yes, one at the end of the speech. yes, one must suppose that she could not have imagined she would ever have to make a broadcast such as this, at a time of real, national crisis and emergency, notjust in this country, as we were saying, but in the commonwealth and the wider world. to broadcast at a moment of real national difficulty. her purpose, as we we re national difficulty. her purpose, as we were saying, was to national difficulty. her purpose, as we were saying, was to reassure national difficulty. her purpose, as we were saying, was to reassure this country and the watching audiences, and to rally the spirit and cohesion of this nation, to say that we must remain united and resolute, that better days will return. and there we see these twin themes of reassurance and harnessing the resolution, the sense of resolve of the nation. those were the words which she used several times, she talked of the national spirit, of heart—warming stories from britain and around the commonwealth and, of

course, she did recall that broadcast she made from windsor castle when she was a 14—year—old in 1940 at the time of the blitz, when london and other british cities were being bombed and she spoke about the separation of children across britain from their families and drew the parallel between that and the painful sense of separation, as she described it, which is occurring at the moment in very different circumstances. but i she said, now, as then, we know, deep down, that it is the right thing to do. so, urging people across this country and in wider lands as well to abide by the restrictions, to abide by the lockdown which we know is very frustrating. but she is urging people to follow the advice of this government and others. that's an interesting point, so notjust personal reminiscence of a long reign and a difficult time, there was an instruction from the head of

state to a people. yes, and it is a head of state who has been in the background of our lives in this country for most cases all of our lives. who we know lived through the war, because as we said before the broadcast, joined the british services and served in the auxiliary territorial service. 50 services and served in the auxiliary territorial service. so this is somebody who commands enormous respect and enormous authority. who has the ability, far more so than any politician, to offer a message such as that which can reassure, because people, i think, find her a very reassuring figure in a world of such change and uncertainty. when people feel frightened, as they do at the moment, facing this peril, this unexpected situation in which we all find ourselves. so i think many people will have tuned in in this country and elsewhere in the world tonight to listen carefully to the queen and to be reassured. one must hope that people will have been

reassured by the words that she offered, particularly at the end of the broadcast. we should take comfort that while we still have more to endure, better days will return, we will be with our friends again, we will be with our families again, we will be with our families again and we will meet again. those are very powerful words and one can imagine the country stopped to hear that, but not just imagine the country stopped to hear that, but notjust our country, but other countries around the world where she is head of state and other countries around the world with an interest in what the queen might have to say. yes, and it is that central message, evoking echoes of wartime that, you know, this generation will be judged by how by how we respond to this situation, where she talks in the years to come that everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge and those who come after us will say that the britons of this generation were as strong as any. it is not quite sure chilean, this was

their finest hour, is not quite sure chilean, this was theirfinest hour, because is not quite sure chilean, this was their finest hour, because this situation is wrong for us comparisons like that —— it is not quite like winston churchill. but she identified the qualities that will define us. those qualities, as she described them, of self—discipline, quiet resolve and fellow feeling. nicholas witchell, thank you very much. let's discuss the queen's message in more detail. i'm joined by the former buckingham palace press secretary, dickie arbiter, and also by the sunday times royal correspondent, royah nikkhah. let's start with you. let's put the speech in the context of the reign of more than 60 years of the importance of the speech. it was extremely important and very moving on the queens fingerprints are on it. it was certainly her speech. maybe a bit of input from prince philip but it was very much her. it was interesting that, quite

obviously, she thanked the national health service, the carers, everybody involved, and those outside, but she also thanked those who were staying at home. this was a very clear who were staying at home. this was a very clear message who were staying at home. this was a very clear message to those who don't, please do stay at home. it was very don't, please do stay at home. it was very moving and i have had a couple of messages since the broadcast finished. people saying it brought a tear to their eye. the queen has been through everything. and this is something that she would never and this is something that she would never have expected at any time during her reign. but she is sort of a rallying person, and she is the one person in the united kingdom that all people will feel that she gives reassurance, she gives comfort, and she does it admirably. did you recognise the queens own personal touches in this address? absolutely. it was... it showed how difficult this is for the country and she talked about self isolating being hard and we know... i'm

