The Queen touched people’s lives, in ways sometimes simple and sometimes profound [Joel Rouse/Ministry Of Defence Wikimedia/Creative Commons Detail 2015]

• CAMDEN Liberal Democrats would like to express our deepest condolences on the death of Her Majesty the Queen and join people from across Camden in mourning this great loss.

We have all heard stories over the last few days of how the Queen touched people’s lives, in ways sometimes simple and sometimes profound.

These stories combine to help remind us of the Queen that was, the service she gave and the rock in our national psyche that has been torn from us.

Whether or not we had the privilege of meeting her, or whether we can point to some direct impact she had on our lives, she was the foundation on which the edifice that is our nation has rested for decades.

She was for many people the tie that bound us together, across generations, faiths and cultures. She will be sorely missed and a lot of us will be pinching ourselves for some time to come, to realise that “yes, she has gone”.

Queen Elizabeth also provided us as a nation with a mystic chord of memory to our past, the highs and the lows, the good and bad.

An aspect of this that stands out is that her death is symbolic of the passing of that final generation that lived through the terror of the Second World War and the efforts to build a better world in its aftermath. With her loss that time feels more distant, less real.

As a nation we should be mindful of this, lest we take those events for granted. We have lost a monarch who provided great comfort to this realm.

She gave us duty with compassion, gravity with warmth, wisdom with humour for many years. Perhaps together we can take inspiration from this as we face up to the many serious problems before us.

King Charles III won’t be able to match Queen Elizabeth for length of service, and will no doubt bring his own character to the role. We wish him well and hope he can make up for what we have lost.

CLLR TOM SIMON
Camden Liberal Democrats
Leader of the Opposition