How Queen Margrethe made the Danish monarchy popular
Danish New Year’s Eves are to be savoured partly for their predictability. First, on the main Danish State TV channel, the vintage British TV comedy Dinner for One, with Freddie Frinton and May Warden, is broadcast. Then there is the countdown to midnight on the face of Copenhagen’s city hall clock, followed by desultory fireworks let off by individuals in the square below (on a shoestring budget compared to the millions of pounds Sadiq Khan spends annually to promote himself in London). Cut to exultant choirs singing in the new year at a Danish Lutheran church. And, of course, earlier in the evening, the monarch’s address, given since 1972 by our