afraid... we didn't quite get you online, so we will go back to dickie arbiter. that is while we try to get contact back. there were plenty of references in the last few weeks to wartime spirit and now we have had a speech about what that means by someone who not just speech about what that means by someone who notjust lived through the war, but served through the second world war. certainly someone who served through the war, she was somebody who lived at windsor castle while her parents, king george and queen elizabeth, the queen mother, famous words from queen elizabeth after buckingham palace got bombed, now i can look the east end in the face. in the queen, having experienced her own son, prince charles, having gone down with coronavirus knows exactly how people feel. she won't know how people feel having lost loved ones but she did

sympathise with those people who are grieving, people who are struggling financially, people struggling day to day, people who, in time, will find it very difficult to make ends meet. this was a very, very sympathetic speech and it was very much the queen. as somebody who many people don't recognise. the last time we saw anything like this was at the time of the death of princess diana, on the eve of the funeral, a very heartfelt message of tribute to diana. and here again, we have the sovereign of the united kingdom, of 15 other realm to states, the head of the commonwealth and 5a nations, spelling out it is a global issue and spelling out, hopefully, that everybody will take heed of what she has said. she is very recognised in the world. everybody knows who she is. they don't know who many presidents are in many countries but they know who queen elizabeth ii is andi they know who queen elizabeth ii is and i hope they listen to her message because it was very

heartfelt. you have worked with the queen for many years, does she like to write speeches herself, and given the significance of this herself, would he have started with a blank piece of paper or would there be input from the palace? how would he have gone about? she would have made notes. she would have sought the advice of prince philip. he is 98 and will be 99 this year and has all his faculties about him but she rests on him and heed his advice and she likes his advice. so she would have taken that, and she would have got her private secretary to drop something up and would have fiddled around with it. that is until she was satisfied and then it would have gone back to the private secretary to be typed up properly and then she might have fiddled around with it again. it is very much her words, they weren't the words of downing street or the words of the private secretary, they were her words with a bit of input from prince philip. people will have a listen to what the queen had to say, but will

people modify their behaviour based on her words? an interesting question. that is something that remains to be seen. there's been a lot of very silly people out there who have thought that going and exercising, is the same as it lying down on the park and doing sunbathing, but the weather will be on the turn and people should think carefully. it's not just on the turn and people should think carefully. it's notjust about them, it's about other people, it's about the national health service and the pressure they are under. and they are under enormous pressure, and it's about helping them, and the only way we can help them is to heed not the government's advice, but the government's instructions, and now the queen's instructions to stay home, and that is what it is all about. we will have another go with nicholas witchell and we have re—dialled the line successfully. do you recognise any of the queen's personal touches in the address? we didn't get your answer. do you want to have another go? yes, it was

deeply personal and she said it reminded herof hertime deeply personal and she said it reminded her of her time in the famous address she made with princess margaret in 1942 evacuee children. it was hopeful as well as being powerful, and it ended with the wonderful line that we will meet again, made famous by dame vera lynn during the second world war, but she did not shirk away from how hard the challenges. self isolation is hard, she said, she recognise that and try to encourage the nation to all for all this together and suffer through this together. and i thought the other really interesting thing about it was that i have been told by the palace that the queen did not want the details of her outfit orjewelry to be released which is what we normally get with christmas broadcast, but for the queen, she wanted the focus to be on her words andl wanted the focus to be on her words and i think it really came through. given that prince charles got ill and she is almost about to turn 94, human nature amongst many viewers will look at the queen and want to know if she is ok. of course, the

palace throughout this i said to us that she remains in good health and i thought that was interesting. and we saw that she looks in very good health. the duke of edinburgh is 98 and the queen will turn 94 in a couple of weeks' time and her son, the prince of wales, he is recovering from the virus and there was a lot of worry he had seen her the day before he was apparently contagious, but it's also really reassuring, as reassuring as her words were, and they are, they are very powerful, to see the queen addressing the nation and the commonwealth, that will be hugely reassuring. she is our head of a nation and head of state and she plays the sort of grandmother and mother of the nation figure and to see her deliver the message from windsor castle will be hugely reassuring to a lot of people. you don't need to be a monarchist to understand what he tried to say there. she made it about all of us, and the queen is above politics, but she was echoing the government

advice there, staying home, she said, was the right thing to do for now. dicky arbiter, how does the royalfamily now. dicky arbiter, how does the royal family operate at the moment given that both the queen and prince charles are over 70 and have to restrict their movements? they are operating in the same way as we are all operating, by the telephone, by skype, by various technical businesses. we all try, as best we can, and there is certainly no meeting face to face, as we saw the other day and the queen conducted a privy council via video link the other day. she is becoming very technically savvy even in her 905, very much technically 5avvy even in her 905, very much like her mother, who was very much like her mother, who was very technically 5avvy, very much like her mother, who was very technically savvy, and when needs must, needs mu5t. very technically savvy, and when needs must, needs must.|j very technically savvy, and when needs must, needs must. i did not know that about her mother being technically savvy. thank you both so much to both of you forjoining us. with me now is our political

