The Queen Mother has been wished a happy
100th birthday by leading politicians from both
Houses of Parliament.
On the eve of a pageant celebrating her
birthday on 4 August, Prime Minister Tony Blair
and Tory leader William Hague joined forces to
deliver a message of congratulations from the
Commons.
And a deputation from the Lords included the
Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Dr George Carey, and the leader of
the opposition in the Lords, Lord Strathclyde.
Others calling at
Clarence House, the
Queen Mother's London
residence, were
Speaker Betty
Boothroyd, Commons
Leader Margaret
Beckett and Liberal
Democrat leader
Charles Kennedy.
The formal tribute was
paid in the gardens of
her London home.
A message from the House of Lords, read by
Lord Irvine, said: "We, the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal in Parliament assembled, warmly
congratulate Your Majesty on Your Majesty's
birthday and express our gratitude for Your
Majesty's outstanding service to the nation for
over 64 years.
"We remember the courage of Your Majesty
and His late Majesty King George VI during the
last War and the inspiration you then provided.
"We thank Your Majesty for the immense joy
you have given the British people and wish
Your Majesty many happy returns."
The House of Commons
delivered a similar
message.
Accepting the
parliamentarians' best
wishes for her birthday,
the Queen Mother said:
"I feel very grateful
that in the last decades
I have had the
opportunity to serve my
country and its great
people."
On Wednesday, the "people's tribute" to the
Queen Mother will take the form of a pageant
on London's Horse Guards Parade.
Corgi's star role
The fun parade - involving a cast of 7,000 -
will feature music and animals including
champion racehorse Desert Orchid, six camels,
sheep, Aberdeen Angus bulls, chickens,
dachshunds and corgis.
And the best behaved of the Queen Mother's
own two corgis could play a starring role.
There will be the world's biggest 100th
birthday cake and the world's biggest 100th
birthday card.
The spectacular finale will see one million rose
petals raining down on the Queen Mother and
the 12,400 spectators.
Costs of £457,000 are being met by National
Car Parks tycoons Sir Donald Gosling and Ron
Hobson.
With military precision,
the Queen Mother is
due to arrive at 5.06pm
in an open carriage
with a Household
Cavalry escort.
After a march past,
there will be a Parade
of the Century to
illustrate changing
Britain through her
lifetime.
It will feature wartime favourite Dame Vera
Lynn, comedy duo Hinge and Brackett, Noddy
and The Wombles, and the original company of
hit musical Cats.
Actress and model Jerry Hall will be dressed as
the Goddess Flora as part of a display from the
National Trust.
The Queen Mother will make a short speech
before a reception at nearby St James's
Palace.
The hour-long pageant also boasts a flypast
by Second World War vintage aircraft, followed
by the Red Arrows.
~*~
Salute to the Queen Mother(Electronic Telegraph)
By Sandra Barwick
ANDREW MOTION, the Poet Laureate, unveiled a poem yesterday to
celebrate the 100th birthday of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother with a line
for each year of her life.
After the "cash-for-couplets" controversy which greeted his poem for the
Millennium, first published in a Sunday newspaper for a reported £2,000, the
latest work has been offered to all national papers in return for a donation to
charity.
Help the Aged will receive £400 for each use of the poem, Picture This,
which is based on a series of well-known photographs of the Queen Mother
at different stages in her life. It mixes historic events with notable dates in the
Queen Mother's life, and muses on "the photos no one took of you - the
grandmother-confessor-friend, the mourner at divorces and the rest".
Edwin Morgan, poet and emeritus professor of English at the University of
Glasgow, said the poem was "fairly mechanical but not saccharine in a bad
sense". Prof Morgan said: "It's a respectable piece of work. I'd have liked to
have seen it being a bit more sharp, a bit more prickly. We've read a lot about
the Queen Mother recently and not all of it has been entirely in her favour."
