This silver jubilee was paradoxical, between royal luster and social decay. On June 7, 1977, the Queen of England wore an outfit of which she had the secret, a candy pink ensemble. To admire it in the streets of London, there are a million people. Elizabeth II thus celebrated her first twenty-five years of reign, in front of her subjects and more than a billion live viewers. Thirty foreign heads of state are present, including US President Jimmy Carter.
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For this silver jubilee, Queen Elizabeth began a nine-month tour of the Commonwealth at the start of 1977 – Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, Australia, India and Oman – then across the UK to Northern Ireland. With the high point of the festivities in London, June 7, 1977. Everywhere, the crowds are enthusiastic. We buy plates and mugs bearing the effigy of the queen.
But behind this jubilation, there is another England, younger, more rebellious, which will come to tarnish the picture. Ten days before the jubilee, the Sex Pistols released their single God Save the Queen, intended to ridicule the monarchy. The punk band denounces what it calls “a fascist regime” and on the posters promoting the single, the queen’s head appears with a safety pin in the nose. The BBC and other radio stations boycotted the title, which nevertheless sold 150,000 copies in one week. On Jubilee Day, the Sex Pistols play on a barge opposite Parliament. They play Anarchy in the UK before being arrested.
Beyond the punk eructations, the expenses of this silver jubilee are criticized by part of the British left. In a country that is suffering economically, with inflation at 16%, factory closures by the thousands, unemployment that has doubled since 1970 (1.4 million unemployed in 1976, i.e. 5.7% of the active population), repeated strikes triggered by overpowered unions, the bankruptcy of the country is very close. The United Kingdom has also won in extremis a massive loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to meet its commitments. A rescue plan, six months before the splendor of the jubilee, experienced as a humiliation for this country which had once dominated the world.
In this year 1977, the Sex Pistols sang that there was “There’s no future in England’s dream”. In fact, the Kingdom will have a future that will change the country from top to bottom, two years after the jubilee. A liberal and conservative future whose name will be Margaret Thatcher.