When politics and a royal passion collide

Queen Elizabeth, we are reliably informed, is not amused - a phrase often attributed to her great-great grandmother, Queen Victoria.

This time it's the almost certain decision by Prime Minister Theresa May's government to delay the Queen's Speech, the formal act that opens a new session of Parliament and sets out the government's agenda.

It's a full-on formal occasion, with the Queen in the past dressed in robes of state and wearing a crown studded with jewels, although this year Buckingham Palace has announced she will "dress down" and not wear the robes and crown, perhaps in deference to the fact that she is 91.

The Queen is fanatical about horses-it's said that when she and her team sit down to review the year's engagements, the five-day Royal Ascot race meeting is the first thing to go in the diary and everything else fits around it. The Queen's stables, in which she takes a close and active interest, have, after all, trained 22 winners for Royal Ascot over the years. She still rides in Great Windsor Park.

So with the likelihood of the state opening of Parliament being delayed, the chances of disrupting the Queen's annual racing treat at Ascot, not far from Windsor Castle, are high. No wonder there are rumbles of dissatisfaction emanating from Buckingham Palace.

I've been thinking about the more exotic trappings and facts surrounding Britain's Royal family.

This was triggered in part by the most bizarre excuse ever offered by a British government official, who said that one of the reasons for delaying the Queen's Speech is that, because of the snap general election in which May failed to gain an overall majority, her Cabinet is rewriting the speech to be read by the Queen. And because that's printed on goat's skin parchment, it takes three days for the ink to dry.

You couldn't make it up.

Another factoid-the cellars under the Houses of Parliament are ceremoniously searched before the event, a throwback to the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in which Guy Fawkes and fellow Catholic activists were caught preparing to assassinate Protestant monarch James I by igniting barrels of gunpowder.

There's a link to the past antagonism between the monarch and Parliament in the role of a person called the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, usually an ex-military officer, whose role is to wear a unform including black tights and hammer on the door of the House of Commons, which will have just been closed in his face, with - you've guessed - it a black rod.

His job is to summon members of the House of Commons to walk to the House of Lords chamber to hear the Queen's Speech.

Other odd facts surrounding the Queen - she doesn't have to hold a driving license, unlike everyone else who drives on the roads here. She is, in fact, a qualified mechanic, having trained during her service in World War II with the Auxiliary Territorial Service, when women drove and maintained trucks as men went off to fight the war.

She doesn't have a passport, either. All UK passports, technically issued by the Queen, bear the UK's royal coat of arms in gold on the front, and inside are printed the words: "Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State requests and requires in the name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary."

That has been deemed by international agreement to be enough for her to be recognized.

As I said, you couldn't make it up.

Chris Peterson is managing editor Europe for China Daily. Contact him at chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com

(China Daily Africa Weekly 06/16/2017 page11)