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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Well, it's now King Charles III in the UK. He made his first public appearance today to at least some cheering crowds, as yesterday, as you all know, it was announced that Queen Elizabeth II passed away at the age of 96. What a transitional week in the UK with the ascension of a new prime minister, Liz Truss, at the exact same time.

With me now is Anne McElvoy, executive editor at The Economist and host of The Economist Asks podcast, who will help us reflect on Queen Elizabeth's 70 year reign, and what lies ahead for the United Kingdom and for that matter, all the countries of the Commonwealth and even former colonies. Anne, thanks so much for joining us on what I'm sure has been an emotional day for you already. Welcome back to WNYC.

Anne McElvoy: It's lovely to be back on the show, Brian. Yes, it has been an emotional day and night last night. I think the sense of loss and disorientation even in my own circle, a hardened journalist, I think, like me, went off to shed a few quiet tears before we got on with the job.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, especially those from the UK, or corners of the Commonwealth, give us a call and tell us what the Queen and her legacy has meant to you. 212-433-WNYC. We've heard all the experts, all the officials on the BBC, on television, now it's your turn, 212-433-WNYC. If you're from a country that used to be part of the British Empire, we want to hear from you too.

For one thing, any of you Brits or British expats, explain to Americans who just don't get it, how you can even have the institution of a hereditary monarchy anymore, or why you have any fondness for the family who is in that role and are capable of shedding a tear, like Anne McElvoy was just talking about doing even personally. 212-433-WNYC is the number for that. 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer. It's also okay to call if your roots are in former British colonies, say, that finally declared their independence during Elizabeth's 70 years. How do you relate to this era in history that all the media are recalling? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Anne, how would you answer that question that I was posing, to explain to Americans who just don't get it, how you all can even have the institution of a hereditary monarchy anymore and why people have a fondness for the family in that role?

Anne McElvoy: The simple answer is the British history is a different kettle of fish to American history. [unintelligible 00:03:12] didn't have a revolution and we had our civil war, we got ours, it was a bit earlier and it was really between parliament and the king and that hashed out the respective rights of the monarch and the rights of parliament. That was it, broadly speaking, in terms of the constitutional settlement.

I think if the question is asked with an angle of how can you, because this is illogical?

Well, you could say it is difficult, and all of our countries have their different problems and tensions within the constitution and the application of it. Who am I telling here, sitting on a show addressed to American listeners at the moment? Whichever way you do it it's difficult. The way that it's worked out in Britain and which has a very high degree of acceptance is that your head of state isn't going to have political power.

Yes, she was a monarch until yesterday and now Prince Charles, the successor, can guide, they can warn, they can advise. That's pretty much what it says in the job description, which was last doled out in the early 1950s, but it's been very consistent. What it is not the job to do is to get over involved in dealings in parliament, however strongly the Queen may feel she can talk in confidence as she has done to 15 Prime Ministers, she started with Winston Churchill, but her job is really to act as a sounding board and to warn and advise. It is not to say don't do this.

Indeed, we even have as well as a remarkable ceremony in parliament, Black Rod, where the rod is struck against the door to say this is parliament, you are the monarch, you are let into parliament for the Queen's speech, which will be the King's speech next time, but you have no rights to come here. If you think about it, it's a bit of a cheeky tradition. It's the monarch, you stay out there. It actually goes back very much to the thinking of the philosopher John Locke. He said, "You can be the monarch, we really like that, but there will be limitations, so let's talk about it."

Brian Lehrer: I think Queen Elizabeth had a reputation of being a non-political figure and somebody who was beloved by Labour Party supporters and Conservative Party supporters alike in the UK. In that context that you were just describing where the monarch's role is to warn and advise, is there a standout example, or a couple of them from her 70 years on the throne where she did that on something substantive?

Anne McElvoy: Yes, I'm trying to think what the best is. The clearest things in recent memory were, I think she was very concerned at points during Margaret Thatcher's reign. I don't think she actively disliked Margaret Thatcher, I think there were two very strong minded women and they sometimes came, as people used to joke at the time, to a collision of handbags. They both really knew how to wield their individual power. I think she wanted to know from Margaret Thatcher during the miners strike, for instance, which really did cleave apart a lot of communities, I actually grew up in the former mining community so I do remember that from my teenage years, that sense of a civil strife, to an extent probably what some people in parts of America feel now.

That their community is very riven by views [unintelligible 00:06:28] very hard to put those views together, and both sides feel in some way they understand better the future of the country. I think the Queen wanted to know that this wouldn't go on forever, and that there was an end in sight to that. That would be the way that she probably phrased it. She was certainly very active and I think she wanted to know what was happening in the anti-Apartheid movement, what the position of the British government was. That still, if historians I think will debate this for quite a long time, she wanted to support Nelson Mandela, and she was very concerned about how the transition would take place.

She also perhaps wanted more information from the government of the day about its policy then and how far Margaret Thatcher was supporting a slow and gradual change, but things were speeding up. It's a much more complicated story than people just being on one side or the other. It was really what is the UK's role here and you touched on it also as a former colonial power. I think she always wanted to know what was going to happen as a result of rather dramatic events and could it be kept within a calm temperament.

