Here’s my contribution to the Jubilee. In
the summer or early autumn of 1986 I was commissioned by the NY Times – Magazine, I think I remember
– to write a piece on the queen and her then prime minister, who was Margaret
Thatcher. There had been some trivial business about the two of them wearing
the same dress, and this led to a piece in the (British) Sunday Times saying there was some tension between the two 60
year-olds. The tiff has been dredged up for the Jubilee and you can read a
summary of it at http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/Magazine/Interviews/article1041265.ece
On making enquiries among friends, I
discovered that there was some truth in the story that the queen had a down on
Mrs T, and that the Iron Lady was miffed herself. My sources were impeccable.
One of them was a cabinet minister, the Rt. Hon. John Biffen (who later became
Lord Biffen and a personal friend, though I did not know him then). John Biffen
was only the highest-placed of the several sources I had for the story that the
queen and the PM were not seeing eye-to-eye over foreign policy.
The
crux of the matter was economic sanctions on the South African government. The Commonwealth,
which represented what was left of the British Empire, was pressing hard for
the UK to put in place sanctions against the South African apartheid regime.
The queen, I was told, felt strongly that Britain should not only back the
Commonwealth nations in this, but even give the lead. Maggie didn’t give a toss about the Commonwealth.
Here
she came up against the hard face of the monarchy: it is my Commonwealth, said the queen. We shall do what is required. And
she meant it.
I
duly wrote this up for the NY Times,
and explained the significance of what was nothing less than a constitutional
clash. Moreover, I think I remember that I was even allowed to identify some of
my sources. It was a dynamite story.
But
it was not published – “spiked” as we used to say. The reason: one of the NY Times editors had a flat in London,
where he often stayed. He swanked about his inside knowledge of Britain and
British politics, and this just didn’t strike a chord with him. He couldn’t see
an argument over the Commonwealth as being even mildly interesting, let alone
of sovereign-shaking importance. That it was true, a scoop for the NY Times and the first-ever indication
of the queen having a controversial opinion about anything not to do with race
horses just didn’t float his boat. So I was paid a $300 kill-fee instead of the
$3,000 contract-fee. And readers of the NY
Times missed out on this story, not because it wasn’t fit to print, but
because it didn’t fit an editor’s prejudices.
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