In The Crown’s Season 4, Queen Elizabeth dramatically gives Margaret Thatcher the Order of Merit soon after Thatcher is pushed out of power. The Order of Merit is one of many special honors the Queen can give people, and it’s expected from the Queen that she gives some of those honors to former prime ministers. But… the Queen stopped giving honors to ex-prime ministers after John Major, which I did not realize before now. Tony Blair became prime minister (after Major) in 1997 and served for a decade. The Queen never gave Blair anything, and Blair marked the start of her refusal to give honors to former PMs. Following Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May have all gone without honors (following their respective prime minister tenures) too. So this is fascinating to me: why hasn’t Blair gotten anything?
Rumors have long circulated that the queen was so angered by what the royal family perceived as grandstanding by Tony Blair over the death of Princess Diana that he was denied Britain’s most senior honor, membership of the Order of the Garter, as a result.
Membership of the elite group is restricted to a maximum of 24 members. They are allowed to call themselves “Sir” or “Dame,” get to wear even sillier costumes than your average British noble including knickerbockers and a white ostrich feather, and attend an annual church service at Windsor with Her Majesty.
All members are appointed personally by the monarch. A new member can only be appointed when an old one dies. Blair’s five predecessors in No 10 Downing Street, from Ted Heath to John Major, were all given the Order of the Garter. However, the tradition of making former PMs members of the order came to a shuddering halt with the palace’s refusal to honor Blair. Without Blair being appointed, his successors, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May, have all been passed over for the honor for fear of suggestions of royal political bias or favoritism.
Now, however, The Sunday Times reports that a renewed effort is being put in by courtiers to unblock the impasse, particularly because three other coveted honors—the Order of the Thistle, the Order of Merit and the Order of Companions of Honor—have membership lists that see former Tory politicians massively outnumbering Labor ones. Of the 102 posts across the four highest honors, Tories hold 22 and Labor four. The imbalance is partly a function of the fact that in the past 40 years of the Queen’s reign, Labor has only governed for 13 years, but the exclusion of Blair and Brown is an entirely self-inflicted wound.
“There is concern in the palace that the senior orders are beginning to look politically unbalanced,” a source familiar with the discussions told The Sunday Times with a rather lavish sense of understatement. Courtiers are now suggesting that Gordon Brown be made a Knight of the Thistle to help balance out the numbers.
Useful cover could be provided by the fact that Gordon Brown is Scottish and the Thistle is seen as a Scottish near-equivalent to the Garter. One simple solution would involve the palace swallowing their pride and elevating Blair to the Order of the Garter as per precedent. However, the palace reportedly “just won’t do it,” the source said.
Petty, thy name is Liz. Don’t get me wrong, there are completely legitimate and “political” reasons to abhor Tony Blair, but his behavior during the royal debacle around Princess Diana’s death – when he had only been prime minister for a couple of months!! – was completely fine. That whole drama was the least problematic part of his tenure, and he really was trying to save the Queen from her worst f–king instincts. And he ended up becoming a royalist, not a “royal reformer” or republican. There really is no reason for the Queen to reject all honors to Blair out of a convoluted spite because… he accurately read the nation’s mood following Diana’s death. And I’m sure that the thing which really upsets those fussy old courtiers is the fact that the Blair-Brown log jam means that they can’t give David Cameron any honors for fear of looking entirely pro-Tory and anti-Labour. But the Queen isn’t “political,” remember.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Avalon Red.
Could it be the minor issue of him getting into bed with GWB and, you know, starting the war on terror? A war that started when most of us on here were children and it’s still going on while we’re entering middle age? A war that rather then dampening terrorism, escalated it on a global scale and made it something we’ll never get rid of? Maybe it’s that small thing?
You know the Queen doesn’t give a crap about that! She gave the order to thatcher, who supported South African apartheid. A Tory PM would certainly have gotten in bed with Bush. There was so much hysteria after 9/11, and everyone who questioned the US response was deemed a supporter f terrorism, which would have been political suicide. Yes, Blair backed the wrong horse, but the idea that the Queen is taking some kind of ethical stand here is utterly risible.
I would put far, far more money on her grandstanding over her yacht funding than the war.
Not to mention that when she came to power, the British Empire still existed and people around the world were subjugated and persecuted by her Government.
Nonsense. As if the queen of all people would object to declaring war against brown people for no reason.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with Blair’s involvement in Iraq and if that was indeed the message one wished to send then you would *definitely* give it to those after him to remove all doubt about why. The Queen had no problem given it to Thatcher who allowed British citizens to die on hunger strike in protest of their treated as second class citizens due to their religion. Get off your high horse.
She’s such a petty little b!tch. She was wrong about Diana in 1997, he pointed this out to her, and even though he was right and she changed course, she’s still pissy about being humiliated. She should be falling all over herself thanking him for making her see the error of her ways before it was too late.
