Queen Is Poorly Educated And Philistine

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In a week in which Queen Elizabeth II became Britain's oldest monarch, the country's most high-profile historian David Starkey has accused the head of the state of philistinism and being uninterested in her predecessors, largely due to being poorly educated.

The Guardian quoted him as saying, "I think she's got elements a bit like Goebbels in her attitude to culture. You remember: Every time I hear the word culture I reach for my revolver." Citing an incident when he was showing the Queen round an exhibition he had curated about Elizabeth I in 2003, Starkey found her more preoccupied with the late arrival of her drink than the works on display. Her only comment on the exhibition was that one of the objects was hers.

This, said Starkey, reminded him of "a housewife" who'd been left some wonderful possessions.

He said, "She'd looked after them, she'd put in place much better arrangements for their care, but again - I suppose it's this absence of any kind of, to be blunt, serious education." Comparing her with Queen Elizabeth I, he said, "She was 20 times as well educated. And had either five or six languages." He was also struck that the Queen does not seem to have any interest in those who preceded her grandfather, George V.

"It's quite fascinating, because her frames of reference to the monarchy, despite this 1,500-year history, are entirely her father and grandfather," he quipped.