The Jubilee Year Message that was not to be

 

Golden Jubilee Year Christmas Message, 2002.

At the time of writing, the precise cause of the death of Queen Elizabeth has not been officially released, although it has been speculated that she was suffering from a form of bone marrow cancer.  Did Her Majesty have any indication that the 2021 Christmas Message, which was recorded two months after the first signs that her health was failing, would be her last?  It is true that the Queen alluded to 'passing the baton' from one generation to the next, but her two written Platinum Jubilee messages seemed to indicate that she considered that she would be around for a while to come.

If Queen Elizabeth II had lived to deliver her Platinum Jubilee year Christmas Broadcast, it is likely that her message would have had a similar tone to the previous Jubilee year messages of 1977, 2002 and 2012.  Her Majesty would no doubt have thanked the many who marked the Jubilee year in some way - especially during the main celebrations in June - for their loyalty and support.  There would probably have been extensive use of montage footage of those celebrations interspersed with the Queen's words (at one time, these images would perhaps have been shown during the rendition of God Save the Queen, but in recent years there has been more of an emphasis on the musicians that perform it).  Elizabeth II may have alluded to her own health difficulties (though not in a major way), which had reduced her participation in the main Jubilee events, and very likely acknowledged the economic and social difficulties affecting millions in the United Kingdom and across the Commonwealth.

King George V at the microphone;  1930s.

 

Christmas Day also marked ninety years to the day since the late Queen's grandfather, King George V, delivered the very first Christmas Broadcast to Britain and the Empire.  Elizabeth II was one of very few people left alive who may have remembered that momentous occasion first-hand, and with her keen sense of history, continuity and the importance of anniversaries may well have referred to this other significant milestone; perhaps within the context some sort of reflection on finding comfort in the continuation of the familiar and the importance of community spirit in troubled times.

Sadly, to speculate is academic, as events intervened last September. The 2022 Broadcast turned out to be a very different speech from the new King Charles III (which I will look at in my next post).  The King chose to speak of Elizabeth II in personal terms, as a mother rather than as Queen, and the unique event of the Platinum Jubilee - which would have been the central event of the royal year - was not mentioned at all.

The King's first Christmas Broadcast: Were ITV 'snubbed'?

 

The King delivering his first television broadcast as monarch;  9th September, 2022.

In recent days it has been reported that, rather than being produced by ITV as planned, the first Christmas Broadcast of the reign of King Charles III has actually been produced by the BBC (the programme was evidently recorded on Tuesday 13th December).  If true, this would be quite surprising.

The existing two-year rotational system was first devised in the mid-1990s, alternating between the BBC and ITV, later incorporating Sky News from 2011 onwards.  The purpose was officially to add 'fresh blood' to the Broadcasts, but was in no small measure motivated by a desire to punish the BBC over the notorious Panorama interview between Martin Bashir and Diana, Princess of Wales (which was itself motivated by an intention to embarrass the then Prince of Wales), which the Palace considered it had been treated discourteously over.

ITN had produced what turned out to be Queen Elizabeth II's final Christmas Message in 2021.  Planning for the 2022 Broadcast would presumably have been well underway by the time of the Queen's death in September, since each producing network considers its back-to-back programmes as a two-year project.  The BBC, which had been responsible for the 2019 and 2020 Broadcasts, had not been expected to resume production until 2025.  I can see no obvious reason why the Palace should wish to 'punish' ITV:  the network has generally 'kept its nose clean' in its associations with the Royal family and I have written many times over the years in my blog posts that the ITN Christmas Broadcasts have been as good as those produced by the BBC - and sometimes better.

Perhaps the most plausible possible explanation is that the existing rota agreement was always intended to expire at the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign, with production reverting to the BBC until new arrangements are made for the reign of King Charles.  However, it is odd that there had been no comment from Buckingham Palace, ITV or the BBC to clarify the situation.

Queen Elizabeth II's ITN-produced final Christmas Broadcast; 2021.