Reports indicate that the Queen will appoint the next Prime Minister at Balmoral instead of Buckingham Palace as she continues to battle mobility problems.
Boris Johnson has announced he will step down on September 6, when he will formally tender his resignation to Her Majesty.
Her Majesty will then invite the winning Tory candidate, either Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak to become Prime Minister and reveal their name.
According to a newspaper outlet, the Queen, 96, had been due to trim her stay at the Scottish estate short to attend the ceremony but that plan has now been discarded. It would mark the first time in living memory that the so-called kissing of hands occurs outside of London or Windsor.
The newspaper reports that secret plans have been drawn up to relocate the ceremony to Balmoral as the Queen has been advised to avoid the trip back down south for comfort reasons.
It’s understood an official decision on whether she will journey back to Windsor will be revealed next week.
A source told a newspaper outlet that the Queen has now been advised not to travel, but clearly, no one tells the Queen what to do and ultimately it’s her decision, and as we saw she made a third appearance on the Buckingham Palace terrace at the Jubilee, she likes surprises.
There are some aspects of her role that Prince Charles could do on her behalf but the Queen is adamant that she appoints the new Prime Minister, but it may not be the best choice to make the Queen journey 1,000 miles there and back for a 48-hour visit when the Prime Ministers could effortlessly get to Balmoral instead.
The last Prime Minister to kiss hands with the Her Majesty away from Buckingham Palace was Winston Churchill who, in 1952, kissed hands with the newly appointed Queen at Heathrow Airport when she returned from Africa following the death of her father King George VI.
Herbert Asquith remains the only Prime Minister to take office on foreign ground after he was forced to journey to Biarritz, in France, in 1908 where King Edward VII was holidaying at the time.
The Queen doesn’t usually return from her Balmoral break until early October but sources have said she told aides she will make an exception this year and travel to London, and it seems that she’s still doing the best that she can do.
However, the Crown is much bigger than any one person, and it’s a symbolic position. Sadly, the Queen is unable to satisfy the demands of that role any longer and hasn’t for some time now, and that’s totally understandable given her age, and it’s time for her to step down and let the Crown go onto someone who can achieve the role properly so that she can enjoy the peace and quiet and retire on her remaining years.
The Queen is old and I believe that there’s more going on there than mobility problems, and it appears that the Queen is most content when at Balmoral and I no doubt the incoming Prime Minister won’t have any trouble travelling to such a beautiful place, but she should now retire to Balmoral and make Charles the King. She’s done her duty to her country, and at 96 there’s no shame in stepping down.
However, I don’t believe that the Queen will ever retire. She vowed on her Coronation that she would serve her country for as long as she lived, and I believe that she will because she’s of the old school where responsibility and hard work mean everything.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 