correspondent, chris mason. iimagine i imagine boris johnson i imagine borisjohnson can talk day m, i imagine borisjohnson can talk day in, day out, day in, day out, and people will listen, but this time the queen has spoken and people will listen. that is the difference. looking on social media as you conducted that conversation, loads of the us tv networks took that as it was being played out, played out 15 minutes ago, so that global reach of someone like the queen clearly cannot be surpassed by anyone else in the uk context. i think the other thing, picking up on the conversation you just had, in the queen you have somebody who is above the fray, not a politician or clinician, but at the heart of what she was saying, an incredibly powerful assembly of words, is the essence of what we are hearing daily, whether it be matt hancock, or the chief medical officer is around the uk, the essence that this will be a challenge, an ongoing challenge, and the timing is quite significant. because a couple of weeks ago, obviously the messages had to come from the clinicians and

politicians because they had to institute the lockdown were adjusting to. a couple of weeks in, the death toll hitting almost 5000, but he —— people perhaps tiring of being stuck at home and limited in their movements, to be able to hear their movements, to be able to hear the power of that as a delivery, something to lift the spirits of the country and the commonwealth and more broadly, but also from the perspective —— perspective of the government in terms of the key message of social distancing, she was driving the same message. your dayjob is to analyse every word politics. when you looked at that, did you see the hand of downing street on that or was it all the queen? i don't know if downing street had a leaning on that, but they wanted to emphasise the core public health message of social distancing that that would be useful ina distancing that that would be useful in a broadcast like that watched by billions of people, and clearly she did that, while on a human level, acknowledging the difficulty people are facing in terms of social distancing and for those who have

got ill or indeed for the families of those who have died. i suppose what she has the capacity to be able to do, because of her longevity, but also because of the role she occupies, is to formulate an address using that kind of very powerful rhetoric without having to go into the specifics and nitty—gritty. i think i'm right in saying there wasn't a single direct reference to the virus in that address. and in that sense, she was able to step back and talk about the reality for all of us living through the experience as opposed to the political messages we are subject to everyday or the clinical advice given by the medical officers. but at the heart of it, as i say, the same message rang through.|j at the heart of it, as i say, the same message rang through. ijust wa nt to same message rang through. ijust want to talk about the sovereign and the prime minister and famously their audiences are private and there are west end plays and films about it. one of the duties of the monarch we are told is to advise and warn. do we get a sense that this queen is advising and warning her prime minister, who is relatively new in the job? i'm sure she is.

there was a picture released a couple of weeks ago of the two doing their weekly audiences and they would meet on a weekly basis face—to—face in buckingham palace as the queen has done with all of the prime minister is going back all the decades. the most recent one was conducted on the phone for the obvious reason of social distancing. it was not long after that conversation that borisjohnson went into self isolation with the symptoms. when you hearfrom prime ministers who have stood down from office, the thing they return to while maintaining the sanctity of the private exchanges is that, the best bit of advice they can get on a weekly basis is from somebody who will never blurt out their thoughts to the tabloids, but someone who has advised prime minister is going back advised prime minister is going back a couple of generations and so, with it, she has the wisdom that is unsurpassed. chris mason, thank you so much. now on bbc news, another chance to see

that special broadcast. i'm speaking to you at what i know is an increasingly challenging time. a time of disruption in the life of our country. a disruption that has brought grief to some, financial difficulties to many and enormous changes to the daily lives of us all. i want to thank everyone on the nhs front line. as well as care workers and those carrying out essential roles, who selflessly continue their day—to—day duties outside the home in support of us all. i'm sure the nation willjoin me in assuring you that what you do is appreciated and every hour of your hard work brings us closer to a return to more normal times. i also want to thank those of you who are staying at home, thereby helping to protect the vulnerable and sparing many families the pain already felt by those who have lost loved ones.

