- Boris Johnson paid tribute to the Queen in the House of Commons.
- The request made him “so overcome with sadness that I had to ask them to go away,” he said.
During his tribute to the monarch in the House of Commons, Boris Johnson called the Queen “the keystone in the vast arch of the British state.”
He claimed that a media outlet filmed an interview with him during his tenure as Prime Minister in which they asked him to discuss the Queen in the past tense. Johnson did not explain why the request was made, but networks routinely prepare footage to air in the event of the death of a prominent figure.
“I’m afraid I simply choked up, and I couldn’t go on. And I’m really not easily moved to tears, but I was so overcome with sadness that I had to ask them to go away,” Johnson said.
“I know that today, there are countless people in this country and around the world who have experienced the same sudden access of unexpected emotion.”
“Perhaps it’s partly that she’s always been there: a changeless human reference point in British life.”
“Think of what we asked that 25-year-old woman all those years ago. To be the person so globally trusted that her image should be on every unit of our currency, every postage stamp, the person in whose name all justice is dispensed in this country,” Johnson said.
“Think what we asked of her in that moment.”
