Truth behind late Queen and Royal Family’s ‘most excruciating’ photo

An expert has branded a moment between former Prime Minister Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal Family’s ‘most excrutiating photo”

Queen Elizabeth once skipped her traditional New Year celebrations to mark the turn of the millennium with Tony Blair at the Millennium Dome. However the night resulted in what has been described as the “most excruciating” photo for the Royal Family.

The evening at The Dome, as it was then known, was later dubbed one of the “most monumental cock-ups in public relations history”. Reports suggest the Queen was obliged to attend the opening of The Dome alongside the-then Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie.

The opening of the building, now known as The O2 Arena, was one of Blair’s signature projects, despite having been announced by his predecessor John Major.

The Queen and Prince Philip attended the event with Princess Anne and her husband Sir Timothy Laurence. Former Labour press secretary Alastair Campbell noted “that the royal party were clearly ‘p****d off to be there’” in his diary.

According to Valentine Low, author of Power and the Palace: The Inside Story of the Monarchy and 10 Downing Street, the image of the Queen holding hands with Blair during Auld Lang Syne from the evening is the Royal Family’s “most excruciating” picture.

Speaking on the Daily Mail’s Palace Confidential podcast, he said: “It’s one of the most excruciating pictures of the Royal Family there are, the look on the Queen’s face, the awkwardness on Blair’s face.

“But the thing about that is that it was in the programme, everyone knew Auld Lang Syne would be sung at the end of the evening. But it got to the moment and Blair thought to himself, ‘Oh God, what do I do now?’

“He’s dealing with this quandary when it’s actually the Queen who raises her hands. There’s this myth that’s built up that he grabbed the Queen’s hand but, no, it’s the Queen who realised there should be some hand-holding going on.”

Low points out that the Queen is the only person in the image not crossing her arms for the traditional New Year’s dance. The former Prime Minister reportedly ended the night saying to his wife he was glad a millennium “only comes once every thousand years”.

According to Tina Brown, author of The Palace Papers, neither the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh were particularly impressed with the evening. Instead she says they would have preferred to celebrate New Year’s Eve 1999 at home.

Speaking to the Express in 2023, she said: “Normally, she would have been in Norfolk surrounded by family and friends for her annual New Year’s Eve celebration at Sandringham House. Instead, on the night of the 31 December 1999, she had gone to bed at Windsor Castle distinctly disgruntled.”

Brown says the Queen and Philip were already exhausted when they made it to Greenwich on a boat. Only to be met by “rows and rows of empty seats” as security delays held up a number of high-profile attendees.

In Power and Responsibility, the third volume of his unique account of life at the centre of the Blair government, Campbell said the Duke of Edinburgh called the event “brilliant” but concedes his body language suggested otherwise.

He wrote: “The Queen did kiss Philip and took his and TB’s hands [with obvious freezing reluctance, the press noted] for ‘Auld Lyne Sang’, but they did not look comfortable with the whole thing. TB claimed Philip said to him it was ‘brilliant’, but his body language did not radiate in that direction.”