Emergency meeting called at Buckingham Palace

[Blue3]

Buckingham Palace has since clarified that both the Queen and her husband are in good health.

But what else could this be about? Possible abdication?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/queens-most-senior-aides-call-10351987

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[Lachi]

ITN has said it is about Prince phillip, but he has NOT died.

[Lachi]

BREAKING: Prince Phillip will be permanently stepping down from all royal duites.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Prince Phillip's royal duties died. See, they almost got it right.

Did he make any major gaffes lately?

[Illiniwek]

So basically he just doesn't have to go out and cut ribbons anymore? Good for him! I would imagine doing that for 70 years must get tiresome.

[KingSweden]

I just started watching The Crown, Philip is a fascinating man

[Barnes]

I was happy it was nothing serious, of course. It was rather amusing to watch the internet press try to familiarize itself with royal announcement theatrics!

[IceAgeComing]

Its all a bit silly really, they basically have two plans for the Queen: one if she goes peacefully after an illness and another if, god forbid, something more like Diana happened where it is news as soon as it happens and they can't really embargo anything.  There's a really interesting Guardian article I read a while back which basically goes into detail about how the broadcasters have planned for it: to the point where they actually rehearse bits of the broadcast (which almost went dodgy after a BBC journalist got confused and tweeted about the Queen being very ill when she really wasn't).  The best bit of the whole rather grim business is that if she died on Christmas Day (or probably really late Christmas Eve, thinking about it); the plan seems to be to embargo the news until Boxing Day just to not dampen that day for people.  I means news would leak out now; but the thought is there I suppose...

There's also an interesting article I read somewhere from someone who was a radio DJ on the overnight show when the whole thing with Diana was going on basically about how the entire station was totally unprepared - the protocol said that they were to carry on as normal until they were told through the system that they have set up for an announcement of that nature (there is seriously an entire system for all of the radio stations to let them know that a major royal has died - they've only ever actually used it for Diana: it didn't really work when the Queen Mother died since the person in charge of pressing the two buttons that needed to be pushed to set the whole thing off only pressed one: so some stations went into the news without knowing and then had to very quickly check upcoming songs to make sure that they were... appropriate) then play 'appropriate music' (read very sad, bad ballads or classical music) until the news, then play the national anthem, and then play the tape that they had set aside just in case something like that happened.  However, when they got the stuff out they found out that the National Anthem was on an ancient tape format that they had stopped using ten years earlier and the reel to reel tape (in 1997!) that they were supposed to use was full of incredibly old jingles, for some reason.  It actually led to everyone having a rethink since most stations went off script because they weren't prepared, or didn't know the procedure because they'd never had to do it before - everything being computerised helps since it means that they would just need to change playlists; but you can guarantee that any mistake and you'd have the Daily Mail writing articles for the next century about "THE BBC DON'T RESPECT THE MONARCHY!!!".

I don't know if this interests anyone; I don't know why I know all of this...

[DavidB.]

^ It does actually interest me, but it's almost unreadable to me. This is one sentence:

"There's also an interesting article I read somewhere from someone who was a radio DJ on the overnight show when the whole thing with Diana was going on basically about how the entire station was totally unprepared - the protocol said that they were to carry on as normal until they were told through the system that they have set up for an announcement of that nature (there is seriously an entire system for all of the radio stations to let them know that a major royal has died - they've only ever actually used it for Diana: it didn't really work when the Queen Mother died since the person in charge of pressing the two buttons that needed to be pushed to set the whole thing off only pressed one: so some stations went into the news without knowing and then had to very quickly check upcoming songs to make sure that they were... appropriate) then play 'appropriate music' (read very sad, bad ballads or classical music) until the news, then play the national anthem, and then play the tape that they had set aside just in case something like that happened."

[SoLongAtlas]

The plan you are discussing is actually called Operation London Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_London_Bridge All royals have an op named after a bridge for UK post-death continuance of govt.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

The plan you are discussing is actually called Operation London Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_London_Bridge All royals have an op named after a bridge for UK post-death continuance of govt.

So the code is "London Bridge is down"? How about if you sing "London Bridge is falling down"?

[Antonio the Sixth]

I just started watching The Crown, Philip is a fascinating man

If by "fascinating" you mean a self-absorbed douchebag, sure.

Anyway, gotta love those monarchies. Only there could a completely useless person stepping down from utterly symbolic duties warrant an EMERGENCY MEETING and be the subject of prime news coverage all the while the country is experiencing the greatest political turmoil it has seen in decades.

[Citizen (The) Doctor]

I just started watching The Crown, Philip is a fascinating man

If by "fascinating" you mean a self-absorbed douchebag, sure.

I wonder how true it is that he's the only royal at the time to recognize that the empire was dead and needed to die.

[Santander]

Anyway, gotta love those monarchies. Only there could a completely useless person stepping down from utterly symbolic duties warrant an EMERGENCY MEETING and be the subject of prime news coverage all the while the country is experiencing the greatest political turmoil it has seen in decades.

I don't recall this being your position when Tom Perez defeated Keith Ellison to win an essentially symbolic position. And how about Perez giving Ellison an even more symbolic, entirely made-up position after he won?

Even symbolic duties matter.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Anyway, gotta love those monarchies. Only there could a completely useless person stepping down from utterly symbolic duties warrant an EMERGENCY MEETING and be the subject of prime news coverage all the while the country is experiencing the greatest political turmoil it has seen in decades.

I don't recall this being your position when Tom Perez defeated Keith Ellison to win an essentially symbolic position. And how about Perez giving Ellison an even more symbolic, entirely made-up position after he won?

Even symbolic duties matter.

I don't remember calling for an EMERGENCY MEETING when that happened.

Anyway, of course I would care more about partisan symbols than I do the symbols of the evil and rotten institution of monarchy.

[Kingpoleon]

Monarchies>political parties

[Antonio the Sixth]

Monarchies>political parties

That's a very un-American thing to say.

[Tintrlvr]

Anyway, gotta love those monarchies. Only there could a completely useless person stepping down from utterly symbolic duties warrant an EMERGENCY MEETING and be the subject of prime news coverage all the while the country is experiencing the greatest political turmoil it has seen in decades.

I don't recall this being your position when Tom Perez defeated Keith Ellison to win an essentially symbolic position. And how about Perez giving Ellison an even more symbolic, entirely made-up position after he won?

Even symbolic duties matter.

I don't remember calling for an EMERGENCY MEETING when that happened.

Anyway, of course I would care more about partisan symbols than I do the symbols of the evil and rotten institution of monarchy.

I don't have the impression that the palace viewed this as an emergency meeting, or even a particularly newsworthy meeting. That was the gloss given to it by the press.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Anyway, gotta love those monarchies. Only there could a completely useless person stepping down from utterly symbolic duties warrant an EMERGENCY MEETING and be the subject of prime news coverage all the while the country is experiencing the greatest political turmoil it has seen in decades.

I don't recall this being your position when Tom Perez defeated Keith Ellison to win an essentially symbolic position. And how about Perez giving Ellison an even more symbolic, entirely made-up position after he won?

Even symbolic duties matter.

I don't remember calling for an EMERGENCY MEETING when that happened.

Anyway, of course I would care more about partisan symbols than I do the symbols of the evil and rotten institution of monarchy.

I don't have the impression that the palace viewed this as an emergency meeting, or even a particularly newsworthy meeting. That was the gloss given to it by the press.

That makes it even worse, honestly.

[Kingpoleon]

Monarchies>political parties

That's a very un-American thing to say.

I didn't know you were an advocate of American exceptionalism, one who denies the evils of political parties.