‘My first PM was Churchill and that was before you were born’: Tony Blair reveals how the Queen gently put him in his place when they first met and how ‘warm and humorous’ she had been at their last meeting despite ‘a problem with her leg’
- Mr Blair spoke to US television about monarch and his ‘surprise’ at her death
- He revealed she had been ‘warm and humorous’ when they had last met, but frail
- Reveal her first words to him as PM after he won the 1997 election with Labour
- ‘My first prime minister was Winston and that was before you were born.’
- Full coverage: Click here to see all our coverage of the Queen’s passing
Tony Blair today recalled how the Queen reminded him of her long reign after he became prime minister – by pointing out she met with Winston Churchill before the former Labour leader was born.
Mr Blair, who was in Downing Street for a decade from 1997, spoke to US television about the monarch, including his ‘surprise’ at her death.
He revealed she had been ‘warm and humorous’ when they had last met, but he said she had been physically frail and ”a problem with her leg’.
Talking to NBC’s Today show, he said: ‘She was on great form. She had a problem with her leg, physically, and she was obviously frail – she was 96.
‘But in terms of how she was she was in amazing form. She was warm and humorous. She kept a very keen and sharp eye on the country and how it was changing and what its people thought right up until the end.’
Discussing their first meeting after he won his landslide 1997 election victory, he added: ‘When I was appointed PM I remember she said to me. Her first words to me ”my first prime minister was Winston [Churchill] and that was before you were born”. She had this extraordinary grip on history.’
Asked if that put him in his place he said ‘it did a bit’.
Mr Blair, who was in Downing Street for a decade from 1997, spoke to US television about the monarch, including his ‘surprise’ at her death.
He revealed she had been ‘warm and humorous’ when they had last met, but he said she had been physically frail and ”a problem with her leg’.
Discussing their first meeting after he won his landslide 1997 election victory, he added: ‘When I was appointed PM I remember she said to me. Her first words to me ”my first prime minister was Winston [Churchill] and that was before you were born”.’
He continued: ‘It was so strange to me because as a child I remember standing in the street and waving my little flag as she drove by.
‘For someone of my generation she was all we had known and we had grown up with her and therefore when you are suddenly her prime minister it’s a pretty humbling moment.’
Sir Winston was in his second term as prime minister when the Queen ascended tot he throne in 1952. He was the first of 15 premiers she met weekly throughout her 70-year reign.
Sir Winston quit power in 1955 due to ill health, just three years into her reign, and died in in 1965. He was the last non-royal to receive a state funeral.
Born during the reign of Victoria, the man who won World War II was almost 80 when the 25-year-old Elizabeth became Queen, and regarded her with grandfatherly affection.
He proclaimed a new ‘Elizabethan Age’ when she became Queen, while she offered to make him Duke of London.
Their weekly meetings were so successful that they often ran for two hours, with the unlikely couple laughing and gossiping about horse racing.
One courtier confided that their meetings were ‘punctuated by peals of laughter, and Winston generally came out wiping his eyes’.
Asked, decades later, which of her PMs she had most enjoyed meeting, the Queen reportedly replied: ‘Winston, of course, because it was always such fun.’
Churchill made no secret of his adulation for the Queen. He told a friend that ‘all the film people in the world, if they had scoured the globe, could not have found anyone so suited to the part’.
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