Is the Queen Compos Mentis? (Part 1)

Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith has lived a long and very public life, during the course of which she has become known for certain habits of character. First and foremost amongst these traits is her legendary discretion. Her Majesty the Queen does not comment on the political figures or controversies of the day, and much of her business of state is conducted behind closed doors.

The queen's discrete approach to regal affairs has historically included her weekly meetings (and other communications) with her prime ministers. To wit, former PM David Cameron has been thunderously and continually reproached by the commentariat for his various breaches of this confidentiality. How can the delicate patchwork of the British constitutional system hold together, they fuss, without its lynchpin of absolute confidence between the crown and the head of government?

One does not purr, Mr. Cameron.

Well that was 2014 bitchezzzzzzzz, this is 2021 and there's a new underequipped, overprivileged, publicity-seeking Old Etonian prime ministerial kid on the block. And ole Boris has made a bit of a splash by releasing a notably non-confidential clip of his latest meeting with Her Majesty (see below). Even more eyebrow-twitchingly, Her Maj appears to comment sympathetically on the political plight of embattled Health Secretary Matt Hancock, and to casually relay his opinion that the UK's pandemic response is "getting better." (A surging Delta variant, delayed reopening, and apparent failure to consolidate the early success of the vaccine program make this view decidedly controversial.)

The Daily Mail are one of the few outlets to publish the whole conversation;

such hushing-up by the British press is telling in and of itself.

It's hardly a surprise that the current occupant of No. 10 might seek to shred the British constitutional norms of confidentiality and neutrality. Johnson has, after all, made a glittering career out of serial norm-shredding in fields as diverse as truth-telling, fatherhood, and the beating of fellow journalists. The question is: why has the Queen gone along with it? She doesn't appear to be a hostage at gunpoint, mumbling her captor's words through a tight-lipped and unwilling smile. Indeed she appears to offer up her opinion of her own accord.

Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith does not offer up opinions. Certainly not in public, certainly not on politics or its personalities, certainly not on controversy. The commentariat that so righteously forced David Cameron into half a decade's worth of apologies has presented the whole episode as though it is a charming and amusing curiosity, but it is not. It is a marked departure from precedent. It is a breach of norms, both personal and constitutional, by a monarch famed for her decades-long constancy and discretion. It is weird. And when we line it up with the weirdness of the G7 reception, a discomfiting pattern emerges: an elderly woman, recently bereaved, behaving totally out of character in public with seemingly zero self-awareness of the weirdness of it all.

Is QEII compos mentis? Friends, I fear not. My initial suspicions were raised by the bizarre circumstances of the G7 reception, and these Hancock remarks only consolidate those suspicions (more on the G7 in Part 2). I fear that Prince Philip's death marked a sharp change in the Queen's mental acuity, and that the sunset of the second Elizabethan age draws very near indeed. The reader is kindly invited to continue to Part 2, where we will discuss the events of the G7 reception and the Queen's out-of-character behavior.