BORIS JOHNSON'S MASSIVE GAFF AFTER EMBARRASSING FIRST MEETING WITH QUEEN ELIZABETH

Keir Starmer certainly won't be making the same mistakes as Boris Johnson.

The Labour leader, 61, has brought an end to 14 long years of Conservative rule after victoriously making it inside No10. But first, he must meet with King Charles to be formally appointed Prime Minister. Mr Starmer will travel to Buckingham Palace today for a private meeting with the Monarch where he will be asked to form a Government.

Starmer will be the third PM during the King's reign, after Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss. Before her, Johnson was handed the top job and met with the late Queen Elizabeth II at the Palace in July 2019 to be granted his official title. But the former PM broke a huge protocol just hours after accepting the role and got scolded by royal aides.

During a tour of his new home after his royal meeting with the late Queen, Boris shared details of their conversation which should have been kept secret. EuroNews journalist Vincent McAviney claimed Johnson admitted the Queen had made a brutally honest comment during their short chat.

He claimed she said: "I don't know why anyone would want the job." According to McAviney, staff quickly scolded him and told Johnson "not to repeat those things so loudly". The monarch sometimes offers the new leader a few pieces of advice on running the country, but these aren't normally made public.

As Head of State, the monarch must remain politically neutral and does not vote in elections. Although the law does not stop them from voting, it is considered unconstitutional so the sovereign does not cast votes or make political opinions public at all.

It is also the duty of the monarch to hold a weekly Audience with the PM to discuss Government matters. What is said in the meetings always remains private, with no other people present during it. The late Queen set the precedent of meeting every Wednesday, while parliament is in session.

The Queen Mother worked with 14 PMs during her 70-year reign, from Winston Churchill to Boris Johnson. Winston Churchill was the first PM the Queen worked with after her father George VI's early death in 1952. They were reportedly very close, and he was said to be a "formidable presence for the young monarch", who was just 26 at the time.

Nicholas Soames, Churchill's grandson, said: "I think the Queen valued my grandfather's experience, and he of course loved the Queen. He did love her. I mean, she aroused in him all his romantic ideas of sovereignty and monarchy."

Royal historian Robert Lacey added: "I think there’s a sense in which all the Queen’s Prime Ministers have been in love with her to a certain degree. But it was most overtly displayed by Churchill. He made no pretence at it, there were tears in his eyes when he welcomed her."

The Queen sent Churchill a handwritten letter after he retired in 1955 saying how much she missed him She wrote that no other PM would "ever for me be able to hold the place of my first prime minister, to whom both my husband and I owe so much and for whose wise guidance during the early years of my reign I shall always be so profoundly grateful".

However, not all of the relationships were as positive. The Queen and her eighth Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher apparently didn't really get on. In fact, a Buckingham Palace source told a diplomat the monarch actually considered scrapping their weekly meetings altogether.

2024-07-05T15:10:14Z dg43tfdfdgfd