“She was wrong about Diana in 1997”
Ans she is wrong about the Sussexes in 2020!
I think Blair came out looking great after his handling of Diana’s death, and subsequently made the queen look like a cold ruthless bitch. He definitely made sure he took all the PR points for that. But the queen needs to realise that had it not been for Blair at that time, she would have come out of this looking even worse. Blair ultimately made the right call and probably saved the queens reputation. But the queen did not want to do a damn thing for Diana not even in her death, and not even for her grandsons. I can imagine the Queen and rest of the royals fuming at Diana for having the audacity to actually die and make them look bad.
It’s a shame there’s no counter argument up in the palace and government to actually tell the royals how bad they look over sussexit, I bet they all think they look great.
Agree Lorelei. Also, I think Kaiser is spot on…..Blair pulled the Queen out of a monarchy meltdown due to her own behavior surrounding Diana’s death and funeral and she will never forgive him for that. Everyone wants to view the Queen as above it all, but she has spent a very large part of her life as Queen focused on and concerned with minutia. Also, I don’t think anyone in that family would be called the sharpest crayon in the box.
Exactly. I think she still resents that she had to completely change her tune in the days before Diana’s funeral. Even though Blair was right, she was publicly humiliated and and she seems like the type to hold a grudge over something like that.
From what I’ve read she still doesn’t believe Diana deserved the funeral she received, and to this day, can’t for the life of her figure out why Diana was so popular & beloved in the first place (so yeah, definitely not the sharpest crayon).
So I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised at the way she treated Meghan. Many people might have learned from what happened with Diana and handled the next superstar differently, but not our Betty!
Given that the Queen isn’t supposed to be “political,” it is a bit curious. If political considerations ARE an unspoken part of it, the Iraq War would be a huge part of why he hasn’t received any honours. The Iraq War was deeply unpopular in the UK before it even happened, and when it all kicked off and promptly deteriorated into chaos and mass death, Blair became a loathed figure. He is still a loathed figure to this day in many circles (as is Thatcher, for different reasons). New Labour (Blair’s era) was actually good for the UK in terms of domestic policy, but he will never wash the stink (or the blood) of Iraq off. I’m perfectly fine with calling Queen Liz petty over the Harry and Meghan stuff. I’m not willing to extend that criticism here, given what’s occurred in Iraq. It is unforgivable, and we still feel the repercussions to this day. The Iraqi people much more so. Blair should be disqualified from high honors. It’s the smallest price he can pay.
I wonder what kind of personal relationship she had with him, especially at the time of Diana’s death.
Yeah, Blair is a war criminal (I won’t say none of his predecessor were also since obviously some started and prolonged unnecessary wars and harmed their own citizens), he doesn’t deserve an acknowledgment. And the ones after him, well between Brexit and almost losing Scotland (which will probably become independent soon), it’s been one very public debacle after another.
The Queen is Commander in Chief of the British Armed Forces, she wouldn’t have a view on the politics of war. Plus, she had no problem with colonialism as Queen of the British Empire.
The Royal family has long been supportive of killing brown people for no reason.
It’s not the war.
that picture of her in blue is giving me President Snow vibes.
ITA, that’s a creepy photo for some reason.
I can see Queen Victoria in her. Queen Victoria had very strong genes.
What?! No way! I cannot for the life of me imagine why the head of an aristocratic institution like the royal family would favour honouring politicians in a classist fashion!
It was the Diana stuff. On a positive note, Cameron, May, Brown etc won’t get honors until this is resolved.. Petty Betty is so apropos
Brown WILL get the honour. The issue is what makes Brown standout from his labour peers?
Brown helped drive the message of unity around the time of the Scottish Ref despite being Labour and Scottish himself. That was important in securing the Scots stayed in the Union. In return we took them out of the EU and now will potentially devastate some of their industries as the Brexit Deal is England centric and completely screws Scotland, Wales, NI and the regions.
The irony being that restoring the regions back to equal wealth was one of the fundamental tenets upon which vote leave made their campaign for Brexit.
As a British citizen, I would be horrified if Tony were to be Knighted. He should be sent to The Hague for war crimes. I am not alone – many Brits despise him. Blair wrote an opinion piece in the Financial Times a couple of months ago and the majority of the readers’ comments were scathing about him personally – they didn’t even bother to address the subject of his opinion piece.
In my opinion, it would look very bad for the Royal Family if Blair were Knighted considering how devastating the Iraq War turned out for so many thousands of innocent people. It is heart breaking to think of it.
Did you have a problem with all the other PMs who presided over a brutal British Empire, being knighted?
