Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Countdown to The Coronation

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

For this special Friday episode, Jane and Fi are joined by two royal experts to count down to The Coronation of King Charles III.They also discuss whether or not Harry and Meghan will be there, what on earth to do about Prince Andrew, and why people aren't celebrating Princess Anne enough. Royah Nikkhah is Royal Editor at The Sunday Times and Valentine Low is Royal Correspondent for The Times.If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Producers: Morgan Burdick and Kate LeeTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to a special Friday edition of Off Air with Jane and Fee. Earlier this month marked six months since Queen Elizabeth II died, so we wanted to mark those six months and have a chat with Valentine Lowe and Roya Neeker, the King and Queen of all things royal for the Times and Sunday Times, respectively. Yeah, they are the two people who are thoroughly in the know when it comes to regal matters. And I think it's fair to say that we're quite interested in, aren't we? I mean, we're not necessarily monarchists, but we're definitely interested in what's been going on. I tell you what, it does seem like only yesterday,

but also much further in history than six months. It's one of those weird occasions, isn't it? Yeah, I still have a slight, I always have a little bit of a moment when I hear the king has done this, this and this. I think you and I always will. Yeah, I think you're probably right. I think because of the age we are, because we've lived our entire life under Queen Elizabeth II,

I think it is hard to make that gear change. So it's that and lots of other things we wanted to talk about. Perhaps after the coronation we'll all settle in to being a Carolian. Let's see how it goes. We chatted about all sorts of things in the company of Valentine and Roya. For example, the coronation, whether Harry will go, where he'll sit, and why the Princess Royal is just brilliant. How are the royal family marking a six-month, do you want to say commemoration or anniversary?

They've got a standard way of responding to questions like this. It's privately. Okay, private. Private. So it's just the nation that will be marking it. How do you think the nation has moved on in the last six months, if at all? Well, people I speak to still struggle to remember to call him King Charles. I mean, it's very difficult after sort of 70 plus years of the Queen to adjust to the fact that this rather elderly man is now a head of state because the Queen was such a sort of respected iconic figure but of course that's

complex because she wasn't always like that. There were times when she was subject to criticism but she was on the throne for such a long time she sort of floated above criticism in the end i think we're still in a slightly transitional period that i think will probably feel very final the day of the coronation which you have that sort of big visual symbolic final acclamation of charles's king and i think you know i was just doing something this morning we were filming something and looking at the new set of stamps that the world mail just put out which are the final set of stamps with the queen's head on them and just things like that we're sort of you know we're still you know the currency still has her

head on it we're still people are still sort of calling charles prince charles by mistake i think until we see him crowned with the queen queen camilla um there's still a little bit of sort of harking back but i think actually he's had a very good start to his reign. I think the public have got behind him. He's had a rocky start to his reign with some family troubles, and I think the British public have mostly got behind him on that too. So it's been quite a good start. We'll talk about the family troubles in a moment. Shall we? Well.

Don't you worry. The correlation of a man of, he'll be what, 75? 74. 74, okay. Sorry, Charles. 74, it's not a woman of 26 looking radiantly beautiful in 1953, is it? It's a very different occasion. It's a very different occasion.

It's a very different challenge for everyone involved because of that, from the Buckingham Palace machine to the photographer. How do you project what Buckingham Palace said in their statement in October when they announced the date? This is going to be a coronation that harks back to tradition but looks forward to the future and is modern. How do you make it feel modern with a septuagenarian monarch and his 75-year-old consort? It's tough. I think the way Charles is trying to do that in advance is to shake things up a bit,

to not have every single peer of the realm there, to bring the guest list, to make it more focused in terms of charities and make it much more diverse in the 1953 coronation. We now know we're going to have Camilla's grandchildren there, so we have the blended family element. But I think the Palace are alive to the fact that it's a big moment for the UK on the international stage. How do you shake it up a bit with two people in their 70s? Yes, but I think it'll be much less shaken up than we might have thought a few years ago. I think the palace had a look at the Queen's funeral and saw how the whole world responded to that element

of pomp and pageantry and tradition. And I feel that the touch on the tiller has been much more towards tradition, I think we'll find, on May 6th. We all know what Charles said about being defended of faith a few years ago. I think that's been quietly parked. I think that it's going to be a fairly traditional, it's going to be a Church of England service. And other faiths, other denominations, they might be in the Abbey, but I don't think they're going to play a significant part. I think there'll be more tradition than we might have expected,

but it will be shorter, of course, than the Queen's was. So you think that he's been led by public opinion because he has seen the way that the public liked tradition? Because I think a lot of people watching might be wanting a bit more modernity, perhaps, by the time we get to the coronation. I mean, the choices of music, for a start, are incredibly traditional, aren't they?

