's an extraordinary story, this. For many reasons, one of which is it's wasted until now for it to come out. Yes. I was told it, and I can say this because it was on the record, it was an on-record conversation by Guido Harry, former BBC correspondent, later went to the other side PR. He used to do comms for Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London, and later he did a stint at 10 Downing Street when Boris was prime minister.

15:37But I was talking to Guido about Boris's time as mayor and his early meetings with the royal family. and he had a meeting with Charles, which didn't go wonderfully. It didn't go terribly, but he and Geeta were late because, I mean, idiotically, they'd got on the wrong tube at City Hall. Of course they did. Yes. It's A to B, so they ended up at C. Exactly. So they sort of got off the tube two stations later, turned around, came back a bit late. I don't think that went down terribly well with Charles. Anyway, Camilla was frightfully keen on meeting Boris and she said to Charles, he looks such fun, can we have him for tea?

16:15So Boris, accompanied by Geeta, goes over to Clarence's house for tea. They cycle this time because they're not taking any risks with the tube. And they get there and Camilla's astonished they come by bicycle. She'd been told this, but she has to go down to the bike shed to actually check that it's true. Anyway, so she whisks Boris off for tea. Geeta has tea with the private secretary and Boris and Camilla obviously get on like a house on fire. You can imagine that, can't you? You can't, you just. I'm sure they're both very good company, whatever you think of Boris, good company. And, you know, amidst their chat, they have a serious conversation because Boris is interested in setting up some rape crisis centres around London and sexual violence, domestic abuse, two subjects that Camilla has campaigned on.

17:03And she tells him this story, which involves her as a young teenage schoolgirl going to London on the train and someone gropes her. And we don't know the details. We don't need to know the details. Obviously an unpleasant experience for anyone, let alone a sort of young schoolgirl. And Boris says, well, what did you do? What happened? And Camilla says, well, I did what my mother taught me. I took my shoe off and whacked him in the nuts for the heel. Excellent. But in a way what I love about the story is that when they get to London, she has got the presence of mind to go and find someone in uniform and the group was arrested.

17:40Brilliant. Which would not happen today. Good luck finding a policeman. But when you ran that by Buckingham Palace, because often we get obstructed if we want to report on very personal matters, let's be honest, they were OK with that. Well, obviously I spoke to Buckingham Palace, of course I did. Yes. And the risk of sounding monumentally pompous, I can't possibly divulge the details of the conversation, But suffice it to say, we published. Yes. And there haven't been any complaints in the palace yet. And I'm given to understand that Camilla, the Queen, her majesty, the Queen, has got a pragmatic attitude to the whole thing.

18:21That although she's never chosen to make this public herself, for I think perhaps good reasons, She thinks that if by it being discussed now, women and girls who might have been subjected to some sort of attack see that there's no stigma or shame attached to it, and if that makes it easier for them to talk about it, then that's a positive. And that it's depressingly normal. Yeah, it was too common then, too common now. Exactly. So the Queen got on well with Boris, but the previous Queen, you have revealed, might not have approved of Brexit. That's right. This was extraordinary. I was quite taken aback with this because we all remember that during the Brexit referendum campaign, there was a front page story in the sun.

19:09Headline, Queen backs Brexit. Which was based on what? Well, it was based on a conversation at lunch at Windsor Castle a few years earlier, which the Queen allegedly said, I just don't understand the EU. And apparently she said this with the quotes of venom and emotion, close quotes. The Sun got into trouble with the press regulator about this because they ruled, I think a lot of people would agree correctly, that the headline was not justified by the evidence in the copy. But anyway, the idea was set in the nation's head that the Queen was basically in favour of Brexit. Occasionally, some clues would surface.

19:45She'd wear a hat that seemed to be in EU colours. Everyone got very excited, but we don't know. So Angela Kelly, who was responsible for the Queen's hats, said, no, no, no, nothing to do with it. It's pure coincidence. Who knows? I certainly don't know. And then I was talking to a minister who said that some three months or so before the Brexit referendum, they'd been talking to the Queen and the Queen had said, I don't think we should leave the EU. And the Queen went on to say, better stick with the devil you know. Now, I don't think this means the Queen was a rampant advocate of the EU. And that could be interpreted as quite a conservative sentiment and a small C.

