Politicians pay tributes to HRH Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Prime Minister Boris Johnson made this statement in the House of Commons yesterday

Mr Speaker, I beg to move:

That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty expressing the deepest sympathies of this House on the death of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the heartfelt thanks of this House and this nation for his unfailing dedication to this Country and the Commonwealth, exemplified in his distinguished service in the Royal Navy in the Second World War; his commitment to young people in setting up The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, a scheme which has touched the lives of millions across the globe; his early, passionate commitment to the environment; and his unstinting support to Your Majesty throughout his life.

Mr Speaker, it is fitting that on Saturday His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh will be conveyed to his final resting place in a Land Rover, which Prince Philip had designed himself, with a long wheel base and a capacious rear cabin, because that vehicle’s unique and idiosyncratic silhouette reminds the world that he was above all a practical man, who could take something very traditional – whether a machine or indeed a great national institution – and find a way by his own ingenuity to improve it, to adapt it for the 20th or the 21st century.

That gift for innovation was apparent from his earliest career in the Navy. When he served in the second world war, he was mentioned in despatches for his “alertness and appreciation of the situation” during the Battle of Cape Matapan, and he played a crucial role in helping to sink two enemy cruisers. But it was later, during the invasion of Sicily, that he was especially remembered by his crewmates for what he did to save their own ship.

In a moment of high danger, at night, when HMS Wallace was vulnerable to being blown up by enemy planes, he improvised a floating decoy – complete with fires to make it look like a stricken British vessel – so that the Wallace was able to slip away, and the enemy took out the decoy.

He was there at Tokyo Bay in 1945, barely 200 yards away from the Japanese surrender on the deck of USS Missouri; but he wasn’t content just to watch history through his binoculars. It seems that he used the lull to get on with repainting the hull of HMS Whelp; and throughout his life – a life that was by necessity wrapped from such a young age in symbol and ceremony – one can see that same instinct, to look for what was most useful, and most practical, and for what would take things forward.

He was one of the first people in this country to use a mobile phone. In the 1970s, he was driving an electric taxi on the streets of London – the fore-runner of the modern low-carbon fleet, and, again, a vehicle of his own specifications. He wasn’t content just to be a carriage driver. He played a large part in pioneering and codifying the sport of competitive carriage driving.

And if it is true that carriage-driving is not a mass-participation sport – not yet – he had other novel ideas that touched the lives of millions, developed their character and confidence, their teamwork and self-reliance. It was amazing and instructive, to listen on Friday to the Cabinet’s tributes to the Duke, and to hear how many were proud to say that they, or their children, had benefited from taking part in his Duke of Edinburgh Award schemes.

I will leave it to the House to speculate as to who claimed to have got a gold award, and who got a bronze. But I believe those ministers spoke for millions of people – across this country and around the world – who felt that the Duke had in some way touched their lives, people whose work he supported in the course of an astonishing 22,219 public engagements, people he encouraged, and, yes, he amused.

It is true that he occasionally drove a coach and horses through the finer points of diplomatic protocol, and he coined a new word – dontopedalogy – for the experience of putting your foot in your mouth.

And it is also true that among his more parliamentary expressions he commented adversely on the French concept of breakfast, and told a British student in Papua New Guinea that he was lucky not to be eaten, and that the people of the Cayman Islands were descended from pirates, and that he would like to go to Russia except that, as he put it, “the bastards murdered half my family”.

But the world did not hold it against him, Mr Speaker. On the contrary, they overwhelmingly understood that he was trying to break the ice, to get things moving, to get people laughing and forget their nerves; and to this day there is a community in the Pacific islands that venerates Prince Philip as a god, or volcano spirit – a conviction that was actually strengthened when a group came to London to have tea with him in person.

When he spoke so feelingly about the problems of overpopulation, and humanity’s relentless incursion on the natural world, and the consequent destruction of habitat and species, he contrived to be at once politically incorrect and also ahead of his time.

In a quite unparalleled career of advice and encouragement and support, he provided one particular service that I believe the House will know in our hearts was the very greatest of all. In the constant love he gave to Her Majesty the Queen – as her liege man of life and limb, in the words he spoke at the Coronation – he sustained her throughout this extraordinary second Elizabethan age, now the longest reign of any monarch in our history.

It was typical of him that in wooing Her Majesty – famously not short of a jewel or two – he offered jewellery of his own design. He dispensed with the footmen in powdered wigs. He introduced television cameras, and at family picnics in Balmoral he would barbecue the sausages on a large metal contraption that all Prime Ministers must have goggled at for decades, complete with rotisserie and compartments for the sauces, that was – once again, Mr Speaker – a product of his own invention and creation.

Indeed as an advocate of skills and craft and science and technology this country has had no royal champion to match him since Prince Albert, and I know that in due course the House and the country will want to consider a suitable memorial to Prince Philip.

It is with that same spirit of innovation that as co-gerent of the Royal Family, he shaped and protected the monarchy, through all the vicissitudes of the last seven decades, and helped to modernise and continually to adapt an institution that is above politics, that incarnates our history, and that is indisputably vital to the balance and happiness of our national life.

By his unstinting service to The Queen, the Commonwealth, the armed forces, the environment, to millions of people young and not so young around the world, and to countless other causes, he gave us and he gives us all a model of selflessness, and of putting others before ourselves.

