Friday, 07 June, 2002

In the wake of astoundingly successful golden jubilee celebrations, John Sheard gives thanks that the Queen takes her advice from country folk, not city slickers.

THIS may seem like an odd confession from someone who has spent a long working life in journalism - 30 years of it writing for the national press - but the thing which overjoyed me most this week was the giant V-sign the British public held up to the media cynics who proclaimed that the monarchy was dead.

I am not a rabid monarchist but think it is the best system we have - otherwise we would have to have a politician as head of state, and that is unthinkable. But even an old cynic like me was totally overwhelmed by the joy and affection which the golden jubilee celebrations released.

Now the media - in particular, television and some of the more haughty broadsheets - had been saying for months that the jubilee would be a damp squib. The monarchy, they argued, was on its last legs. Yet even when proved wrong by millions of ordinary folk who took to the streets, they still wouldn't let go.

I was particularly annoyed by a TV documentary on the Queen's reign in which several so-called "social commentators" (i.e., talking heads) criticised the royal family for choosing its closest advisers from the ranks of the landed gentry - i.e., country bumpkins totally out of touch with modern reality.

My first reaction to this was: who else should they chose? Politicians, who for the past three or four governments have been almost buried under allegations of sleaze? City of London whiz kids, who for years have ripping off every pension fund or insurance policy holder they could con?

Or perhaps from the media itself, in particular the broadcast media, which is now dumbed down so deep that I wouldn't let 90% of them write a single syllable for this column (not, of course, that they would understand what syllable is).

No, I praise the Lord for the fact the Queen has had the great good sense to choose her senior advisers from mainly country folk because the fact of the matter is that it is the city slickers who are out of touch with reality, not the obverse as they claim.

Whilst the city was flying high on a booming stock market, country folk were fighting to survive BSE, foot and mouth, and the over-valued pound which kept tourists away and carved into EU food subsidies. Whilst property values were making ordinary city folk rich overnight, country people were losing their major assets, pedigree stock they had bred over generations, or tourist businesses they had been building up for years.

Well, the stock market has collapsed and there are signs, particularly in the South East, that the property boom may have peaked. Some observers fear it could slump, 1990 all over again.

So whilst the candyfloss economy seems about to implode, country folk have battled through real hard times and the signs are that things could be getting better. In other words, our down to earth people and their down to earth way of dealing with life's problems are the ones with the nouse to lead us through troubled times.

And if we need proof of this, look back over the past 50 years. Despite the shenanigans of her unruly children, the Queen herself barely put foot wrong as Britain lost an empire and rebuilt itself as a medium sized but enormously respected European power.

She did that with country bumpkins at her elbow. God bless 'em!