Yeah, I mean, you've got to remember, Charles is a traditional man. I mean, he's tried to, as Ron says, he's tried to inject the modernity by greater diversity in who will be in the congregation. And of course, things like the day three, the weekend of celebrations, was the big help out, emphasising volunteering. But, you know, in a year's time, what's people going to remember? They're not going to remember the big help out. They're going to remember the amazing service in Westminster Abbey. Yeah.

Well, can we talk about who's going to be there and who won't be there so um obviously harry and megan it doesn't look likely that they'll be in the abbey bearing in mind that they've just been issued with the eviction notice i'm not sure you're not sure okay well what do you think i think this i i i'm genuinely i'm not sure they've made up their minds yet i think we've known for months because the palace have briefed constantly that they'll be invited. So it's sort of an open invitation to them. I know they've been booted out of Frogmore. I still think that Harry feels the coronation of his father is an enormous moment for him and for his family. And, you know, all the ill will aside, I still have a feeling that Harry will be there.

I think Meghan might come too. I just think so much of what they do and so much of how they roll now is still linked to the brand and the institution that they have left. The coronation is an enormous once-in-a-generation moment. I'd be really surprised if they didn't want to be part of it, despite what's happened.

But I know that people within the palace suspect that she might find an excuse not to come. Archie's birthday, looking after Lilibet. It might just be Harry. But, of course, Harry does feel naked and exposed without Meghan by his side. Whenever we see them in public, you know, they're holding hands. They use each other for reassurance and support.

So it's hard to tell. But there's an expectation she might not come. And would you expect if Harry did come or if both of them came, for there to be any public reconciliation? Or would that always remain a private thing? Oh, definitely private. And I wouldn't expect much reconciliation. I mean, how do you achieve reconciliation?

You've got to have these private conversations. And the rest of the royal family doesn't trust him because he's put everything into the public domain. So how do you even start to have those conversations where you repair all these years of very painful damage. Has he put everything into the public domain? Well, not yet, according to Harry. I mean, Harry has, you know, did an interview with The Telegraph where he said, I've got enough for another book. And the book was originally 800 pages. So we know there's another 400 pages worth

of stuff that he said if he put out that his family would never forgive him for, they've found what's in spare quite hard to forgive. So no, I mean, I suppose it's things like that, it's those veiled kind of threats that make reconciliation much harder to come by because I think the royal family see it as an unfair fight in that respect. Harry's got a lot more ammunition, he says, on his family. The family have an awful lot of ammunition on him, but they haven't fired that off yet.

And in terms of a seating plan, would Harry be sitting next to his brother? No, I think that's, no, I think is the answer to that. In the same way that there was so much speculation and commentary over the seating plan at the Platinum Jubilee service of Thanksgiving for the Queen, when, you know, it was very stage managed. The Queen had made sure, even though she couldn't be there on the day, that Harry and Meghan arrived on their own and walked in on their own, and all eyes were on them.

But they didn't sit next to William and Kate. They sat on the other side of St Paul's, near Sophie and Edward and Beatrice and Eugenie, because they're not working royals. So I don't think you would expect them to be. But also the Buckingham Palace and the machine will want to avoid constant camera shots of William looking thunderous next to a thunderous looking Harry. But of course, that seating plan at St Paul's, it did look very much like a demotion. It looked them being put down, being squished a bit. So I just wondered if they would be able to find

a sort of rather more sophisticated way of doing it this time. Do you think that since the Queen died, some of the coverage of the royal family and some of the coverage of Harry's book has been, frankly, a bit tawdry, hasn't it? There are some tawdry details in the book. There are some deeply personal aspects of his own life and his family's

life that he's chosen to reveal. It couldn't and wouldn't have happened while the Queen was alive, would it? It just wouldn't have been allowed to happen. I genuinely believe, and I remember writing a story last May saying that Harry's book was almost certainly going to be delayed. It had been announced the year before last with great fanfare it was coming at the end of 2022. delayed it had been announced the year before last with great fanfare it was coming at the end of 2022 um i got wind of the fact that something was up sort of last summer and i you know i think by that stage a lot of us including obviously all of the queen's family knew that she had been unwell and was quite unwell and i do think harry took the view that he felt uncomfortable publishing that book while she was alive i genuinely genuinely don't think Harry would have felt comfortable