Not to mention the damage Thatcher did to British people with her cuts and general disregard for poor and working class people.
Oh, and her protecting Pinochet for decades. I’m sure the Chilean people have thoughts on that old bat receiving honors despite that.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/tories-have-forgotten-thatcher-wasn-t-just-terrorist-sympathiser-close-friends-one-10507850.html
😑
I was not a British citizen during those times. I was living in the UK when the Iraq war started in 2003 and became a UK citizen after that time so I could vote against those politicians who went along with Blair’s war.
His reward is that he’s made a whole lot of money since his time in office. His bottom line or how he’ll be remembered won’t be affected in the least. Plus, what advantage is there to the House of Windsor or even to the government to give him that type of honorific at this time?
It’s probably a combination of the Diana stuff as well as the Iraq war. The “honours are too Tory leaning” may have some truth. I think Theresa May tried to stop elevating Tory politicians to peerages but then BoJo started it up again.
Putting the son of a KGB agent in the House of Lords with sketchy connections himself was a great move for Bojo. He couldn’t be more obvious about the corruption and how compromised his government is by dirty money if he tried.
I will also add that son of a KGB agent is also close with members of the British Royal Family.
Anyone who actually believes that Betty cares about the war in Iraq is in for a surprise. This is only because of what happened after Diana’s death. Blair read the room in a way she was unable to and she has never forgiven him for it.
Sadly, probably true. As much as The Crown wants us to believe she has some kind of social conscience (see: all the apartheid stuff in the new season), I am skeptical.
I’m also skeptical that she has much of a conscience. Because if she did, a lot of her behavior wouldn’t make any sense.
I think she, or the establishment, might care because he’s unpopular and it wouldn’t look good. While simultaneoulsy not liking him in the first place because he was labour.
I think his is one of the biggest popularity downfalls, in that lots of people supported him once, but he lost a lot of that support.
I love the “even sillier costumes” line because looking these awards up on line that is essentially what a lot of them are, an excuse to wear silly capes, caps and feathers and medals. Maybe the Queen is getting older and seeing the silliness of this sort of thing and how little it has to do with anything important. Of course, a good deal of the awards are to the royals (especially those in the line of succession) just for existing so where is the merit in that?
@Equality ITA, those costumes are always hilarious. I know they’re considered so prestigious to be able to wear, but they don’t know how ridiculous it looks to the rest of the world, especially in 2020.
I can’t believe the Queen is holding a grudge against Tony Blair because he showed her up in the aftermath of Diana’s death. I do wonder what her true relationship is with Harry and William knowing how she treated their mother so badly in life and death. I guess because she is the Queen, they have to forgive her for her past behaviour but it has to be at the back of their minds, especially Harry’s.
Plus his wife openly hated Balmoral. That certainly wouldn’t win any points with her madge.
I think she refused to curtsey too? I don’t find that a problem anyway, it’s encouraged but not mandatory for the public.
Cherie Blair also refused to curtsey to the Queen.
Because the Queen is a Tory, and this is politics as usual from her.
Betty is the pettiest of Tories.
Were Tony Blair and Michael Bloomberg twins separated at birth?
Tony Blair should not be knighted. Putting aside Diana’s funeral (issues with that man go beyond royal politics), he is a disgrace and I would be horrified if he was knighted.
You must be so horrified that Thatcher and every other war criminal prime minister has been then.
Yes I am, absolutely. Tony Blair is a bit closer to home for me as my husband was in the military in the early 00s.
I don’t believe any prime minister should automatically get knighted – can’t think of any profession other than politics where you get rewarded for doing a bad job!
aww, would somebody please give me a shiny medal for doing my job as an accountant? and look at them, freemasons getting awards.
Prince Edward was heard remarking how glad he was the Tories got in
I missed that, where did you get that from?
Without discussing Tony Blair’s worthiness, not that getting a gong seems to be particularly based on worth anyway, i read in the Guardian the other week that there has been 443 people from 2011 till now who have refused honours, the numbers doubling in the past few years. Honours have degraded through cronyism, being given to party donors as rewards, and through being tainted by association with the evils of the British Empire. Maybe the question we should be asking is not why QEII is not giving Tony Blair ‘his’ honour, but why should anyone feel honoured by being given a token from a monarch whose judgement is as deeply suspect as that of the former prime minister in question? The honours system has lost any credibility. The very fact that it is being raised as a concern that Tories outnumber Labor 5 to 1 only underlines this. They won’t want people rejecting honours, that way of thinking leads to rejecting the Monarchy altogether, which explains part of the pressure on Betty to redress the balance and bring Labor back into the fold. I mean, let’s face it, what honour will there be in being part of a special group that now includes Johnson?
Should the PM really be working towards an order? Kind of makes sense why the Queen’s spending has not been questioned.