However, he felt that there were "hints of criticism" in the suggestion that the
Queen Mother was not really "one of us" when she visited bomb sites during
the Blitz, and in the reference to "the hats, the hats, the hats".
Auberon Waugh, editor of The Literary Review, said: "It's obviously rather
sad and the kindest thing is to pass by in silence. One could be kind and say
it's a difficult subject to write on, but I haven't seen anything much better on
any other subject either. We must just wait for English poetry to come to its
senses one day."
Simon Armitage, who was commissioned by the New Millennium Experience
Company to write the 1,000-line Killing Time for the opening of the Dome,
would only say: "Rather him than me".
~*~
Eloping princess faces US charges(Electronic Telegraph)
By Simon Davis in Los Angeles
A TEENAGE Bahraini princess who fled her homeland dressed up as a US
marine so that she could marry an American serviceman is to face criminal
charges for illegally entering America, despite her claim that her life would be
in danger if she were returned to Bahrain.
L/Cpl Jason Johnson, 25, arranged forged documents for 19-year-old
Princess Meriam al-Khalifa and flew with her to America after his tour of duty
ended in Bahrain last year and the couple did not want to part. They met at a
shopping centre in the Bahraini capital of Manama where the marine was
stationed as part of a counter-terrorism unit providing security for expatriate
Americans.
Johnson dressed the princess, who is the daughter of Sheikh Abdulla
al-Khalifa, a cousin of the head of state, Emir Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, in
baggy khaki clothes resembling a marine uniform and a New York Yankees
baseball cap to hide her long hair before boarding a commercial aircraft.
Officials in Chicago caught the couple when they landed after the Bahraini
royal family tipped off American immigration officers that a member of their
family had eloped with a marine.
The princess said that her family, and many others members of the Bahraini
community, would severely chastise her and physically abuse her for marrying
a non-Muslim, especially an American, if she returned. Despite the judges'
ruling, the princess said that she would continue her campaign for political
asylum in the United States right up until the time she was frogmarched to a
plane and sent home.
Jan Joseph Behar, her lawyer, read a statement from the princess that said: "I
can guarantee you that it is not just Daddy who is mad at me." Last week she
said: "I did the worst thing possible in my country; I fell in love with a
non-Muslim. To make it even worse, he's an American." Johnson said: "I
think they'd kill her if she ever returned."
A spokesman for the Bahraini embassy in Washington said that the princess's
family was keen for her to return home and that she would not face
persecution there.
After marrying in Las Vegas, Johnson was severely reprimanded and
demoted and, in stark contrast to the princess's life in Bahrain, the couple now
live in drab accommodation on Camp Pendleton, a marine base 40 miles
north of San Diego. The princess is charged with misrepresenting her identity
to enter the United States and not having the proper documents to enter the
country.
~*~
Exiled heir to Italian throne offers
apology for ancestors(Electronic Telegraph)
By Bruce Johnston in Rome
THE grandson of Italy's last king said yesterday he was willing to ask
forgiveness for ancestral wrongdoings.
The statement by Emanuel Filiberto, 28, also suggested that his father, Victor
Emanuel, the current heir, agreed. It will greatly increase the chances of the
male heirs of the House of Savoy being allowed to return to Italy after 54
years of banishment.
Mr Filiberto, a football commentator turned financier, said: "We are ready to
tell all Italians that we are sorry for the faults of our forebears." Speaking on
Italian radio, the grandson of King Umberto II said he was prepared to swear
loyalty to the Italian Republic and Constitution, along with his father.
Victor Emanuel had earlier announced that he was willing to pledge allegiance
to the Republic, and won a positive response from Piero Fassino, the Justice
Minister.
Mr Fassino described the statement as very important and said it could help
speed up moves within parliament to end the exile. He added: "I've always
held that a strong republic need not be afraid of a fallen ex-king."
