Matt Western – 2022 Tribute to HM Queen Elizabeth II
The tribute made by Matt Western, the Labour MP for Warwick and Leamington, in the House of Commons on 10 September 2022.
Yesterday morning, I bumped into Helen, a constituent. She was visibly upset. It was an ungodly hour—quarter to 7—and she was walking in early for work at a local butcher’s shop in the heart of Royal Leamington Spa, a shop so well regarded that it holds a warrant to supply the royal household. She told me how she had dreaded the coming of this day. Like so many of us, she was shocked by the news. An hour later, as I stood in the queue for a train ticket, the guy in front of me, in jeans and a torn black leather jacket, confided that he was going to Buckingham Palace because he needed to be there. Those are two simple vignettes that, I am sure, were replayed up and down our country.
For a person of such slight figure, the Queen seemed to stand above Presidents, Prime Ministers, and other Heads of State. It was not simply her longevity or her manner; there was invariably a genuine respect for her, for her experience and her wise counsel. Her virtues were many: dedication, diligence, integrity, respect, loyalty, humility, compassion and constancy, for at times of turmoil, she provided calm. At times of national self-doubt, she reassured us, throughout her reign and even before—in wartime, after various bombings and the Aberfan disaster, and then during the pandemic, when she proposed hope and that we would meet again. Her state visit to Ireland in 2011, where she made one of her most significant speeches, was the first visit there by any British monarch for 100 years. She also celebrated with us in moments of national joy, such as VE Day—imagine the liberation she felt at being able to be out on the streets with the people—that magic moment of presenting Bobby Moore with the Jules Rimet trophy, and dropping by for the Olympics in 2012. She was the woman for all seasons.
Warwick and Leamington was blessed by her visits on three occasions. The first was in 1988, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s granting of the royal warrant to Leamington. In 1996, she visited Lord Leycester Hospital and Warwick castle, and she made her final visit in 2011, to open the Warwickshire Justice Centre. I am not sure whether she had time to drop by the butcher’s, but hopefully King Charles III will make time in the coming years.
On behalf of the good people of Warwick, Leamington, Whitnash and villages, I pay tribute and offer our thanks for the life of Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, for her dignity and commitment to our service, and express our sincere condolences to His Majesty King Charles III and all the family. Her late Majesty the Queen was not given to sentimentality. She would have wanted us to look forwards, and perhaps she would have put it this way: “The firm has a new boss.” May our late Queen rest in peace. God save the King.
