The Royal Scam

London

I really must come to England more often. The last time I was here, in mid-February, Princess Margaret gave up the ghost. And now, even as I step off the wondrous train that connects Paris to London, the flags are hauled halfway down to mark the passing of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, last Empress of India. This was supposed to be a Jubilee year, marking half a century of the present sovereign's rule. But it has been a series of black-draped obsequies so far. And I plan to come back in early June...

A sycophantic American media (for which there is even less excuse than a sycophantically royalist English one) has already bombarded you with the palace spin on the old girl's life. Amazing sprightliness into advanced old age; always a kind word and a wave for the commoners; great pluck during the Blitz; devotion to duty; a symbol of historic continuity.... This is all utter rubbish. Take only the most celebrated of the myths: the one about her stoicism during the Nazi bombardment of London. It is true that the royal family decided not to leave the capital during the war, and it is also true that a few bombs did strike Buckingham Palace. But no account of this period is complete unless one recalls the long, steady support of King George and his late wife for the Chamberlain-Halifax policy of appeasement. They did not go as far in pro-Hitler sympathy as did the disgraced Edward VIII and his famous consort, Wallis Simpson, but they did their best.

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