20:25Well, I think she was a small C conservative. I think she didn't want to rock the boat. But there's no doubt she was sceptical about some aspects of the EU. I mean, I think that she thought that some of the bureaucracy was exasperating. but in general I think she saw institutions like the EU as part of the post-war settlement after two world wars, unity and cooperation amongst nations, that's broadly how she saw things. I think she was a reluctant Remainer as so many people were. You see, I'm going to pick a bone with you about this. Okay. I do agree with you and actually you think about her, she was a fluent French speaker.

21:05Obviously she watched her parents' extremely close collaboration with Winston Churchill and would very much be interested in sort of post-World War II European solidarity. But on the other hand, I've spoken to several very senior politicians who have always insisted that the Queen and Prince Philip were Brexiteers, but that the King and Prince William were Remainers. Now, that could just have been a generational observation. I also heard, which we can now speak about, we couldn't at the time that she was alive, that she did express some political dissent at the hunting ban during the Blair years.

21:42Now, that's not going to surprise anybody at this table, but I was always led to believe that she was more of a leaver than a Remainer. Right. I mean, all I can say is that, well, A, the evidence of my own conversation, but also Dominic Lawson wrote a piece the other day in the Daily Mail which he said he'd spoken to someone close to the Queen who said there's no way she's supported Brexit. Who knows? These things surface. What I can say is the person I spoke to had a direct conversation with the Queen and quoted her. Are they telling the truth? I've got no reason to disbelieve them. And one thing that gets said in this context is that, oh, the Queen didn't express political opinions.

22:22Now, you've suggested that actually there were occasions she did. And I think although she could be pretty gnomic and she could be guarded with her opinions. I mean, for instance, I think Malcolm Rifkin told me that, you know, he was never aware of her expressing a political opinion in his company. But she was more prepared to express opinions than perhaps we give her credit for. One thing I really want to ask you with a sort of historian's hat on is, because the book is about the relationship between the crown and number 10. Is the way Elizabeth II did it unique to Elizabeth II? We've been talking about diplomacy and keeping your opinions to yourself.

23:00Is that something she was actually unusual in doing? And because she was on the throne for so long, we've got used to the idea that that's the way monarchs behave. Actually, that was more about Elizabeth II than monarchy. I think you're absolutely correct, because I start the book with Victoria. And Victoria, of course, was incredibly political. She tried to influence who became prime minister. She campaigned against vivisection and animal testing, which is a thing I love about Victoria. She gave money through one of the aides to the Whigs in a general election. She tried to get Lord Palmerston sacked as Foreign Secretary.

23:32The list is endless. So she was incredibly political. And other sovereigns definitely had opinions. I mean, George V was a down-and-out Tory, and Lloyd George hated him for it. He complained about the Tory atmosphere in the palace. And even George VI, definitely on the conservative end of the spectrum. I mean, he had a good relationship with Clement Attlee, who became the Labour Prime Minister in 1945, but he definitely had in private things to say about some of government policy. And I think there's an interesting contrast, which I pick up on the book, is that in 1945, when Winston Churchill loses the election immediately after the end of the war, George VI is so upset with this that he writes to Churchill not once but twice saying how sorry he is to see him go.

24:22And the Queen, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, also tells Churchill, sorry, how sorry she is to see him go. You go forward 25 years. Harold Wilson, who had a very good relation, one of the best relationships of Queen Elizabeth's reign with her prime ministers, 1970, he loses the election. And he writes that he thinks the Queen is very sorry to see him go, probably with some justification, but then adds, but obviously she cannot say so. I mean, that word obviously carries a lot of weight there. And it's fascinating that in the mere 25 years, it's gone from that king happily to write to a prime minister and say sorry to Harold Wilson just assuming you could possibly do that.

25:06Yeah. Even with a book as packed with anecdotes as this is and great stories, we're still in the business of trying to infer from this mysterious woman what she thought. It's not like with previous monarchs or necessarily with this one where you can reasonably guess what they think. And I wonder sometimes if Charles is a return to the way things were before Elizabeth II. People keep criticising Charles for being outspoken on certain subjects, but actually there's a case for saying his mother was the extraordinary one. He's just what monarchs are like. Yeah, but what's interesting is how Charles has changed his way of operating.

