Prepare yourselves for another episode of It’s What Prince Philip Would Have Wanted. Prince Philip passed away in April, and since then, the Windsors have been using his memory to justify their own actions. “It’s what Philip would have wanted” has become a common refrain for the royal commentators too, as they weaponize a dead man for their own ends. It’s mildly grotesque. Today’s episode features an interview with Angela Levin, who discussed Queen Elizabeth’s hospitalization this week, and the general sentiments in the air about whether or not the Queen should abdicate.
The Queen should be encouraged to step back: ‘We’ve got to sort of encourage her to take a step back or sideways or something to allow her body to recover from the engagements that she does. I think it’s a fight between her head and her body, because she wants to do it, she feels she can, she’s very articulate, she’s absolutely spot on with everything she says, but her body is 95 years old. I think if Prince Philip was still around, he would exercise a bit of control and say ‘look, stop it, don’t go to so many engagements and relax a bit’.
The Queen’s religious reason: ‘I think she thinks she does it best [compared to other royals] and she’s the most experienced, but I think the main thing is the religious one, that when she was 21 and she said that she would do her best to be the Queen and with God’s help she would do it until she died. The coronation actually confirmed that as it is a holy event as well as a royal one, and she doesn’t want to break her link with that. It would make her feel very bad because she is devout.
Why is everyone talking about the Pope? ‘However, the Pope has stepped back, he retired for the first time [Benedict XVI in 2013] – and popes are not supposed to leave their job until they die too, and I think you have to take into consideration that people live much longer than they did in 1947 [when she married Prince Philip].’
Levin on how the Queen has given up booze: ‘I think there’s an emotional attachment to that too, she used to have Dubonnet with various mixtures, and it was always Prince Philip’s duty to do it at lunchtime and the evening if they were there together, and it was part of their relationship. And I think it no longer has the same taste really because he’s not there, he used to get the amounts absolutely spot on.’
Phil Dampier commented too: He told LBC today: ‘We just all hope that she’s in fine fettle for the Cop26 next month, and of course – most importantly of all for us royal watchers – the Platinum Jubilee next year when she celebrates 70 years on the throne, so I think we need to wrap her up in cotton wool at the moment. You worry about Covid, we know that she’s had both of the original jabs, and I’m sure she’s probably had the booster, I think she’s probably the first person in the country who would have got one. She’s had colds in the past but the fact that they tried to keep it a secret is a little bit worrying. I think she’s probably OK but they were just being extra careful.’
I remember when the Queen had that heavy cold over Christmas 2016, and even legitimate media outlets were freaking out a little bit and running stories about what happens when the Queen dies and the line of succession. The media goes overboard every time QEII has a health issue, but this time it does feel much more serious, especially given the palace’s failure to disclose her hospitalization in real time.
As for the rest of it… I have no idea what Philip would have wanted and neither does Angela Levin. I also think it’s kind of cruel for Dampier to keep reminding everyone that the Queen *needs* to show up at the climate change conference ten days from now – she’s a 95-year-old woman in ill health, stop trying to throw a guilt-trip on her or force her to go back to work before she’s ready.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid, WENN, social media, Avalon Red.
Really, the guy that was speeding around the roadways crashing into other cars at age 98 would have told her to slow down?
Who didn’t see…….”Phillip would have wanted”….coming?
Maybe she could do a little less if her heirs stopped f*cking everything up. I personally think that’s what it comes down to. Wasn’t it said the Philip wanted to retire much earlier than he did, but Burger King and Fries wouldn’t step up? I think if the queen felt secure in Charles and William, she would do a little less. Hell, if H&M were there to pick up the inevitable slack, I think she would take a break. But she can’t because everything relies on her image and the only one who had the same popularity as she did was smeared to death and he had to leave. So now there stuck with the Doolittle who are back in break and Charles, who people hate.
Nobody knows what philip would have wanted but it isn’t unthinkable that he wanted BOTH of them to slow down so that they could have enjoyed these years together. And i know prince chalred is already taking over a bulk of the queens engagements but i wonder why she hasn’t passed anything on to william (I have a guess tho)
If i were her i would have given all my duties (except meeting the pm once a week) to charles william and kate
Angela Levin is barking. Her bizarre obsession with Harry was strange enough: imagining the voice of a dead man chiding Her Maj is quite atrocious.
