Reflections on "The Queue"

So "The Queue" has finished: over the past few days many thousands of people, not just from every corner of the British Isles but some from far-flung corners of the globe, have travelled to London and waited in a queue for sometimes more than twelve hours to pay their respects by filing past the coffin of our late Queen.

The people who did this came from every walk of life, from celebrities like David Beckham to cleaners, from councillors to chemists, from nurses to naval architects. They were people of every race and creed, and from all over the UK, and beyond. (I know of at least one member of staff at West Cumberland Hospital who went through "The Queue," and who will have spent at least twelve hours travelling to London and back on top of more than twelve hours in the queue itself.)

One famous academic published a piece arguing that people had taken part in mourning her late majesty for a wide range of reasons - which is undoubtedly true - and from this reasonable premise somehow managed to derive the idea that in the queue and at all the other events which have been put on to commemorate the life of her late majesty "there are many whose presence in the Queen’s mourning crowds has precious little to do with the Queen."

To take a paraphrase of George Orwell's comments in "Notes on Nationalism," a paraphrase often wrongly described as a quote, "There are some ideas so stupid that only an intellectuals could believe them."

The queen was a rare example of something to which anyone in public life should aspire - someone who dedicated her whole life to her country and the people of her country.

The largest single reason for "The Queue" and the enormous wave of support for all the events which have been staged to mark her passing is that almost all of us understand this.