25:37I mean, yes, the Queen, we knew virtually nothing about what she thought, what she believed. Charles, we know everything. We know exactly what he thinks on practically every subject under the sun. But he signalled before he became king, he signalled that he was going to change his ways. and he has. What was interesting is that on accession to the throne he made about four speeches, three or four speeches in a few days and in every single one of them he referenced the constitution and that was his way of signaling that he was going to be a good constitutional king and he's done it so he doesn't make controversial speeches anymore, he doesn't write letters that anger ministers anymore but he does things in a kind of subtle way.

26:20So the example I always like to bring up is the reception that he had at Buckingham Palace for people from the Windrush generation. As Prince of Wales, he had commissioned portraits of, I can't remember, 10 or so people from the Windrush generation. And then when they were finished, he has a reception, so all these people are invited. And it was his way, particularly in the wake of the Windrush scandal about how these people were treated by the Home Office, it was his way of signalling that these people are very important to this country and their contribution is welcomed and to be valued. So he does things in a different way.

26:57But one of the interesting things I always found about Charles is that he said, so in this documentary marking his 70th birthday, he said, he was basically asked, are you going to be a meddling king like you'd be a meddling prince? And he says, of course not. I'm not stupid. I know the difference. But the question then is, well, what is the difference? No one defines it. No one says princes of Wales can do this, monarchs can do that. And I think basically he defined it. He made up his rules as he went along. And it was merely a question of whether he got away with it. And I think there's a really interesting incident, which I don't claim to reveal.

27:38It's in Peter Mandelson's memoirs, but no one's ever really focused on it. During the Blair years, GM food becomes an issue. Charles writes a piece for the Daily Mail. It's very inflammatory. I think probably the headline was more inflammatory than the copy, but it goes down extremely badly with the government. And Blair tells Peter Mandelson, who has a relationship with Charles, he's got to lay off, he's got to tone it down. So Mandelson rings Charles on his car phone from a traffic jam in New York and basically says he's going to back off. And, you know, Madeline says, well, I don't think he changed his views as a result of that conversation, but he did quieten down a bit.

28:21And I think that's an incredibly important conversation because it's one of the few times we know about where the government has told the royal family, no, enough, you've got to be quiet. Tell us about the extraordinary interaction between a then quite young Prince of Wales and Dennis Healy. Yes, so I love this story. So Charles is in his late 20s. Jim Callaghan is prime minister, and Charles wants to know more about what he calls statecraft. He wants to know about how the whole governmental machine works. So Jim Callaghan sets up this dinner at Chequers with lots of ministers present, including Dennis Healy, the chancellor of the Exchequer.

28:59And Dennis Healy had been a member of the Communist Party in his youth. And Charles says to him, being an ex-communist, has that made your job more difficult? And Dennis Healy is kind of rather annoyed with this. He thinks this is a naive, stupid question and he patiently explains to Charles that when Healy was young, fascism had been a real danger and people were very concerned, so they reacted accordingly. Later on that evening, Charles tells a story about going to Australia and he'd been flying Qantas and the stewardess had said to him, right, you're Prince Wells here. Does that mean you're going to be king one day?

29:38and the stewardess says, well, that's a pretty scary thought. And then Charles turns to all these ministers and says, yes, I suppose it is rather scary, isn't it? At which point, Dennis Healy. And I think you have to imagine here Eric Morkham, Morkham and I, Dennis Healy leans across the table to Charles, chucks him on the cheeks and says, well, you shouldn't have joined then. The cheek of it. I think that's wonderful. And I think it's great that we live in a country where you can do that. Yes. Can you now? Yeah, I think he probably still could. It's a question of is Charles capable of taking a joke on him like that?

30:15I think he probably is. He's perfectly capable of standing on his dignity on occasion. Yes. But perhaps he could see the joke then. Right. I say that hesitatingly. It strikes me when we read about the different relationships that the late Queen had with her very many prime ministers, that it's less about ideology and just more about personality. And we've seen that. We have a regard for her having a very close relationship, for instance, with Ronald Reagan, and we think about them both being on horseback outside the White House. And then you and I, Val, directly reported on the visit by the Obamas, many visits by the Obamas.

30:54And we saw up close and personal that sort of bond that they seemed to strike up, particularly when it came to the Queen and Michelle Obama. Yes. And it's at that point that you sort of look at state visits and think this is just about whether or not you get on. And that brings us back to Wilson and things. I mean, actually, she got on with prime ministers that you perhaps might have thought on the surface she wouldn't get on with and didn't get on with prime ministers you thought she might. What's interesting is that politics has nothing to do with it. The Queen was once asked if she'd had more Labour or Conservative prime ministers.