putting into the book what she did, you know, private conversations between himself and the Queen about Charles. I don't think he'd have felt comfortable describing who he lost his virginity to, to see the Queen pick up that on her Sunday morning papers. I think the timing of when... I'm not sure that went down very well with Charles either, given it was his groom,

but I think that the timing of that book being delayed until after the Queen sadly passed away, I do think that was strategic on Harry's part. I don't think he felt it would have gone down well with the family or actually with the wider public if that had been published while she was alive. Yeah, and it's very interesting, the sort of canonisation almost by Harry of the Queen and by Meghan when you can

they refused to sort of accept or or take on board the fact that it was the Queen who made the ultimate decision that they couldn't be half in and half out when they wanted to stand down as working royals so she had firm opinions and they always portrayed as though she's been manipulated by dreadful courtiers and the rest of the family. It was actually the big decisions would be taken by her. So what happens over the next six months, do you think, with Harry and Meghan? I mean, the rest of the royal family will be hoping nothing, complete silence, whatever. But there is never going to be complete silence from them, is there? bydd y prif fferm y Rolff ymdrin yn gobeithio nad ydym yn gobeithio unrhyw beth, gwbl sylw, beth bynnag. Ond byddwch chi ddim yn cael gwbl sylw o'r rhain, yn y gwbl?

Wel, roedd yna gyflwyniad ddiddorol iawn a wnaeth hi gyda, dwi'n meddwl, gwahanol o'r rhai, yn y ffordd y gwnaeth hi symud ymlaen. Nid oedd hi'n cael ei ddweud am y rhif fferm a'r trafodaethau anodd y mae hi wedi'u derbyn yn ystod ei bod yn yma. Ac roedd yn deimlo fel un o'r about the royal family and the dreadful treatment she'd received while she's over here and it seemed almost a hint that um she had a new strategy that she was going to stop dwelling on the past and look to the future which you know i think most people would welcome huge relief because i mean we've all seen how their popularity in the states has taken a nosedive i mean they're still much popular much more popular over there than they are here. But less popular than Prince Andrew.

I mean, astonishingly. That must be here, not there. So even in America... That's in America. I was being interviewed the other day by someone on an American podcast who was saying they're less popular over there because it's a very can-do country and they really are quite tired of people who just whinge and moan the whole time.

And there was a hilarious story in The Telegraph recently that in terms of the content that we're going to see from their production company, it's going to be more rom-coms and light-hearted stuff and comedies. Lovely, lovely. I mean, what a fantastic U-turn to go from misery memoir to rom-com.

But, you know, we'll wait to see the results. But maybe they are recognising, perhaps, that they can't go on like this because you just turn people off. And yet, a misery memoir is the fastest, biggest selling... Do we call it non-fiction or fiction? Technically, it's in the non-fiction category. That's debatable. It's the biggest selling non-fiction or fiction? Technically it's in the non-fiction category. That's debatable. It's the biggest selling non-fiction memoir ever.

But that's undeniable, isn't it? So it sells. So, you know, people might carp about it, but his strategy has made him millions. Can't take that away from him. Let's talk about Prince Andrew, who sometimes, I do feel it's unfair to lump Prince Harry and Prince Andrew together because whatever you might think of Prince Harry,

he is most emphatically not Prince Andrew. And what is the king going to do about his brother in the long term? I think the king hopes, well, the king would wish for Prince Andrew, as it was described to me, to stay in the freezer. Prince Andrew doesn't want to stay in the freezer. He wants to come out the freezer and find himself a purposeful role again. It's tricky because the man is in his 60s. What can you do about him?

He's a grown man. He wants to rehabilitate himself. The public have no appetite for that, nor does the king. But it's sort of a similar way to Harry. He's not keen to kind of go quietly. And, you know, I think just by hoping he'll sort of spend his days playing golf and riding around Windsor Great Park a couple of times a week, I think unless you properly address that issue, Andrew's going to keep coming back to bite them.

