When the King greeted Keir Starmer last Friday, his first words to him were: ‘You must be utterly exhausted and nearly on your knees’, to which the new Prime Minister replied: ‘Not much sleep.’ From the body language and easy rapport between the two men, most inferred that this was a relationship that was likely to be a productive and enjoyable one on both sides. This is quite the turnaround from Starmer having said in 2005, ‘I also got made a Queen’s Counsel, which is odd, since I often used to propose the abolition of the monarchy.’
Starmer has since rowed back from his republican views, without wholly disavowing them; his meetings with King Charles will now become a weekly tradition. Most Wednesdays, if the Prime Minister or monarch is not absent on business – as is the case this week – the two men have an audience, without any courtiers or special advisers present. No record is kept of the discussions that occur, although that did not stop Peter Morgan speculating as to their content, firstly in the film The Queen, secondly in the play The Audience and lastly – and most notoriously – in The Crown. The idea behind them is, ideally, for an experienced monarch to offer a less seasoned PM counsel and useful advice, and for his (or her) first minister, in turn, to keep them abreast of affairs of state.
The King’s weekly meetings with Starmer should be a fruitful and pleasant association for them both
It is generally known which prime ministers Elizabeth II liked (Winston Churchill, Harold Wilson, John Major, Gordon Brown) and which ones she was either cool about or positively detested (Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Boris Johnson). Although she was once described by the diarist Chips Channon as ‘openly, assuredly, dangerously Tory’, the late Queen was anything but party political, as might be seen by the leaders she had a rapport with, and those she disliked. She tended to favour those who made a fuss of her and were (Churchill aside) non-demonstrative personalities, while disliking the more confident, outgoing types who would attempt to tell her what to do and put her in her place.
King Charles’s politics are believed to lie to the left of his mother’s, and if his last two Christmas Day addresses are to be taken as a guide, his social and environmental concerns place him somewhere between the Green party and New Labour. In theory, then, his weekly meetings with Starmer should be a fruitful and pleasant association for them both.
Yet it would be wrong to see Charles as some kind of egalitarian figure. He is, after all, King, and has grown up in luxury and privilege all his life. Although he has talked about opening up monarchy to make it more accountable to the people, in practice so far this has meant allowing access to Balmoral and Buckingham Palace for expensive, limited guided tours. And if Starmer ever comes out with his time-honoured line about his father being a toolmaker, Charles has a ready-made riposte: ‘My mother was Queen.’
Some have suggested that the thin-skinned King may be unwilling to forgive Starmer his youthful comments on abolishing the monarchy, but this may be giving Charles too little credit. His first formal encounter with Starmer came in 2014, when he knighted the former director of public prosecutions, and since then the two men have frequently met on formal occasions. It was an undeniable mark of favour – as well as Buckingham Palace seeing which way the political wind was blowing – that Starmer was invited to Charles’s first ‘dine and sleep’ occasion at Windsor Castle in March 2023. As recently as last month, the Labour leader was very deliberately placed next to the King’s private secretary Sir Clive Alderton at the banquet to commemorate the Japanese emperor’s state visit. One imagines that there were more pressing matters for discussion than the quality of the wine.
Starmer is currently in the midst of what may be a short-lived honeymoon period, where the hostile media have largely kept their distance and his partisans are swooning over a man many once privately decried as stolid and uncharismatic. When his relationship with Charles can develop in earnest, he is likely to find, as every prime minister does, that the shine will come off very quickly, and he will need the older man’s counsel from both a practical and human perspective.
As for the King, still recovering from a gruelling cancer treatment, he had mixed feelings towards Starmer’s predecessor – calling the election without giving him sufficient consultation was very much frowned on. He will be hoping then for a respectful, civilised PM who wishes to forge a partnership on issues that interest the monarch, and won’t cause havoc on constitutional matters. Only time will tell whether Starmer – in this matter and others – can live up to his expectations.
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