Umberto II had only enjoyed the briefest of reigns when he and his male heirs
were banned from Italy by the 1948 Constitution. It followed a referendum in
which Italians voted to become a republic after the failure of Umberto's father,
Victor Emanuel III, to oppose the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
Victor Emanuel III was severely criticised for counter-signing Mussolini's
anti-Semitic laws and for leaving his troops at the mercy of the Germans. Mr
Filiberto - who is engaged to Natasha Andress, the niece of the actress
Ursula Andress - and his father recently lost a court attempt in Switzerland,
where they both live, to force Italy to rescind their banishment.
~*~
Embassy a waste of space, says Philip(Electronic Telegraph)
By Toby Helm
THE Queen opened a strikingly modern new British embassy in Berlin
yesterday, amid hints of disapproval from Prince Philip and savage criticism of
it by a German newspaper.
"Open, transparent, innovative," was how the Queen
described the spacious and colourful design of
Michael Wilford, the embassy's British architect.
Eight years after she had laid the foundation stone in
1992, she told an audience of 300 official guests: "It
is conceived as a showcase for Britain and a meeting
place with Germany."
Prince Philip, who, during the Queen's address, had
gazed quizzically at the mixture of purple,
chrome-grey and red in the main foyer, offered no
such compliments. When asked by journalists if he would give his view on the
£18 million building, he replied: "No."
While discussing its interior with two guests, he was heard to describe it as a
"vast waste of space" before walking on. The Prince asked Mr Wilford
whether or not he had been paid for his work, a humorous allusion to a
dispute over outstanding bills between Norman Foster, who designed the
new-look Reichstag round the corner, and the German authorities. Mr
Wilford replied, according to onlookers, that if he had not been paid, he
would not be at the party.
Describing his creation, Mr Wilford said: "The open courtyard shows our
willingness to converse and opens up the building to the German people. I
would like to think that this is a very modern building, but its external facade
respects the history of the city. The Queen was interested, and seemed to like
it."
Foreign Office officials, who had searched through records going back to
1905, said it was the first time that a monarch had opened a British embassy.
The occasion was heavy with symbolism, as the new building lies on the same
site as the British embassy that was destroyed in the Second World War and
later pulled down by the East German government.
The newspaper Die Welt had set the debate raging in Berlin over Mr
Wilford's design when one of its critics, Rainer Haubrich, wrote that the front
of the embassy looked "as if a bomb had smashed it". He said: "A fine
incinerating plant in the Midlands would not look much different."
Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister, who is a Green Party
member, joked that the facade reflected the British sense of "irony".
However, he described the building as impressive and said it symbolised a
new period of Anglo-German relations. He also thanked Britain for fighting
against Hitler, for supporting Berlin during the Cold War and for the Beatles.
He said: "For me, Sergeant Pepper was not just a new album, it was the
ambassador for a new lifestyle."
The Queen then went on to visit the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag and the
new British Council building, after lunch with the Johannes Rau, the German
President. She said that Berlin would move more and more into the heart of
Europe as the European Union expanded eastwards.
She said: "Berlin will no longer be an outpost but a geographic centre of the
continent. Where formerly West and East confronted each other, now they
can come together here."
~*~
Charles is the most unpopular royal(UK Times)
BY ALEX O'CONNELL
THE Prince of Wales's campaign to improve his
popularity suffers a setback today with the publication of a
survey from which he emerged as the most unpopular
member of the Royal Family.
He was named the "least admired" member of the family
by 20 per cent of those interviewed. The Duke of
Edinburgh was the most unpopular among 18 per cent.
The poll suggested that many people think the Prince of
Wales should step aside, and Prince William become the
next King. When asked who they would like to succeeed
the Queen, 42 per cent of the 750 people interviewed
chose Prince William, according to the NOP survey for
the Daily Express. His father was chosen by 41 per cent.
Prince William's strongest support came from those aged
15 to 34, of whom 60 per cent hoped that his father
would step aside. The findings in part reflect the highly
favourable coverage of Prince William when he turned 18.