And I think the King needs to grip that a little bit more. Andrew's got various problems. One, of course, is he's unimaginative and arrogant and therefore wouldn't be able to think of what else he could possibly do. He's got a huge sense of entitlement the other is is that the people closest to him uh are blowing smoke in his ear um suggesting that he can come back and he he's the only person in the world thick enough essentially to believe this nonsense uh but he does believe it uh the other problem is um people often make parallels with Profumo. So we all know John Profumo, after his disgrace, after his resignation,

he went off to go and help Toynbee Hall in the East End. Even if Andrew was humble enough to do something like that, which he obviously isn't, these days with social media and phones and all the rest of it, he couldn't possibly do that, because as soon as you turn up anywhere to do something, however meaningful and sort of humbling, sort of doing the washing up, cleaning the toilets, whatever,

someone will spot you, someone will take a picture, and it then becomes impossible for the organisation hosting you. So it's very, very difficult to know what he could possibly do. Hugo Vickers suggests he should run an animal sanctuary because the British love animals, and it's the only possible thing he could do which would turn people's opinion around. That's a bit mean to the animals, isn't it, Valentine?

So is Buckingham Palace empty of an actual living-in royal? Yes, and whenever I've written a couple of times in the last year that he's never going to move into Buckingham Palace, Buckingham Palace, go mental about this. But speak to anyone around Charles, close to Charles, and they will tell you, and they will tell you for a while, that the official line is that they're going to move into Buckingham Palace in five years' time when it's renovated, when they're in their 80s.

And yet Charles has already made it sort of clear, we've written it, that he wants to open up Buckingham Palace and the other Royal Residences much more to the public. There is no way Camilla and Charles in their 80s are going to up sticks from where they're very comfortable in Clarence House, thank you very much, and move into big old Buckingham Palace. So I think the opening up of the palace to the public

is a brilliant idea. I think the opening up of all the residences to the public, which he wants to do, transform them from, he says, private spaces into public places, is a great idea. I think they should run with that and be open about it. And I think the public would be like, fair enough. If it starts paying for itself, less taxpayer money then goes towards the upkeep of the palace. If it can pay for itself with sort of more visitor numbers, I think it's great. But yeah, you're right. It's monarchy hq it has his office there but there are

a whole lot of other rooms that we're working from home sometimes exactly they can work from home no one's ever liked living in buckingham palace it's like working in a hotel there's no way william and kate will move we'll live there as king and queen so chance is all about thinking about the future. I really do feel Buckingham Palace should just be honest about this and just say, do you know what, they're probably not going to move in there in five years' time, but it's going to be a great, you know,

it's going to be even more for the nation than it is now. Can we talk about Camilla? Because if somebody had told me in, I don't know, late 1997 that Camilla would be crowned Queen alongside Charles at Westminster Abbey. I wouldn't have believed them, frankly. It's been quite a transformation, hasn't it? Yes, and I remember on a train journey to do an engagement with Kate or William and Kate in Birmingham, I think, one of my colleagues spotted on Prince Charles' website, this is going back, I don't know, four or five years, something like that, that a little bit where they said,

when he exceeds the throne, the Camille will be known as the Princess Consort, had suddenly disappeared. And we questioned Clarence House about this. They said, what's going on here? And they said, oh, no, nothing to see here. We're just tidying up the website. Absolutely no significance.

And, of course, it was completely significant And they said, oh, no, nothing to see here. We're just tidying up the website. Absolutely no significance. And, of course, it was completely significant because they knew that she would not be princess consort when Charles succeeded to the throne. It's an amazing rehab, I think. Amazing rehab of her image. But I think mostly, you know, Harry was very keen to say in his book that it's all, you know, very Machiavellian,

very sort of deliberate from her. I actually think that it's been quite organic. She's just sort of done her thing and the public have warmed to it. And I think the public can see that she makes him very happy. And therefore, it's an all-round good thing that she's sort of by her side as he takes on, finally takes on the top job. Have they? You're absolutely certain that we were talking, when did we talk to Charles Spencer? Two weeks ago. Two weeks.

He was on our Times radio programme and we talked a little bit about the coronation and he was incredibly, he's a very nice chap of course, and he just said, you know, I think people always think I'm much more interested in the royal family than I really am. But I put to him the idea that on Coronation Day, some of us, perhaps people of my age who remember Diana, she was so much a part of our lives, will be thinking about her. And I'm sure I won't be the only person who has had that thought. Of course they will. And Diana is, you know, Diana, she never goes away. And, you know, there will be hardcore Diana loyalists who still turn out at the anniversary of her birthday on

July the 1st, or, you know, when she died died in August who go to the gates of Kensington Palace always lay the flowers and you know for them she is the one true queen the one who should be queen but I think if you look at the polling of the royal family the majority of people in this country I think have have come to accept Camilla as Charles's Charles's life partner and know, I don't think the Dan, the spectre Dan, will never really completely recede from the royal family, but I think a lot of people have come to terms with the fact that Camilla's actually quite good in that job.