Brian Lehrer: Since you brought up that example, South Africa and Apartheid, I'll play a clip of some remarks that Elizabeth delivered on her 21st birthday, I believe this was, that would put it what? In the late 1940s.

Anne McElvoy: [unintelligible 00:07:52] it must have been just about the early-- well, she's already queen, it's the early '50s.

Brian Lehrer: Cape Town, South Africa way back then.

Anne McElvoy: Way back then.

Queen Elizabeth II: [unintelligible 00:08:05] it is none of my father's subjects, from the oldest to the youngest, whom I do not wish to greet. I am thinking especially today of all the young men and women who were born about the same time as myself, and have grown up like me, in terrible, inglorious years of the Second World War. Will you, the youth of the British family of nations, let me speak on my birthday as your representative?

Now that we are coming to manhood and womanhood, it is surely a great joy to us all to think that we shall be able to take some of the burdens off the shoulders of our elders, who have fought and worked and suffered to protect our childhood. We must not be daunted by the anxieties and hardships that the world has left behind for every nation of our Commonwealth.

Brian Lehrer: Just after World War II, at least just a few years after World War II, and for whatever dignity that clip represented, she certainly didn't say, "We're going to take the burden of Apartheid off the backs of this country."

Anne McElvoy: No, I don't think she would remotely think that was her role. In fact, not a lot of people thought that in [unintelligible 00:09:24] just before she came to the throne in about 1947. That's thinking backwards, isn't it? It took a very long time for the anti-Apartheid movement to rightly gather pace. I think certainly by the 1980s, she was worried that Margaret Thatcher wasn't supportive enough to economic sanctions.

Certainly she would have simply thought and you can hear it there, she thinks that this transition from colonial power to the Commonwealth is what she's there to oversee and of course, those who are critics of the Commonwealth say, well, this arose from the colonies. You could also see that it arose from a reasonably peaceful decolonization and that there was an extent to which countries were often very reluctant to give up empire, Britain was reluctant to give up the empire, but it did so and I think she was very much part of the thinking after the Second World War, guided by both governments of left and right, that this wasn't something that you could hang on to.

She was still, when she came to the throne, being described as in charge of an empire, but quite quickly, that changed.

Brian Lehrer: We have callers on our board, born literally all over the world. Let's hear from some of them. Peter in Manhattan, originally from Australia. Peter, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Peter: Hello, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Hi, Peter.

Peter: Hi. I was in Australia in 1999, we had a referendum on the monarchy, which ultimately failed in the sense that Australia didn't become a Republican, it chose to stay a constitutional monarchy. It was a very interesting time because there was a strong Republican movement at the time. If it had been framed differently, Australia may well have become a Republican country.

Brian Lehrer: Peter, thank you very much. Alison, originally from Jamaica, you're on WNYC. Hi, Allison.

Allison: Hi, Brian, thanks for taking my call. I wanted to say that I have no love for the institution of the monarchy. It has done great damage to the Caribbean, to the West Indies as a whole. The monarchy has not given any reparation for the damages for slavery and the legacy that's still lingering in Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean right now. I would say, despite the fact that they have all these artifacts from the rest of the world that they haven't returned, it's not good in the 21st century, it wasn't good when it started it.

[inaudible 00:12:09] that her passing could signal the end of an era for countries like Jamaica, the rest of the Caribbean, so that they can shake off that shackle of enslavement and mental slavery that still exists from being a colony, from being colonized by Britain, from having our people sold, from the colorism that exists today, from this elitism. I hope that they could take her off and take now the king off as the head state [unintelligible 00:12:47] the queen again, it is an [unintelligible 00:12:51] I believe.

Brian Lehrer: Alison, thank you very much for your call. Are you surprised to hear those calls, and we have people who-- we have limited time, so we're not going to go through the whole board, but people expressing similar sentiments, who originally come from Guyana, who originally come from Barbados. Are you surprised to hear these?

Anne McElvoy: No, I'm not. I know that there's a division of opinion on that. I think just two things. One is, if you have a colonial legacy, you've got it whether or not you've got a monarchy or not. Germany has a colonial legacy, doesn't have a monarchy. Spain does have a monarchy and has a huge colonial legacy. I'm not sure

that having a monarchy now, or handing over [unintelligible 00:13:36] the Queen to Prince Charles as in any way determined how you deal with that. I think what we are seeing in Prince William in the Caribbean tour, it was a very difficult tour for William and Kate.

I think within the limitations of their role, they did try to begin to understand, and they engaged exactly with that sense of strong opinion. I think they were also there to warn. It's one thing to say, "We've got this terrible legacy of slavery, and the monarchy who's sitting behind that--" that's undisputable. That is true. If you have had a system that's been there for over 1000 years, you will have that, but you do have to be careful. What happens if Caribbean State Society say they don't want to be in the Commonwealth anymore, they don't want any sense of that legacy? Well, the power all ready to move in there is China and that isn't much of a democratic picnic right now.

