Queen Elizabeth II with Prime Minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street last year.

 

AFP/London

Queen Elizabeth II is to attend a British Cabinet meeting today, Downing Street announced, the first such visit in more than a century.

Historically, monarchs used to chair Cabinet meetings but the last one to exercise their right to attend was queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth’s great-great grandmother, who died in 1901.

The 86-year-old sovereign is going to the prime minister’s Downing Street residence to receive a diamond jubilee gift from the Cabinet, marking her 60 years on the throne, and will also sit in on their meeting as an observer.

Cabinet meetings usually last around an hour and a half, and the queen will attend for at least 30 minutes, Buckingham Palace said.

Queen Elizabeth was to sit at the middle of the table, with Prime Minister David Cameron to her right and Foreign Secretary William Hague to her left.

The prime minister always sits at the middle of the Cabinet table, with his back to the fireplace. His leather-bound wooden chair is the only one with arms.

The green, boat-shaped table was introduced by Harold Macmillan, who served as prime minister from 1957 to 1963, to allow him to see all his ministers.

“The Queen will visit Downing Street tomorrow. She will be presented with a gift to mark her Diamond Jubilee and attend Cabinet as an observer,” the prime minister’s office said in a tweet.

Queen Elizabeth has been to Downing Street on numerous occasions during her reign, most recently in July for a diamond jubilee lunch hosted by Cameron and attended by former prime ministers Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and John Major.

She has had 12 British premiers, the first being Winston Churchill, during her 60-year reign.

However, she has never attended a Cabinet meeting, where secretaries of state discuss the big issues of the day.

“The monarch used to chair Cabinet, historically. They no longer do but there is no constitutional bar to attending Cabinet, although that right has not been exercised recently,” a Buckingham Palace spokesman said.

Though Queen Elizabeth is Britain’s head of state, her role in exercising power is largely formal and the monarchy has to remain strictly neutral in political affairs.

She gives a weekly audience to the prime minister at which she has a right and a duty to express her views on government matters. No-one else is present, no notes are taken and the content is never discussed.

Today, Queen Elizabeth is also to visit the Foreign Office, which is on the other side of Downing Street.