Garden Party at Buckingham Palace

HM The Queen and other members of the Royal family hosted the first Garden Party 0f 2016. Earlier in the day, the Queen hosted a reception for representatives from Parliament on the occasion of her 90th birthday. It was a day marked by unguarded comments caught on camera. First PM David Cameron, then the Queen were heard making controversial remarks about other countries.

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In the morning, The Queen hosted a reception for delegations from both the House of Commons and House of Lords – which included every parliamentary party leader – to personally offer their congratulations on her 90th birthday.

At the reception, which was held in the White Drawing Room of Buckingham Palace, PM David Cameron paid tribute to the Queen, who he called ‘simply remarkable’.  He said:  “We have got a lot of look forward to – the extraordinary June celebrations, Trooping the Colour, the picnic on The Mall. I think there will be a wonderful and unifying feeling across the country. There will be a great outpouring of respect and joy for the immense achievement of 90 years and all she has done. For so many of us she is the only monarch we have ever known and will ever know, so that does make it very special.” However, later to the Queen, he said summit in London tomorrow would see ‘the leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain’. Singling out Nigeria and Afghanistan as ‘possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world’.

 

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In the afternoon, the Queen and members of the Royal Family hosted a garden party in the lawns of Buckingham Palace. It is the first Garden Party attended by the Queen this year. She hosts on average four Garden Parties a year; three at Buckingham Palace, and one at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh. The Queen hosts over 30,000 guests at Garden Parties each year.

The Queen told Canadian guests she sympathised with those forced to flee from wildfires, that have ravaged much of Alberta, Canada, as well as making a controversial comment about last year’s Chinese State Visit to the UK to Police Commander Lucy D’Orsi, who ran security for the trip. She told the Queen, that the Chinese officials were very “undiplomatic.” She said “I think at the point that they walked out of Lancaster House and told me that the trip was off, that I felt err…” The conversation was captured by a Royal reporter on video. The Queen’s reaction to Commander D’Orsi’s story was: “They were very rude.”

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Members of the Royal family also attended the Garden party, to support the Queen. Present were: The Duke of Edinburgh, her son The Duke of York, her daughter-in-law The Countess of Wessex,  with her cousins The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, and Princess Alexandra of Kent.

 

 

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The Queen wore a floral dress with a pink coat and hat. She also wore her Three Strand Pearl Necklace and the Flame Lily Brooch, a 21st birthday gift from South Africa.

 

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