Queen's Speech Leaked

It has to be the highlight of any family’s Christmas Day. No, not the presents, the turkey, the twinkle in a child’s eye or the fact that you can start drinking at 9am without people judging you. Obviously I’m talking about the Queen’s speech. That moment at three o’clock when the entire nation stops for ten minutes and our monarch tells us what to do for the next 12 months. But Christmas was practically RUINED on this day in 1992 when details of Elizabeth II’s festive announcement were leaked and published in The Sun.

There was a great deal on interest in that year’s speech, as 1992 was the Queen’s ‘annus horribilis’ due to two of her children ending their marriages, the Andrew Motion Princess of Wales book, the affair between the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker-Bowles being confirmed and the devastating fire at Windsor Castle. Due to the leak, the location and wording of the speech was altered and the BBC later lost its monopoly to the broadcast. The evil, grinchy, Christmas-destroying leaker was never found.