Theresa May pays tribute to Queen with anecdote about eating cheese

MPs laugh as former prime minister describes antics at picnic

Theresa May has paid tribute to the Queen with an anecdote about how she once dropped some cheese in the Monarch's presence.

The former prime minister recounted how she attended a picnic with the late head of state in the sprawling grounds of her Scottish residence Balmoral.

“I remember one picnic at Balmoral, which was taking place in one of the bothies on the estate,” she told MPs in the Commons. “The hampers came from the castle, and we all mucked in to put the food and drink out on the table.

”I picked up some cheese, put it on a plate and was transferring it to the table. The cheese fell on the floor. I had a split-second decision to make.”

Pausing as other MPs in the chamber burst into laughter, the ex-PM added: “I picked up the cheese, put it on the plate and put it on the table. I turned round to see that my every move had been watched very carefully by Her Majesty the Queen.

“I looked at her. She looked at me and she just smiled. And the cheese remained on the table.”

In a glowing tribute Ms May said the Queen was “quite simply the most remarkable person I have ever met”.

”Across the nations of the world, for so many people, meeting Queen Elizabeth simply made their day and for many will be the memory of their life,” she said.

“Of course, for those of us who had the honour to serve as one of her prime ministers, those meetings were more frequent with the weekly audiences.

”These were not meetings with a high and mighty monarch, but a conversation with a woman of experience and knowledge and immense wisdom. They were also the one meeting I went to, which I knew it would not be briefed out to the media.”

MPs paid tribute to the late Monarch in the Commons on Friday, with dedications expected to go on well into the evening, before resuming in a rare Saturday sitting.

Former Tory MP Boris Johnson revealed that he had been “moved to tears” during a special interview about the Queen after the BBC film crew requested that he talk about her in the past tense.

“I’m afraid I simply choked up and I couldn’t go on. I’m really not easily moved to tears, but I was so overcome with sadness, that I had to ask them to go away,” Mr Johnson said.

Liz Truss said the Queen was “one of the greatest leaders the world has even known” and hailed her as “a champion of freedom and democracy around the world”.

Praising her “sheer humanity”, the new prime minister said: “She re-invented the monarchy for the modern age. She was a champion of freedom and democracy around the world. She was willing to have fun – whether on a mission with 007 or having tea with Paddington Bear.”

Referring to a new “Carolean age” as she closed her speech, Ms Truss said Charles “has already made a profound contribution through his work on conservation, education, and his tireless diplomacy – we owe him our loyalty and devotion”.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer paid tribute to Elizabeth II as “this great country’s greatest monarch” who had unified the nation in times of turbulence. “The loss of our Queen robs this country of its stillest point, its greatest comfort, at precisely the time we need those things most.”

It was now time to take forward the Queen’s legacy, he said, “to show the same love of country, the love of one another, as she did. To show empathy and compassion, as she did, and to get Britain through this dark night and bring it into the dawn, as she did.”