This afternoon the House of Commons will sit for up to seven and a half hours of tributes to Prince Philip. After a minute’s silence and Speaker Lindsay Hoyle describing him as the ‘father of the nation’ Boris Johnson led the way for the party leaders. During his ten minute’s speech Johnson told the Commons that the Duke was a ‘model of selflessness’ who ‘made this country a better place.’ Sporting a new post lockdown haircut Johnson riffed on the funeral arrangements the late Duke planned himself:
It is fitting that on Saturday his Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh will be conveyed to his final resting place in a Land Rover which Prince Philip designed himself, with a long wheel base and capacious rear cabin. Because that vehicle’s unique and idiosyncratic silhouette reminds the world that he was above all a practical man, who could take something very traditional – whether a machine or, indeed, a great national institution – and find a way by his own ingenuity to improve it, to adapt it for the 20th and 21st century.
Starmer similarly has ended plaudits for a well-judged tribute that recognised the richness of Philip’s life without tipping into the mawkish. He told the House that the Duke’s life ‘shaped modern Britain and provided much-needed stability to our national story.’ Indeed, no less a critic than the sketchwriter Quentin Letts tweeted that it was ‘his best moment yet’ as Labour leader. Starmer also praised Spectator cartoonist Morten Morland for his drawing in last week’s Sunday Times and said:
At every stage of our national story for the last seven decades, he has been there. A symbol of the nation we hope to be at our best. A source of stability. A rock. Her Majesty once said that ‘grief is the price we pay for love’. The Duke loved this country. And Britain loved him in return. That’s why we grieve today. But as we remember him, we must also celebrate him.
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