After a minute’s silence at midday, a packed Commons met to pay their own tributes to the Queen. To try to find the words the rest of us couldn’t. To explain why a death that was so expected was still such a profound shock. To understand the deep affection that so many people felt for someone they had never met. Someone who for almost all of her 96 years had kept her true self private to allow everyone else to impose their own needs and truths on her. The queen was everything we wanted her to be. It fell to Liz Truss to open the speeches. The best that could be said was that she was helpful. It would never be any different then, even if he had been on the job for over three days and had more than passing contact with the queen. The prime minister is out of touch with her own emotions, so how can she connect with the emotions of the nation? She can only report her feelings, not experience them. Thus, her grief is inevitably seen second hand. Not that he didn’t say all the right things. Truss echoed Churchill, describing the Queen’s death as a “stopping of the clatter of modern life”. declared that the Queen had fulfilled the promise she had made to the country on her 21st birthday. joked about James Bond and Paddington. and looked into the future with the thoughts of the new king. A new Carolian Age. But it was all somehow flat and profoundly still. Willfully deaf to the public mood. Keir Starmer was perfect. Emotional and verbal letters. When he talked about love, you felt it. He understands grief. That when we mourn for the Queen, we allow ourselves to mourn for ourselves. For the mothers and grandmothers we lost. Or never had. For the hopes and dreams that will never be fulfilled. For the family that remains unreachable. The Labor leader receives the Freudian subject. The psychological meaning of death. That no matter how hard we try to fill the void of someone’s death, a part of us will remain inconsolable. Where it should be. As this is how we perpetuate the love we don’t want to let go. At times Starmer sounded spiritual – almost religious – as he spoke of the Queen’s ability to stay with us in our pain. Almost as if he were inviting us to draw the comparison between the empathy of a monarch and the coldness of an indifferent government. He was so strong, so persuasive, that even the Tory frontbench nodded when he told us he was the person we turned to for comfort during the pandemic. She was a leader we could trust. There was no way Johnson was going to pass up an opportunity to do his own tribute. Even if he wasn’t going to bother brushing his hair or finding a wrinkle-free suit. Why should he break the habit of a lifetime for his first return to the Commons since being kicked out of No 10? These are the occasions he lives for. He may have been a failure as prime minister but he can write and deliver a speech. More than that, what made him unfit for No 10 makes him an excellent speaker. Like all narcissists, he suffers from a deep wound in the psyche. The one that will never heal. So when he speaks from that wound, as he did here, he allows us to feel our own wounds. Johnson unashamedly acknowledged his love for the Queen. Unlike many others, he spoke in specifics rather than generalities. It was psychologically impressive. Although, as so often, it was all in stark contrast to how he had been acting. His staff had partied the night before Prince Philip’s funeral. He himself had lied to the queen about proroguing parliament. Here was the classic Johnson mind-body split. The man who believes his motives are pure but whose stock in trade is personal gain and betrayal. It was ironic that the next person to speak was Harriet Harman. The MP in charge of the Privileges Committee which will ultimately determine whether Johnson should stand down as an MP. But now was not the time for points. She was probably kind enough to congratulate Johnson on his speech, before going on to extol the Queen as a role model for women. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The big surprise was May. As expected it had started disconnected and without effect. Monotonous, dull and boilerplate. Making the moves you’d expect from a former prime minister. Service, duty, war record and longevity. The Queen didn’t just know most of the world’s leaders. He also knew their fathers. The queen had touched her, she said. Although you’d never guess it from the way he spoke. Then he told three cracking jokes and didn’t break the line. Not even once. Who knew? Most unlike her. The Commons loved her. As for relief as anything. Johnson had made them feel too much. And most MPs don’t like that. They prefer to function as sentient beings. May allowed them to release the tension with laughter. After that, many MPs started walking away. Everything that needed to be said had long been said. Although that didn’t stop many from continuing to queue up to repeat themselves. MPs can never resist the sound of their own voice. Even when the most moving sound is silence.
