I awoke in the middle of the night with one of those Eureka! moments.
Post-election, the clamour was, and remains, for TB to yield the reigns of power sooner rather than later, presumably to GB.
The question is asked - why doesn't he do so now, since, in the view of some, he is in danger of becoming a lameduck. Michael Howard, for example, has announced that he will stand down from the Tory Party in December.
And it struck me.
In less than a year, the Queen will be Eighty. Last month, the Prince of Wales finally married the future Queen Camilla.
In the wee sma' hours I felt utterly convinced that the Queen's Abdication is a foregone conclusion.
Of course, no monarch has ever retired: all previous Abdications have been in much less serene circumstances. But the genius of the House of Windsor and they multifarious nefarious flunkies is to invent a modus operandi from scratch and manipulate the gullible into believing it is a piece of long-established protocol whose origins are lost in the mist of time.
She will announce her Abdication at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta in November
I do not believe that Queenie can abdicate on her actual 80th birthday, because this will be just two weeks before the Local Elections, which, taking in London, one third of Mets, many unitaries, and a disportionate number of shire districts is the biggest election outside of a General (bigger even than the Euros). There may be similar considerations in other nations of which she is Head of State.
The Commonwealth Games next March in Melbourne, so it would be inappropriate to abdicate before these.
However, she will abdicate, and there are as we speak high-level negotiations between Buckingham Palace, Downing Street and Soho Square to ensure that the Abdication of the Queen, of Tony Blair and of Sven Goran Eriksson are timed either to coincide perfectly, or to be sufficiently staggered so as not to appear haphazard.
Rumours that the BBC will cease to make Last of the Summer Wine have, however, been strongly denied.
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