Good morning from Parliament Square, where thousands of people have already gathered for Britain’s first state funeral since the death of Winston Churchill. It’s a little chilly, but the skies are clear, and the crowd is in good spirits which occasionally dissolve into quiet displays of mourning – for the Queen, for an era, for the inescapable passage of time. “What does she mean to me?” says Sophie Carruthers, who got in by train from Leeds last night and hasn’t been to bed. “What a question. She means everything.”
For coverage of the day’s events as they unfold, head to the live blog. For today’s newsletter, Nimo Omer and I will explain what to expect as the UK, and the world, say a final farewell to the Queen - and hear from some of the mourners waiting to say their goodbyes. Here are the rest of the headlines.
Five big stories
Politics | Mark Fullbrook, the new Downing Street chief of staff, has been interviewed by the FBI as a witness about work he did for a banker accused of bribery, it has emerged. Fullbrook provided research in 2020 for a Venezuelan-Italian banker accused of bribing the governor of Puerto Rico. He denies any wrongdoing.
Ukraine | Kyiv is facing a battle to persuade western allies to back its proposal for any peace settlement with Moscow to include multibillion reparations. Ukraine wants the UN to take steps towards a compensation mechanism that could lead to the seizure of as much as $300bn (£260bn) of Russian state assets overseas.
Economy | Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is expected to announce the creation of a network of low-tax, low-regulation investment zones in an emergency budget on Friday. Planning regulations will be relaxed in up to 12 areas earmarked for this status, and taxes will be cut to incentivise investment.
Leicester | Fifteen people were arrested in Leicester last night amid disorder between Hindu and Muslim groups sparked by a cricket match between India and Pakistan three weeks ago. Police and community leaders earlier called for calm after disturbances broke out at the weekend.
Home Office | The government has refused to expedite the case of a Windrush campaigner with terminal cancer who wants her immigration status to be resolved before she dies. Eulalee Pennant’s case was at one point stuck in a processing backlog for a decade.
In depth: ‘You’re going to be lifted to glory’
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The day at a glance
The last members of the public to see the Queen lying in state left Westminster Hall a few minutes ago, with the final mourner given her wristband with a touch of impromptu ceremony last night. Emine Sinmaz spoke to some of those who took a chance on making it in before the queue finally closed shortly after 10.30, including some who sprinted from the nearest tube station. (One woman had waited for seven hours on Friday, abandoned her place to take her son to university, and returned to try again.)
As that crowd dissipates, another is forming. Inside Westminster Abbey, the first members of the 2,200 strong congregation will take their seats from 8am for a service that begins at 11am, after the gun carriage carrying the coffin sets off on its short journey at 10.44.
While the service will end at noon, the day’s a long way from done: the funeral procession then goes to Wellington Arch, where the coffin will be moved into a hearse and taken to Windsor. After two services there, the Queen will be buried alongside the Duke of Edinburgh in the royal vault at 7.30pm. For a fuller guide to the day, see this timeline by Tobi Thomas.
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The Abbey service
At 10.30pm last night, full details of the service – which will be rooted in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and includes hymns and readings of personal significance to the Queen – were released.
Prince George and Princess Charlotte, the queen’s great-grandchildren, will be among those following the coffin as it is carried through the Abbey, while music will include a specially commissioned choral piece and the hymn The Lord Is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want, which was also sung at the then Princess Elizabeth’s wedding to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten in 1947. Among the features of the service included at the Queen’s behest is the playing of a lament by her piper. You can read the details from Caroline Davies here, and see the full order of service here.
John Sentamu, the former Archbishop of York, told the BBC yesterday that the Queen “did not want what you call long, boring services. You’re not going to find boredom, but you’re going to be lifted to glory as you hear the service”. He said: “The hearts and people’s cockles will be warmed and at the same time, there will be a moment of saying: this is a funeral service that is glorious in its setting.”
