What do Michelle Obama, Tony Blair and Paul Keating have in common?
That’s right. They all famously broke one of the most ancient, yet unwritten, of British laws: ‘Whatever you do, don’t touch the Queen!’ ‘Who can forget,’ as one British journalist wrote recently, ‘the furore that erupted in 1992 when the then Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, put his arm around the Queen’s waist at Canberra’s Parliament House, and found himself lampooned at the “Lizard of Oz” for his faux-pas. ‘And everyone remembers the expression of frozen distaste at the opening of the Millennium Dome when Tony Blair seized the royal hand and shook it up and down during the singing of Aud Lang Syne.’ Nearly ten years on, however, the most recent outbreak of touchy-feely politics involving the Queen of England was different. By all accounts, it was the Queen’s decision to place a friendly arm around Michelle Obama, during a conversation about her height, whereupon Mrs Obama gently reciprocated the gesture. The royal household apparently stood shocked. For once, though, ancien
