It’s not reality that human kind cannot bear very much of, but niceness. Sweetness of temper, gentleness of manner, a belief in public service, deep love of family. That’s really what gets people’s goats.

Or so it would seem from the reaction to William Shawcross’s biography of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. It is a totally absorbing and highly readable account of a remarkable life. But its arrival has been greeted in some quarters with all the warmth you’d expect from Hugh Hefner welcoming Mother Teresa to the Playboy Mansion: “I’m sure you’re very nice, lady, but you ain’t got quite what we’re selling here . . .”

Shawcross’s book is genuinely revelatory — he has had access to archival material, private correspondence and taped interviews that have not previously seen the light of day — and he uses them to write compelling history. Reviewers with genuine historical expertise, such as Peterhouse’s John Adamson, have lavished praise on Shawcross’s writing.

But several media voices — feature writers on The Guardian, tabloid royal reporters, Richard Ingrams in The Independent, even Jenni Murray on Woman’s Hour — have found it hard to disguise their disappointment that Shawcross has presented a balanced, detailed and factual account of a distinguished public life. Why, they chorus, isn’t there more gossip and scandal, more snideness and bitchiness, more backstairs intrigue and princessy haughtiness, more bad blood and pure spite?

Having feasted on the misery of the Windsors for decades, having grown used to picking over the bones of marital break-ups, having sucked whatever gamey titbits can be gleaned from butlers, valets, drivers and detectives, the palate of some royal watchers is now so jaded that they gag reflexively at anything wholesome.

And because there is now an automatic assumption among so many that royalty can be worth watching only if it’s enmeshed in scandal, sexual intrigue or silliness, we risk missing the really big story, which Shawcross succeeds in capturing.

The Europe into which the Queen Mother was born was a continent of crowned heads. From St Petersburg to Sofia, Vienna to Berlin, Madrid to Constantinople, monarchy was as much part of the natural order as the rhythm of the seasons. All that collapsed in her lifetime, pitching Europe into years of hideous tyranny and slaughter. She understood instinctively that the crust on which civilisation rested was eggshell-fragile. She appreciated, in her bones, the importance of constitutional stability, of providing the nation with a focus of loyalty above partisan and ideological division, and of domesticating the monarchy without cheapening it, so that it could keep pace with the times but never become a victim of fashion. One reason she reacted so viscerally against Wallis Simpson is that she recognised in the Duchess of Windsor precisely the sort of adventuress who saw monarchy as an exercise in projecting glamour, not incarnating service.

The Queen Mother’s achievement, which was in every sense, historic, was to see the monarchy through a period of unparalleled change, as Britain moved from a state led by marquesses to the world’s most successful multicultural nation. She managed that by recognising, as her daughter has, that less is more, that relevance does not mean providing a running commentary on events, that smiling service through thick and thin wins respect in a way that will always elude those who steer by the sound of applause.

We in Britain are luckier than we know that such a story can be written — and are fortunate indeed that it has been placed in the hands of a gifted writer such as William Shawcross.

Red letter days

Like most of Britain, my return to work in September is accompanied by hours fantasising about where I can spend next summer’s holiday. When the time comes to book anything, I know that the need to keep the children happy will restrict my options dramatically. They don’t have many soft play areas in Bayreuth, for example. But between now and January I can dream.

And reading about the huge open air concert, the biggest for 50 years, planned for Revolution Square in Havana evokes some very particular memories. The two most fascinating holidays I had, pre-children, were spent (with my wife, of course) in Cuba and Vietnam.

It may seem bizarre for a Tory MP to have fond memories of weeks spent under communist rule. But Cuba and Vietnam are curiously congenial for cultural conservatives. Because Havana and Hanoi stood out against globalisation there is a gloriously antique feel to both. Most of the colonial architecture remains resolutely unmucked-about-with. And national pride ensures that their museums and monuments leave the historically curious spoilt for choice.

Indeed it is the very fact that communism, in both these nations, is identified so deeply with preserving a distinct national identity against “global norming” that helps to explain its longevity. The ideology that was supposed to erase all national differences can now cling on only by acting as their defender. It’s a paradox that intellectuals will find puzzling. But the idea that quiet, stubborn patriotism will endure when abstract theorising fails would not, I suspect, have perplexed Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.

Michael Gove is the Conservative MP for Surrey Heath

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