It is difficult to be critical of the Sun for publishing the footage of the Queen, aged seven, rehearsing the Nazi salute.

Once the newspaper had obtained the film, what was it supposed to do? Suppress it? Hand it in to the palace? It was bound to publish it and, in so doing, make as much noise about it as possible.

I can understand that the Queen thinks its publication “disappointing”, but it hardly merits condemnation. After all, although a little embarrassing for the 89-year-old monarch, it is not going to change anyone’s view of her.

People will see the incident for what it was - a politically unaware child doing the bidding of her uncle and her mother.

So she will not suffer a backlash from the British public. Nor is there likely to be a re-evaluation of her mother. And even those who believe Edward VIII to have been a Nazi sympathiser cannot really adduce this as proof positive of his supporting Adolf Hitler.

What is missing is the exact context of the incident. They could well have been parodying Germany’s fascist chancellor. Plenty of people who abhor Hitler and all his works have made their point by doing spoof Nazi salutes.

The most likely reading of the 17-second film fragment is that they were simply indulging in horseplay, as its editorial suggests.

The Sun, if one reads the seven pages devoted to the story, clearly attempts to put the images in an historical context and goes out of its way to say it casts no aspersions on the Queen, her mother and, of course, the Queen’s three-year-old sister, Margaret.



Where the Sun is surely overstating its case is in asserting that Edward - then the Prince of Wales - was “already a fan of Hitler”. I don’t think that can be deduced from the footage.

He is, said the paper, “apparently teaching his royal nieces the same Nazi greeting he would give Hitler personally at his mountain retreat four years later.” The film therefore provided “a fascinating insight into the warped prejudices of Edward VIII.”

I don’t think that stands up. The Sun can’t have it both ways. It was either a bit of a lark or a serious lesson? And the smiles tend to suggest the former.

Despite that, the argument advanced on Radio 4’s Today programme by the Sun’s managing editor, Stig Abell, that it is “an interesting piece of social history”, still stands up.

This was Britain’s royal family at play in a way we have never previously witnessed and I think it more interesting to observe the apparent warmth of the friendship between Edward and his sister-in-law, the Queen Mother.

After his abdication, forcing her unprepared husband, George VI, on to the throne, she had no time at all for the man who became the Duke of Windsor.

It should also be said that from the outbreak of war, and for the rest of her long life, the Queen Mother held strong anti-German feelings.

The other objection raised by the palace in its statement is that the Sun “exploited” the film. Of course it did. So what? That doesn’t really stand up as a valid criticism because any newspaper in possession of a scoop, whatever market it serves, would do the same.

I guess there will be objections over the course of the coming days about it being an invasion of privacy. If so, they can also be ignored. The royal family is a family apart. The normal rules do not apply because of their privileged position.

NB: It is a long time since the Sun has upset the Queen. In the 1980s and 90s, it did so on a regular basis. In 1982, the Sun’s then editor, Kelvin MacKenzie, snubbed an invitation to meet the Queen when she called on editors to moderate their coverage of Princess Diana. The paper, in company with several others, ignored the plea.

In 1993, the Sun published the Queen’s Christmas speech before she had delivered it and was forced to carry a front page apology.