But does that extend to her family? Because, as you mentioned, there is something to be made of her children and grandchildren being included in the ceremony, which hasn't been anything that we've seen before. Do you think people want Camilla and everybody else? I don't think they're going to get Camilla and everybody else. I think the inclusion of her grandchildren

in the ceremony of the coronation is a one-off. There will be nothing beyond that. We're not going to start seeing her grandchildren wheeled out on engagements. We're not going to see them, ludicrous speculations in some social media that they're going to get titles, none of that's going to happen. That's a 74-year-old woman wanting grandchildren instead of anonymous dukes and duchesses who mean nothing to her, close to her on the day of her coronation,

that there will be no more inclusion of them in anything official after that. And William and Kate are now the Prince and Princess of Wales. It all does still take a bit of getting used to. They may have not that long, realistically, to wait. So what do they constructively do for the next 20 years or so? Well, you know, they've got their own passionate interests. And it's quite interesting that, you know, since the Queen's death, they've been very firm about pursuing those interests.

So William, for instance, with his Earthshot Prize, went over to Boston at the end of last year for that. Kate with her Early Years Project. I mean, they are pursuing their own agendas. And it's just that I have a sense that Charles's reign will be less revolutionary than we might have thought. Because in a way, we know what Charles is like. We've had all these decades to get used to him.

And I think William, in a funny way, in his quiet way, might shake things up more when he becomes king. In what way, Valentine? How much shaking will go down? Well, I don't know. He shows himself prepared to listen in a way. It was very striking after that calamitous tour of the Caribbean. He issued a statement at the end

of it saying, you know, things don't always have to remain the same and he wants to listen. Charles is very good at expressing his own opinion. I think William is better at listening. And I think having listened, I have no idea what changes he might institute.

But he always took his grandmother as his role model rather than his father. I think there was a big clue in that statement that Val just mentioned. It was an extraordinary statement because he said at the end of it, I don't assume that I will be the next head of the Commonwealth in the way that Charles always wanted to be. And the Queen did a fait accompli in 2018 at the Commonwealth House of Government meeting to make sure he'd be the next head of the Commonwealth. William, having done a controversial tour of the Caribbean, let's call it, said in a statement, you know what, it's not a fait accompli as far as I'm concerned. Things might be different. I might not be.

So that gave you an indication into kind of, that would be a big change to not have the British monarch as head of the Commonwealth. But William's already saying, do you know what, it might not be me. Why don't you guys choose? We were always told, and you can tell me I'm wrong, that the Queen, the late Queen, would never have abdicated. She just wouldn't do it. But let's say King Charles in ten years does think, I'm just getting on now, and for the good of the institution,

it would be better if I left this job and let William and Kate do it. Do you think that is a possibility? I think it's very unlikely, but it's a possibility in a way that it wasn't a possibility with the Queen. I definitely think that. Do you? Do you think? Only a theoretical possibility. I don't think it's likely at all. I think Charles takes that vow of lifelong service in the same way that his mother does.

He's so conscious, I think they all are, of what abdication meant to this country back in the day and how perilous it was. And although we're in a different circumstance now and I think he will feel reassured about the future of the monarchy with William and Kate because they're popular, I don't think he sees it as something he could step down from. So if dignity defined the latest Elizabethan era, what defines the Carolian era?

Same thing? I think, well... It's early days. Early days. But I think the passion with which Charles believes in things is his defining characteristic. But I always think, in a way, you're asking the wrong question, because I think... How very dare you!

Let's go. We need to say this for a while. Because I think if you look back on Charles's legacy, it won't be his legacy as king, it'll be his legacy as Prince of Wales. That's what he spent all those decades, and that's what he did all his good things with. I mean, don't let's forget the prince's trust which he set up in 1976 and has helped more than a million

young people uh that's where he his great great life's achievements are in his years prince of wales and less much less so than his king i think i think the other thing that will perhaps will sort of shift in people's minds in terms of the legacy is, I think there was a slight danger, and actually the Queen acknowledged it in that amazing documentary to mark her jubilee last year with all that home footage that she released. You could almost hear the smile on her voice as it showed sort of photographs of her as a young, very glamorous teenage and then early 20s princess. She said, I think people sometimes forget one was young once. I remember like the hairs on my arms went up because I think for so many of us in our minds, the image of Elizabethan era was of the Queen sort of in her 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. certainly towards the end of that reign not through any fault of her own, she became a slightly more remote figure because she just wasn't able