together, we are tackling this disease and i want to reassure you that if we remain united and resolute, then we will overcome it. i hope, in the years to come, everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge. and those who come after us will say the britons of this generation were as strong as any. that the attributes of self—discipline, of quiet, good—humoured resolve and a fellow feeling still characterise this country. the pride in who we are is not a part of our past, it defines our present and our future. clapping and cheering the moments when the united kingdom has come together to applaud its care and essential workers will be remembered as an expression

of our national spirit, and its symbol will be the rainbows drawn by children. across the commonwealth and around the world, we have seen heart—warming stories of people coming together to help others, be it through delivering food parcels and medicines, checking on neighbours, or converting businesses to help the relief effort. and though self isolating may at times be hard, many people of all faiths and of none are discovering that it presents an opportunity to slow down, pause and reflect in prayer or meditation. it reminds me of the very first broadcast i made in 1940, helped by my sister. we, as children, spoke from here at windsor to children who had been evacuated

from their homes and sent away for their own safety. today, once again, many will feel a painful sense of separation from their loved ones. but now, as then, we know deep down that it is the right thing to do. while we have faced challenges before, this one is different. this time, we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavour, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal. we will succeed and that success will belong to everyone of us. we should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return. we will be with our friends again, we will be with our families again, we will meet again. but for now, i send my thanks

and warmest good wishes to you all. we now say goodbye to viewers on bbc world news. and now the weather. hello. there is a lot of dry weather in the forecast for the uk for the week ahead, and along with that dry weather there will be a lot of sunshine and building warmth, particularly through the middle part of the week. the reason being, high pressure bulging across us from the heart of europe giving us a strong southerly airstream. we've had that through the latter part of the weekend, but for the start of the new week we do move into cooler air briefly from the atlantic as this weather front sweeps its way eastwards. there'll be some rain around across eastern england, for first thing on monday. we lose, briefly, the southerly airstream, and for monday pick up a more westerly or south—westerly.

wet start to the day for parts of east anglia and the south east of england, should be drier here for the afternoon. further west, some isolated showers, perhaps a little more frequent in the north with the winds rather strong and gusty still for the north of scotland, but elsewhere generally lighter than they have been all sunday, and a slightly fresher feel things, 18 degrees for london, 12 in glasgow. overnight monday into tuesday, there is a risk of a frost across the southern half of the uk with clear skies and light winds, but then on into tuesday we start to pick up that southerly airstream once again, warmerair flooding into all parts, and thanks to the high pressure, a lot of fine weather, a lot of sunshine, perhaps a little patchy high cloud turning the sunshine hazy for scotland and northern ireland but temperatures, as you can see, lifting again by a couple of degrees typically across the board, perhaps up to 20 in the south—east. through the middle of the week, there is just a chance that this weather front could slide far enough south into scotland and northern ireland to introduce a little rain here for a time but also some cooler air,

most notably i think for the north of scotland where temperatures may not get into double figures across orkney and shetland and the highlands. further south, a little cooler for glasgow, but further south still closer to the heart of the high, up to 23 in the south—east of england. by the time we get to thursday, we've got another area of low pressure trying to come in from the west. what that does is give us a more direct southerly airstream, and it should push this weak front away from the north of scotland. still a little bit of rain around here, still some cloud, but the southerly winds carry the warmth further north once it goes, so temperatures just generally lifting across southern scotland and northern ireland, and i think 23, 24 possible across the south—east of england. that is likely to be our warmest day of the week. by friday, the high breaks downjust enough to allow some weather fronts to move in. good friday, start of easter weekend. some rain around, particularly across the northern half of the uk, it'll be rather breezy if not windy as well. to the south it's more a case of scattered showered, still pretty warm and up to 21 degrees in the south however,

and we are looking at 13 or 14 further north. as for easter weekend, it does look like things will become a little bit more mobile. what do i mean by that? well, areas of low pressure potentially grazing into the north of the uk, so some showers around at times and cooler as well, temperatures returning closer to average values, but nothing exceptionally chilly and nothing exceptionally wet or windy, and then further ahead still the trends at the moment are showing high—pressure building once again. this is the high that we're looking at. it is very high at the moment, though, for us to position exactly where it will sit across the uk and depending on where it comes to rest will depend on whether we end up with a warm southerly airstream or a cooler or northerly one so as you can imagine it's all to play for in that respect at the moment, but longer term, things are still looking like they will stay pretty settled.

hello this is bbc news. the queen has made a rare television address to britain and the commonwealth — stressing the value of self—discipline and resolve. i hope in the years to come, everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge, and those who came after us will say that this generation of britons were as strong as any. the uk government warns it could step up limits on outdoor