Barack Obama’s 2011 state visit to London appears to have produced one of those perfect little Queen Elizabeth II vignettes.

In Valentine Low’s new book, Power and the Palace, which is being serialized in the Times, the author writes that as the evening of the state dinner dragged on, the Queen leaned over to finance minister George Osborne and said: “Will you tell President Obama it’s time to go to bed?”

The leader of the free world had outstayed her patience; she wanted her single room with the jack-and-jill sitting room she shared with Prince Philip, not another round of pleasantries.

It’s very funny, and very her.

The book also makes a bigger claim: that the Queen was against Brexit. Low cites as his evidence for this her telling a minister, “It’s better to stick with the devil you

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