to get out and about in engagements in the way that Charles my god, he's been the man who doesn't eat lunch ever, he packs it in we're seeing a lot of him already, we're seeing a lot of him and Camilla out and about and I think he will make it a point of doing as many engagements as he can to be seen to sort of get

out there and still listening to people on the ground in the way that the Queen couldn't do so much you know in the last years of her life I think that it's really it's really different how hard he's been working and being out and about so neither of you think the institution itself the royal family is in any danger no immediate danger might not be here in 200 years' time. But you'd give it, what, another 50 years? I'll say it'd definitely be here in 50 years' time. Who knows about 200?

Because the bedrock of support in the country for the monarchy is pretty constant. Every opinion poll just bumps along at roughly the same level. So there's no danger. And if you think what they've been through... We've had a pretty perilous couple of years. Well, if you look back to the 90s, I mean, incredibly unpopular then in terms of the Diana years and her death and so on.

But their popularity never really sank to... We were never in danger of a republic then. In danger of a republic. We were never in a position to republic then. In danger of a republic. In danger of a republic. We were never in a position to be able to welcome a republic. Beautifully done. And I don't think that'll be the case now, but, you know, things could change in the future. So they're OK for the moment.

Do you think we need a national Princess Anne day? Yes. I think, do you know what? What I, you know, people always say, oh, she's so overlooked, why? The answer to that question is because she wants to be overlooked. We talk, you know, overlooked how? She doesn't want media attention. She loves getting on and doing her thing without getting applauded. But what I found about that whole sort of 14 days of the Queen dying

and what really sort of shocked people's minds was the fact that, you know, that journey she did with the Queen from Balmoral to Edinburgh, the journey she did with the Queen from Scotland to London, people were suddenly like, wow, it's Princess Anne, and there's a reason for that. And I think it sort of focused people's minds on the fact that she just sort of is this quiet figure who,

I remember when we did a feature on her for her 70th, the best queen we'll never have. I admire her for the fact that she doesn't want plaudits. Should we have a national princess hand date? Why, yeah, and it could be all about voluntary service. Yes, yes, she doesn't want plaudits, but that's perfectly true. She doesn't like the media. She gets on with it and does all her charities and does 10 million engagements a year.

But also, even if she wanted attention, she wouldn't get it. Because, let's face it, what the Royal Family does from day to day is actually quite dull. I mean, I had a look before I came to this interview about Anne's recent engagements. And, you know, there was an investiture. She went to Specsavers. There was an agricultural show. And I think she went to a rugby match. Yeah, it's not Love Island, is it?

It's not terribly exciting. And, you know, we pay attention to the members of the royal family when we're invested in them. And people like youth, so the younger ones get much more attention. They like youth and they like the person who's in charge. And the rest of them, people really don't care very much. But do you know what, with Princess Anne, whenever you hear a snippet about her from anybody, and Mike

Tyndall was brilliant when he was in the jungle, and I'm a celebrity, you just warm to her. Yeah. You know, you just, I would like to see more of Princess Anne. Yeah, you do, I mean, she's great in many ways, but also she can be hard work. She can be quite sharp. She was quite surly with me once, I have to be honest.

There we are. Did you knock Curtsy right? I don't think I did, actually. Do you think things like that will go, actually? The bowing and scraping and the curtsy? A lot of that is optional anyway. I mean, when we see them,

I mean, I don't curtsy to them. I don't either. No, but you'll practically have a curtsy to the Queen. When I say the Queen, I mean Queen Elizabeth II. They don't, you know, and all engagements, they don't, it's really, it tends to be only sort of charity heads that curtsy to them. Most people don't curtsy to them, and they certainly don't expect it. So Liz Truss went to all that bother for absolutely no need.

That was a curtsy. It was different with the Queen. I think people felt differently about the Queen. Well, you can stop practising then. That DB could never be more elusive than it feels right now, to be honest. Thank you for listening. That was us, Jane and me, talking

to Roya Nika, Royal Editor at the Sunday Times. And to Valentine Lowe, who's Royal Correspondent for the Times. And we will be back, as normal, on Monday, on air at three o'clock and off air around about six. Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe.

And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run or running a bank thank you for joining us and we hope you can join us again on off air very soon they'd be so silly running a bank i know lady listener sorry