And though I expect Mr Speaker, he might be embarrassed or even exasperated to receive these tributes, he made this country a better place, and for that he will be remembered with gratitude and with fondness for generations to come.

AND AT HOLYROOD:

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon moved the following motion at The Scottish Parliament yesterday:

Motion of Condolence following the death of His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: First Minister’s statement – 12 April, 2021

Presiding Officer,

The tributes paid to the Duke of Edinburgh over these last three days show the affection in which he was held – here in Scotland, across the United Kingdom, and indeed around the world.

On behalf of the people of Scotland, I express my deepest sympathy to Her Majesty the Queen – who is grieving the loss of her ‘strength and stay’, her husband of almost 74 years – and also to the Duke’s children, and to the wider Royal Family.

Of course, before he became the public figure so familiar to all of us today, the Duke of Edinburgh had already led a life of distinction.

Like so many of his generation, he endured difficulties and faced dangers that generations since can barely comprehend.

As a naval officer in World War Two, he was mentioned in dispatches for his part in the Battle of Matapan.

In 1943, his courage and quick-thinking helped save HMS Wallace from attack in the Mediterranean.

And during a two year spell at Rosyth, he was responsible for escorting merchant vessels on a route known as “E-boat alley”, because of the frequency of the attacks from German vessels.

For these contributions alone, he – like all of our veterans – is owed a significant debt of gratitude.

The Second World War was, however, just the beginning of the Duke of Edinburgh’s life of public service.

From 1947, he was the Queen’s constant companion.

And from 1952, he was her consort.

As has been much noted in recent days, he became the longest serving consort in British history.

That role, in a constitutional monarchy, cannot be an easy one – particularly, perhaps, for someone who is spirited and energetic by temperament.

And of course, he faced the additional challenge of being the husband of a powerful woman – at a time when that was even more of an exception than it is today.

That reversal of the more traditional dynamic was highly unusual in the 1940s, 50s and 60s – and even now, isn’t as common as it might be.

Yet the Duke of Edinburgh was devoted to supporting the Queen. They were a true partnership.

Indeed, like First Ministers before me, I got to witness the strength of that partnership at close quarters during annual stays at Balmoral.

I always enjoyed my conversations with the Duke of Edinburgh on these visits – indeed on all of the occasions that I met him – and I was struck by how different he was in private to the way he was sometimes characterised in public. 

He was a thoughtful man, deeply interesting and fiercely intelligent. He was also a serious bookworm, which I am too, so talking about the books we were reading was often, for me, a real highlight of our conversations.

Prince Philip was without doubt a devoted consort to the Queen – but of course he also carved out a distinctive individual role. 

He took a particular interest in industry and science, and he was far-sighted in his early support for conservation. Indeed, as far back as 1969, in a speech here in Edinburgh, he warned of the risks of “virtually indestructible plastics”.

And of course, in 1956 he founded The Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme, which now every year provides opportunity, hope and inspiration to more than 1 million young people in more than 100 different countries across the world.

In addition, the Duke of Edinburgh was patron of more than 800 charities. At the time of his retirement from Royal duties, he had completed well over 20,000 engagements.

Many of these engagements were of course here in Scotland – a country that he loved from a very early age.

He was educated in Moray, taught to sail by a Scottish trawler skipper, and as has been mentioned already, was based at Rosyth for two years during the war.

When the Duke received the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh in 1949, he spoke then of the “numberless benefits” that Scotland had given him.

Some of his very first duties with the Royal Household were undertaken here in Scotland.

In July 1947 – just a week after the announcement of his engagement to the then Princess Elizabeth – the couple travelled here to Edinburgh.

And in the years since, the Duke has been present at many of the key moments of our modern history – including, of course, the official openings of our Scottish Parliament.

He has served many Scottish charities and organisations – indeed, he was Chancellor of the University of Edinburgh for more than 50 years.

Throughout all of that time, the public has held him in great affection.

On that first Royal Visit to Edinburgh in 1947, people gathered just across the street, in the forecourt of Holyrood Palace, and celebrated the Royal engagement with country dancing.

More than 70 years later – shortly after he had announced his retirement from public life –  I witnessed the warmth of the reception he received as he accompanied the Queen to the opening of the Queensferry Crossing.

This is an event I had known he was determined to attend – he was fascinated and deeply impressed by the feats of engineering that each of the three Forth Bridges represent.

Presiding Officer,

One of the Duke of Edinburgh’s early engagements in Scotland, shortly after the Queen’s Coronation, was to plant a cherry tree in the grounds of Canongate Kirk, just across the road from here.

It stands directly opposite the tree planted by the Queen a year previously.

These trees are just about to bloom, as I am sure they will do each spring for decades to come.

I am equally sure that – not just in the weeks ahead – but many years from now, people will think fondly of the Duke of Edinburgh as they pass Canongate Kirk and look across to Holyrood Palace.

It is right that our Parliament pays tribute to him today.

In doing so, we mourn his passing and we extend our deepest sympathy to Her Majesty The Queen and her family.

We reflect on his distinguished wartime record; his love and support for the Queen; and his decades of public service to Scotland, the United Kingdom, and the Commonwealth.

Above all, Presiding Officer, we celebrate – and we honour – an extraordinary life. I move the motion in my name.