Moments before the at DIB City of Manchester Business Awards was due to begin last Thursday, we learnt of the Queens passing.
In opening the event, I expressed my huge admiration for a monarch who had reigned over us for 70 years and suggested that all the business owners and entrepreneurs in the room would be proud if they applied her commitment, work ethic and achieved the success that she had. I led a warm round of applause, and we raised a glass in her honour.
In my younger years I would have described myself as a Republican. But nowadays, in no small part due to Her Maj, I guess, I’m more of an agnostic.
My admiration for the Queen is genuine. However, I have to say that the reaction to her death by some has been – to put it kindly – nuts.
The cancellation of the Premier League and football League fixtures – even Sunday League games – was crackers.
The cancellation of a series of corporate events and major conferences, including the TUC conference followed.
The government have used the mourning period to extend the time that we have had no functioning administration, and the anxiously awaited announcement on the business support package on energy costs has been delayed.
We have been subjected to what is tantamount to a news blackout.
Then there was the Center Parcs fiasco. Most seriously of all, long-awaited hospital appointments have been cancelled on Monday too.
In raising concerns about these things, that lovely place that is Twitter rained down upon me a trickle of criticism from those who no doubt consider themselves ultra-Royalists. They complained that I was being disrespectful to the late Queen.
I absolutely wasn’t. But I was highlighting bizarre decisions that have done further damage to an economy that is already struggling, and to the health of the nation.
I’m not convinced that the Queen herself would approve or appreciate some of the reaction or decisions that her passing has resulted in. Some of the shenanigans we have witnessed during the past week almost rekindled my younger selfs Republicanism – almost.
I’m sure the country will do Elizabeth proud on Monday. RIP Ma’am.