31:29And she said, do you know what? I don't know. Because that's not what she paid attention to. So, you know, she got on obviously well with Harold Wilson and Winston Churchill. And there were the tricky ones we know about. Edward Heath, awkward, no small talk. Margaret Thatcher, been written about a lot. I think it was an awkward relationship. I think the Queen was exasperated by Margaret Thatcher. I don't think they hated each other. I think it's silly. That's going too far. That was blown up by the crown, wasn't it? It was certainly blown up. An actual philosophical difference. Yeah, but there were definitely differences.

32:08And then others we don't know about so well. I mean, I was fascinated to discover that the Queen thought Harold Macmillan was a bit of a bore, and he used to lecture her rather pompously. And although no one has spelled this out, I think she had a very good relationship with John Major. John Major is a very warm, empathetic man. He's someone on a personal level who you'd go to in times of trouble. And, you know, we saw that a bit, you know, in the Charles and Diana years when, you know, he was very much on his broker with them. Not to try and solve anything, not to kind of stop this breakup or anything like that, but just to kind of try and smooth things, trying to make it happen in a more satisfactory way.

32:52and the Queen afterwards appointed Major the chairman of her Diamond Jubilee Trust and I think that shows that she had a lot of time and he would periodically see her. She might call him in for a chat about something. So I think people don't realise, I think she had a good relationship with John Major. They nicknamed him the On John. That was Diana, yes, they called him the On John. Can we move on just because you are the man who broke the bullying dossier story concerning Harry and Meghan when you were at The Times to speaking about the Sussexes. Yes. Where are you on the Sussexes these days?

33:26We've just had another intervention from Megan on sending your children to school with a little note in their lunchbox, Tim, even if they're preschoolers and can't read. She suggests that you should send your child in with a boiled egg. Right. I think covered in a floral flourish that's been foraged from the back garden. I mean, in my mind, if you're a child who takes a boiled egg into school and starts peeling it in a classroom, you're not going to be popular with your classmates. You may not know this, I was also the reporter who was present, because it was my turn to do rota, when Meghan, when she was still in the system, visited a support centre for prostitutes in, I think, Bristol.

34:04And these people were preparing packed meals for these streetwalkers, and they were bananas. And Meghan, I watched this happen, Meghan said, oh, I've got an idea. Has anyone got a Sharpie? and someone went to go and get a Sharpie, not quite understanding what this was for. And Meghan started writing messages on the bananas for these prostitutes, you know, we love you, we support you, you're strong, you're beautiful. It was one of the most... So this is not a new thing. She's been playing with her food her whole life. It's much parody, and I suppose it's an extraordinary set of circumstances, Val, that when this American actress emerged on the scene circa 2016, and then they got engaged and married in 2018.

34:49And now we're where we are and makes it happen. And she is now being sort of widely lampooned on social media. Despite her efforts to self-fund and, frankly, live an independent non-world life in Montecito, I don't know whether we knew we would end up here, did we? No, I don't. It's a funny situation. I mean, they're trying to make their own way in the world and I wish them all the best with that. I really do. I mean, I quite happily not hear from them ever again and I don't want to watch her television programme, but if they want to make it and if someone wants to watch it, that's fine by me.

35:26The problem is Meghan always thinks she's the smartest person in the room, which is not an accusation ever leveled at Harry. And she thinks she can be a wonderful broadcaster in terms of executive producer. And so far we haven't seen that, not really. I mean, obviously they had that incredible documentary series where they unburdened their life and their opinions. But nothing since has convinced me that they've got a great career in the media industry. So I could wonder how all this is going to pan out. I always say that, you know, Harry would have been best off going to work on a game park in southern Africa or somewhere like that.

36:07That's where we had been happy. And he said that in his memoir. He hinted at that in his memoir and he was at his happiest on safari. Exactly. And that obviously, and he would have been far from the public eye. I think Harry would love to be far from the public eye. That, of course, is not Meghan's vision. She's where, they are where she wants to be. I'm not sure they are where he wants to be. Sarah Palin once suggested that she thought that the Queen actually ran Britain. And I think Americans do still have an old fashioned idea of the role of monarchy in British public life. But isn't one of the ironies of the system, which Meghan wouldn't understand, that actually royals have to know their place?

