The Queen Mother

As can be seen from the table, the Queen Mother in fact scored her lowest rating in last year's poll, with only one in five of the public naming her. But this is not to imply that her popularity was decreasing. This poll question is a good example of a "zero-sum game": because we asked our respondents to name "two or three" members of the Royal Family, everybody who likes more than two or three would have to pick and choose between them. In other words, when one person's score goes up, somebody else's has to go down correspondingly. The falling figure for the Queen Mother simply reflects the increasing number of other members of the Royal Family who are popular with the public. Prince William and Prince Harry, of course, are comparatively new entrants on the list, and the Prince of Wales has recovered from the unpopularity he suffered in the early nineties.

The Queen Mother's popularity was spread across all age groups: in the 2001 poll, she scored 18% among 18-34 year olds, 16% with 35-54 year olds and 22% with those aged 55 and over. This makes an interesting contrast with the Queen: only 25% of 18-34 year olds named the Queen as one of the two or three members of the Royal Family they liked the most, their preferences being widely spread among other choices, but in particular being more likely than average to pick Princes William and Harry; in the 55+ group, though, 57% picked the Queen.

The figures are telling in terms of the future strength of the Royal Family. The Queen's score has remained fairly steady over all six polls; but the Prince of Wales is as popular as his mother in the most recent poll, which was also true back in 1984, but not in the intervening period. There are no signs here, assuming nothing changes, that the monarchy will face a crisis of popularity when Prince Charles succeeds to the throne. Incidentally, Prince Charles - unlike his mother but like his grandmother - picks up fairly equal support across all age groups.

One of the main talking points of the last week has been reaction to the BBC's coverage of the Queen Mother's death. The BBC has reportedly dismissed criticisms that its coverage was too informal and insufficiently respectful, on the grounds that it received considerably more complaints about disruption to the schedules caused by its coverage, than it did about the tone. But it is always unwise to rely on one's postbag as a measure of public opinion. The controversy echoes one of two years ago. In 2000, when the BBC announced that it would not be covering the Queen Mother's birthday parade, a MORI poll for the Daily Mail found that more than half the public, 56%, thought the decision was wrong; only a third, 34%, thought the BBC was right.