These plans include a four-day extravaganza, where the public will get an extra bank holiday in June, while the May bank holiday will also be moved to be in the same week producing a four-day weekend. The Queen will be 96 years old when she reaches the first ever Platinum Jubilee for a British monarch. One royal expert has claimed this “puts to bed” the argument that the Queen will step aside when she is 95.
However, she will of course continue to hand down responsibilities and patronages to her children and grandchildren as she gets older.
Pod Save the Queen is hosted by Ann Gripper and features Daily Mirror royal editor Russell Myers.
Mr Myers exclaimed: “This finally puts to bed the rumours that have been written about for 20 years, that the Queen is going to step down when she’s 95.”
He added that Chris Ship at ITV pointed out that, even if she stepped aside she would still be a Queen in a regency, which he said is “technically true”.
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However, he insisted: “I still can’t see it, I think this puts it to bed. I still can’t see her stepping down.
“There will still be this process of stepping aside almost, handing down patronages, giving more responsibilities to her son.”
He added that he never believed she would step down, because the Queen made an oath on her 21st birthday that she would serve her people for her entire life, so stepping down would “go against everything”.
And indeed the Queen made a very special speech on April 21, 1947 while she was on tour with the King, Queen and Princess Margaret.
The royal expert said: “I think because of her global standing as well, she will go through to the bitter end.
“And long may she reign because I can’t even contemplate what it will be like.
“However, I think we have a few years left and I think this welcome news that they’re putting big plans for the country for her Platinum Jubilee means she has no intention of stepping down.”
Ms Gripper added that the Queen has also witnessed the “hammering” her grandson Prince Harry got for stepping down from his royal duties ‒ and he is the sixth in line to the throne and very unlikely to ever be King.
She said: “If you think about the absolutely hammering that Harry ‒ particularly because it was his birthright if you like, more than Meghan who obviously married into it ‒ got from stepping aside from duty and leaving his role behind.
“I don’t think the Queen would do it.”
A new Jubilee medal has been created to award to public service workers.
This happens for most big Jubilees ‒ for example at the Diamond Jubilee and Golden Jubilee ‒ but Mr Myers suggested that it will be a particularly “big deal”, given how much the pandemic has taught people to value these essential workers.
Plans for the 2022 celebrations include an “extensive programme of events that mix the best of British ceremonial splendor and pageantry with cutting edge artistic and technological displays”.
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