What do we admire about the Queen that has not already been better said by others this weekend? The way she understands her role exactly in the quantum physics of our unwritten constitution.

Radio 4’s Today have been playing a speech from every decade of the Queen’s reign this week. The Queen’s speeches are always worth paying attention to. They have the precision of Elizabeth I’s. On Wednesday they played her speech when she opened the Queen’s Building at the Royal Courts of Justice in 1968:

“The judiciary is one of the most oldest and honourable branches of the service of the Crown. It is also one of the most vital because as the yearbooks tell us the law is the highest inheritance of the king for both he and all his subjects are ruled by it. And if there were no law there would be neither king nor inheritance. That is as true today as it was five centuries ago. The attachment of our people to the law is the foundation of our constitution and of our civilisation.”

That is gobsmackingly good. The historian should have it by heart.

Happy Platinum Jubilee Your Majesty.