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The guests
Joe Biden was among those paying their respects in Westminster Hall yesterday, before attending a reception at Buckingham Palace. The US president will not, despite much speculation last week, be travelling to Westminster Abbey today on a bus – but everyone else will be ferried from the Royal Hospital Chelsea two miles away.
The 500 international dignitaries include King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain and Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako of Japan, as well as Emmanuel Macron, Jacinda Ardern, Justin Trudeau, and Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska. Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro is attending (and has been criticised for using the occasion as an “election soapbox”), but there will be no official representatives from Russia, Belarus, Myanmar, Venezuela, Syria, or Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is no longer expected to attend. And after some controversy, the Chinese vice-president Wang Qishan will be there.
Meanwhile, Liz Truss, Keir Starmer, Nicola Sturgeon will be joined by every living British former prime minister and many other politicians. Holders of the Victoria Cross and George Cross from across the Commonwealth will be among the guests, as will nearly 200 people who were recognised this year in the Queen’s birthday honours – and the royal family and members of the household. For more on the those attending, see this piece by Robert Booth.
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The coverage
Most major broadcasters will be running full coverage of the funeral (although Channel 5 is scheduled to show The Emoji Movie instead). Mark Sweney reports that the funeral will be one of the most-watched broadcasts in British television history, with the possibility of surpassing England’s 1966 World Cup and the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. There’s quite a big caveat for broadcasters: the 24-hour block on adverts most have in place means there won’t be a huge boost in ad money.
Everyone will have their own plans for the day, and that includes some that have nothing to do with the funeral at all. Clea Skopeliti spoke to six Guardian readers about how they intend to spend the bank holiday. Judy Rose and Stefan Kruczkowsk will be joining a predicted audience of 20 million other people, watching the funeral from their homes. Others, such as Angelica Gardner, have decided that it’s a moment to get people together, perhaps over G&T and scones – while some, like Dinah and Iain Houston, will be getting on with their day as usual.
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The crowd
In London, about one million people are expected to visit. As you cross the city towards Westminster Abbey, the ordinary 5am sight of people going to work or coming home from a bank holiday night out begins to give way to sceptical looking stewards in tabards, crowd control signs, and middle-aged couples with folding chairs and sandwiches. There are veterans with a chestful of badges, tourists with selfie sticks huddled under foil sheets, a dog in a bow tie, a woman in a black fascinator, and a queue for the loo at Westminster station that’s snaking up and out to the street by 4.30am.
Everyone is alive to a sense of occasion, though you might think the occasion was a festival, or an evacuation. I see four people with stepladders. “We said we’d meet them here but I’m not sure if that’s right actually,” says a woman. “Fucking unreal,” says a teenager wrapped in a Union Jack who’s been asked to clear a path by a police officer. “I’m higher than you!” one security guard shouts angrily to two others, who nevertheless insist he take the long way round. Police officers marching past in formal dress are instinctively met with a round of applause. “I’ve been asleep for two hours,” says William Sidhu, gesturing to the phone box from which he has just emerged on Parliament Square. “I think I’ve lost my place.”
Robert Madeley and Christopher Clowes arrived at 4am from “just up in Regents Park” and Leicestershire, and they’re in full morning dress with a box of flapjacks. “It’s what she would have wanted,” Clowes says. Perhaps confused by their outfits, police have already ushered them through to a restricted area before realising their mistake. “The difficulty is you always think there might be a better view 100 metres away,” says Madeley. “But I’m happy with our spot.”
Further up Whitehall, Christina Burrows is sitting against a bollard. She met the Queen once in her thirties, at a charity event in 1992, but “I’ve always seen her as a beacon”, she says. “During lockdown, when she said ‘We’ll meet again’, that was wonderful. It gave me a lot of hope. So I wanted to be here for her like she was for us.” She sighs and claps her hands to her cheeks. “I don’t know how I’ll feel when she goes past,” she says. “Oh god, I can’t believe it. There’ll never be another day like this in our lives.”