36:44What's interesting about that, Europeans think that too. Right. The Queen once gave a talk at a college in London and she was with some students. Peter Hennessy, the great historian and commentator, was accompanying her, was her host. And they were talking about the Constitution and she said, of course, they don't understand the Constitution. and Maastricht was a thing at the time and apparently some German foreign minister said to the Queen when she was in Germany, can't you just get under Parliament and order it through? And it was an absolutely extraordinary thing to say, this idea that this very senior German politician thought she could do that.

37:27Do we think that William will make a good king, Val? I think he will. He thinks about it very seriously. He's different from his father. He's tried very hard not to tread on political toes, but he's also quite stubborn. I think on balance he will make a good king, but there was an interesting occasion around Boris prorogation, Brexit, all that, when Boris got the Queen to prorogue Parliament, suspend Parliament so he could get Brexit through. This was overturned by the Supreme Court. William thought this is very bad. William was very angry. He thought the Queen had been badly advised. He thought the whole episode had embarrassed the Queen.

38:15And he let it be known privately that when he was on the throne, there would be more robust challenging of advice. Now, advice, in that context, it's not advice as you and I understand it. When the prime minister advises the sovereign to do something, that's it. That's basically an instruction. They can't say no. So the idea that William wants to robustly challenge advice is a very interesting idea. I put it to someone extremely senior in Whitehall and they said, you just have to think about it for 30 seconds and realize that's an incredibly stupid thing to say. Now, whether William was talking in the heat of the moment, whether he'd spoken to his advisors about that sort of thing, I don't know.

38:59My guess is, and it's a pure guess, is that he might have rode back from that a bit. But if he hasn't, and if he does start robustly challenging advice, we may be in for interesting times ahead. Also, has he read his Bible? He doesn't seem to do God, and I'm wondering if that's problematic moving forward. I think that's an incredibly good point. It's something which doesn't get discussed very often, but he's going to be a supreme governor of the Church of England and does he go to church? Not much. But he is going to have to sit through a lot of church services, including when he is coronated.

39:34And I wonder, I was there for that. I had a beautiful view behind a big stone pillar. Like most journalists. Like most of the journalists, of course. I had to come home and usually watch it on telly in order to write about it. Did Charles want that kind of lavish coronation? The coronation is interesting. So Buckingham Palace, they've obviously been planning, Charles' people have been planning the coronation for ages, but in a broad brush way, well used to still Prince of Wales. He accedes to the throne and it's cost of living crisis and they're very aware of this, they're very aware of image, they're very aware of how things go down.

40:11and they put their plans or a range of plans to the government and a senior minister told me that what they were suggesting was what this minister described as a royal wedding plus and the government said, no, no, no, I think you ought to go full fat. Don't be stupidly lavish, but we think you could do more of a proper job than that. So the palace had the go-ahead to do more of a full coronation than they had been anticipating. But we won't have that for William. No, we've read that he will have a different plan, but we don't know what that means. In the same way that we've read his will be a different reign, but we don't really know what that means.

40:57I'm worried it's going to look like a civil union in a hotel. Depends which hotel it's in there. It could be a very nice hotel. I mean, if it's the Goring, it's fine. If it's the Premier Inn, perhaps less so. I think it's the showmanship of a monarchy that adds to its value. We like some ermine. We like some pomp and ceremony. I know, they're bored of it because they have to sleep in it. I get it. They're bored of it. I know, but we like seeing it. The public like to see it all brought out, like a nice chime. And I always think that lots of people don't want to, but the people who watch do want to see it.

41:27So half the population can not turn on their telly on the day of the coronation, and that's fine. And who cares what they think about the lavishness? But the people who watch it want a spectacle. Indeed. Didn't get where we are today with cut price coronations. Valentine Lowe, the author of Power and the Palace, which is out now. We've got some Telegraph book deal on it, actually, which we will put in our show notes, won't we, John? The producer's nodding at me. Thank you very much for joining us on The Daily Tea. Thank you for having me. We'll be back tomorrow, 5pm, from Birmingham. Live from the NEC, with David Ball, Nigel Farage, Richard Tice and all the panto crew of the Reform Party.

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