I'm a little concerned that these things get muddled up together, but I perfectly understand, and also to the Australian gentleman's call, that not everyone is going to be a supporter of the monarchy. Frankly, I think for Australia to hold referendums as and when it wishes, is absolutely fine. I think that also the royal families come around [unintelligible 00:14:48] nobody's going to keep anybody who doesn't want to stay within that grouping against their will.

Brian Lehrer: Christopher in Manhattan, originally from Britain. Christopher, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Christopher: Hello, Brian. Thank you very much. I had the great good fortune to meet the Queen in 1994. My father received an invitation for himself and immediate family to attend a reception at St. James's Palace for members of the pilgrim society, which is an Anglo-American organization whose purpose is to promote relations between the countries. It was a great honor.

I was a cabinet maker from Westchester and I, of course, flew over to England to join my parents for this event and found myself, amazingly, in this first group of people in the throne room of St. James's Palace, in the company of, I think it was the Governor of the Bank of England and the Governor of the Bank of Scotland, and me, cabinet maker from Westchester. The door opened, the Queen came in with Prince Philip, and somebody in our group was actually one of the organizers. He introduced her to one person, and then to another, and she would smile and she would nod, and I was in just amazement that this figure that I've seen on every banknote and stamp and picture for all my life, was there standing in front of me.

Then finally introduced her to my parents, and she nodded and smiled. Then to end, their son Christopher who just flew in from New York. She is a great person at picking bits of information and using them. It was the first bit of information she received. I was the first person she spoke to, she took two steps forward and said, "Oh, you're from New York." I was so stunned. I did not expect to be spoken to, and somehow in what was all five seconds, seemed like an eternity, managed to say, "Yes, Your Majesty." Keep in mind, this is a pilgrim society event. She said, "Well then, you are a true pilgrim."

If I had trouble getting any other words out, imagine that moment for me. I said, "I try to be ma'am, but I'm actually here by virtue of my father's membership in pilgrims." She then turned to them, quick word with my parents, and then she moved on. When she smiled, or when she engaged, it lit up the room and the whole vicinity. It was a wattage that I think nearby Battersea Power Station probably dimmed and flickered in that moment. It was profound and one of the greatest moments.

Brian Lehrer: Christopher, I got to go for time purposes, but there couldn't have been a better tribute to the queen from one of her fans than you just gave her. Thank you very, very much for that. All of this means that King Charles has a lot to live up to, and maybe not from as universally, what's the word, pre-beloved a place as when Queen Elizabeth took the throne.

Anne McElvoy: Well, I think that's definitely true. I've encountered Prince Charles over the years for various charities. He's a very different character to his mother. You're right, and of course, even the death of Diana, his late wife, is in the background. There's much greater acceptance of the years of his wife, Camilla Parker Bowles, who's become a rather popular figure in her own right, but that took time because it was a huge breach in the royal family and in national life.

Also, Prince Charles, he's a more accident-prone character than the Queen ever was, partly because he has strong views and often doesn't hold back as much as the Queen would do on what someone might politely call his hobby horses, but also because his latest appearances in the media have been some questions about funding that he's taken for charities, which don't always look altogether prudent or wise.

I think some of those are historical legacy problems, but I think he's someone who's waited so long for this role, but yet he had to fill out his life in the meantime from a position of immense privilege, and to an extent, entitlement without having the duties that the Queen had. He's very dutiful about the things that he believes in. I think he's going to have a different tone and we will hear it this evening in London in St. Paul's Cathedral, the first of the big memorials when he will speak as long live the king.

We saw the pictures of him walking into Buckingham Palace. My son actually jogged down. You do think, "What is it that make a 22-year-old get out of bed and go anywhere [unintelligible 00:19:57] without any prompting from his elderly mother?" He just said, "Yes, I'm going to go and see a new king come in. I think I'm going to do that." He said there was very much-- he said people were shouting out reaching towards Charles saying long live the king, but we loved your mom. I think it will take a long time between this period. Yes, certainly not in any [unintelligible 00:20:21] glowing monarchist in every sense. He's going to have it a lot tougher, but them's the rules here.

Brian Lehrer: Them's the rules. We have one minute left, and I want to ask you a media question. So many Americans are used to seeing the royal family depicted as a soap opera with photos in the tabloids and shows like The Crown depicting all sorts of family drama. To your knowledge, did Queen Elizabeth have an opinion on how she was portrayed by the media in Hollywood or did she just ignore it?

Anne McElvoy: Oh, no, I think she was very well aware of it and had made quite sly comments to friends of friends who I've known who spent time with her. I don't think she watched the entirety of The Crown. I know, for instance, just through an acquaintance, she was very amused that Helena Bonham Carter was cast as Princess Margaret, her rather [unintelligible 00:21:11] sister. Yes, she was very much aware of it. She was not at all decoupled from what was going on in national life. She spoke frequently with her grandchildren about what was on the telly.

Brian Lehrer: Anne McElvoy, executive editor at The Economist, such a busy day for you over there. Thank you so much for carving out some time for us. We really, really appreciate it.

Anne McElvoy: Great pleasure. Thank you very much, Brian.

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