What else we’ve been reading
As The (inevitably capitalised) Queue finally disappears, Ian Jack’s reflections on its echoes of past mourning rituals are enlightening in a way that very little writing about it has managed to be. “People spoke articulately and sincerely and freshly, in the sense that their words seemed unborrowed,” he writes of his time walking alongside them. “They nearly always mentioned the fellowship that had been created by the act of walking and stopping … again and again.”
Shaun Walker and Pjotr Sauer have a fascinating piece on the impossible decisions facing Ukrainian teachers in Russian-occupied territory, who must choose whether to go along with Moscow’s rewriting of the curriculum or abandon pupils. “Imagine, I worked in that school for more than 25 years,” says one teacher, Halyna. “I walked out of there, alone, carrying a pot plant and a bag of poems.”
Grace Holliday spoke to photojournalist Jashim Salam about the above photo that he took in 2017 on an iPhone 7. The shot, of thousands of Rohingya refugees fleeing genocide in Myanmar, is harrowing. “‘It looked like a scene from thousands of years ago,” said Salam. Nimo
Emine Saner collects some thoughtful perspectives on the ritual, performance, and depth of the collective grief on show in the UK over the last week. “Is it about celebrating the Queen and recognising her?” asks Kate Woodthorpe, director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath. “Or is it about being a part of something?” Archie
I loved this week’s edition of Flashback. Harriet Gibsone spoke with Michael Rosen and his film-maker son, about how their relationship has evolved over the last three decades. Nimo
Sport
Premier League | Arsenal secured an impressive 3-0 victory over Brentford to return to the top of the Premier League, while Everton beat West Ham 1-0 for their first win of the season.
Women’s Super League | Aston Villa beat Manchester City 4-3 in a thrilling upset on the first weekend of the season. In another shock result, newly promoted Liverpool beat defending champions Chelsea 2-1.
Cricket | India beat England by seven wickets with 34 balls to spare in the first women’s One Day International at Hove. Smriti Mandhana made 91 and Harmanpreet Kaur an unbeaten 74 for the tourists.
The front pages
“World leaders descend as nation prepares for grandest of farewells” says the headline on the front of the Guardian. Other front pages are more portentous such as the Express’s “Farewell our glorious Queen”, the Mail’s “Our last farewell” and the Mirror’s “Happy & glorious”. The Times takes the King’s farewell message for its headline “Charles gives thanks”, while the Telegraph has “A life of selfless service”. The Sun says “God bless”and the Metro has “Thank you Ma’am”. “A nation falls silent”, says the Scotsman and the i has “World’s farewell to Elizabeth II”. The FT has a striking black and white picture of the lying in state, but leads on “Tech IPOs suffer longest drought for 20 years”.
Today in Focus
The Queen’s funeral: power, projection and personal reflection
The state funeral of Britain’s longest reigning monarch will be a profound national moment, and one that may never be seen again, journalist and author, Sam Knight, tells Hannah Moore.
Cartoon of the day | Edith Pritchett
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The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
As waiting lists for allotments grow longer and the prospects of finding a home with a decent-sized garden dwindle, many are finding it near impossible to get access to green space. Conor Gallagher, a former architect from Belfast, noticed this problem and decided to do something about it. Last year Gallagher gave up his job and launched a website called AllotMe. The premise of AllotMe is fairly simple: the site is supposed to match gardeners who have no gardens with people who own green space that isn’t tended to. From Somerset to London, people are getting the chance to grow their own food and cultivate a fulfilling hobby.
In West Sussex, Abbey Fenton is renting a plot from Julia Jepps (both pictured above) for £10 a month. “It’s not a place I’ve ever felt very attracted to being in because I felt guilty about not using it properly,” Jepps says. “But now sitting here, I feel uplifted to see that it looks so beautiful.”
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Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
