BRITAIN: The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, led Parliament in paying tribute to the Queen Mother yesterday as plans were revealed for her grandsons to mount a vigil beside her coffin, reports Rachel Donnelly from London.
In a recalled House of Commons, Mr Blair, sombre and eloquent as he spoke of the Queen Mother's place in British history and the special affection in which she was held by the British people, said her life was characterised by a "selfless" devotion to duty. There was "nothing false or complicated" about the public response to her death, he said: "It is the simplest of equations; she loved her country and in turn her country loved her."
Most MPs were dressed in dark suits and, after the Commons observed one minute's silence, Mr Blair recalled the Queen Mother's role during the second World War, saying she was respected and loved by people from all classes and backgrounds. "The war was to prove that fate had chosen well for Britain," he said.
In his tribute, the Conservative leader, Mr Iain Duncan Smith, said the Queen Mother embodied "character and inner strength" and Britain was proud to have shared in the life of a "deeply loved and remarkable lady She was, frankly, the best of us."
After he described the Queen Mother's affection for Scotland, where she was born in 1900, the Liberal Democrat leader, Mr Charles Kennedy, said she represented "the key bond between the monarchy and the people of our country".
The Queen Mother had conducted herself with "extraordinary grace" without losing any sense of her majesty and position, the Northern Ireland First Minister and Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, told MPs.
The Democratic Unionist Party leader, Dr Ian Paisley, joined the tributes, saying: "I salute the memory of a job well done, a race that was well run and a battle that was well won."
The Leader of the House of Lords, Lord Williams of Mostyn, led peers in honouring the Queen Mother, saying she was a woman of "smiles and delight, happiness and mischief". MSPs in the Scottish Parliament remembered the Queen Mother as "a great daughter of Scotland." After paying his respects at his grandmother's coffin inside St James's Palace, the Duke of York, disclosed plans for her four grandsons to mount a vigil beside her coffin as it lies in state in Westminster Hall next week.
The vigil by Prince Charles, Prince Andrew, Prince Edward and Viscount Linley, Princess Margaret's son, which will take place on the eve of the Queen Mother's funeral, will echo the lying in state of King George V in 1936.