I do think she’s on her way out, though. Phil followed the same pattern – slowing down, hospital visit, gone. What a legacy she’ll leave: cash for honours Chas, a rapist and abuser in Andrew, and an utter failure at being human in PWT.
Well glory be, for a change she’s not snarking on Meghan, she’s professing to know what Philip would’ve wanted. I wish she’d just stay home and shut the hell up. She’s as repulsive as Sr. Markle, I swear.
The way these royal commentators talk about the Queen is just weird to me. I agree she should step down but this talk about God, the pope, Philip and the Jubilee is unhinged.
Well, God’s a real part of it for the Queen – but sometimes, if you sit quietly and listen, God may say “Hey, Liz – thanks for your service; it’s time to take a break.”
the rending of garments and tugging of forelocks when it comes to the queen is puzzling to me. i think it’s a form of mental illness. some sort of soverign dependency syndrome. lol.
It is bizarre. When you look over at the continental royals, you don’t seem to see this sort of obsequious behavior from the citizens of those countries.
This sentence from Levin: “And I think it no longer has the same taste really because he’s not there, he used to get the amounts absolutely spot on.”……I mean really she sounds absolutely ridiculous
And this is not how alcoholism works. This beloved woman, God love her, was socking it away. Plus, she didn’t get tired of drinking. Her doctors told her to stop:
‘I think there’s an emotional attachment to that too, she used to have Dubonnet with various mixtures, and it was always Prince Philip’s duty to do it at lunchtime and the evening if they were there together, and it was part of their relationship. And I think it no longer has the same taste really because he’s not there, he used to get the amounts absolutely spot on.’
On the comparison to Pope Benedict — he, I think, was pope when the pedophilia / sex abuse scandals exploded in the Catholic Church. I always did think one reason for his abdication, maybe the primary reason, was that disgrace or if he had been tied to a coverup of some sort. (I’m not Catholic although my mother’s family is.) But of course … the queen has her own sex abuse scandal now in her son.
She should slow down because she’s old and frail and sick and it’s what Philip would’ve wanted but also she MUST come to the climate change thing, and she better not be a party pooper and die before the Jubilee. These people are gross. They’re constantly going on about disrespecting the Queen and Harry not showing proper reverence, but they’re literally saying she should stop doing all the things she wants to do—things she feels compelled by God to do—she should have no agency to choose for herself because they would prefer she be wrapped in wool and put carefully up on a shelf so that she doesn’t die on them and ruin their big party and celebration. Let this woman have some dignity and make her own decisions. The idea that they’re treating her like an expensive and fragile vase that they really want to be able to pull out for their big party next year, so nobody better touch the vase or use it or enjoy it—in fact we better wrap it up and store it in the closet until then—is gross. She’s a human being.
Exactly. And it’s not like she has any real power or that her fragility is a threat to something important not getting done.
If this woman wants to work until she drops dead, so what? She opens the little curtains to reveal the plaques or the next slightly less old guy does it instead. It’s FINE.
” and it was always Prince Philip’s duty to do it at lunchtime and the evening if they were there together, and it was part of their relationship. And I think it no longer has the same taste really because he’s not there, he used to get the amounts absolutely spot on.’”
Didn’t philandering Phillip live with another woman in another location for the better part of a decade? Either she learned how to make the drink herself, or she found someone who did over that time frame.
God help me if my eternal legacy to my surviving spouse is that I used to mix a mean cocktail.
I thought Phillip spent most of his time with Penny, on the farm, and not even in the same castle the the queen.
And now she knows what a dead man would have wanted. She must have a ouija board tucked away somewhere and old Phillip is telling her his thoughts. Pathetic.
Charles, Anne, and Edward & Sophie are doing as much as they can. The problem is TOB and Keen, they need to step up to the plate and do more than they have been doing. Catherine could do engagements at least three times a week. William could be working every single damn day. Those two are running out of excuses for why they don’t work more.
In my opinion, I can tell you exactly why Betty ain’t stepping back, she would have to get her head out of the sand and she don’t want that.
As long as she is doing this, she ain’t got to worry about anyone or anything. Just like always.
This woman has always been selfish and used it under the guise of service to country.