Essex University survey reveals why people are queuing to see the Queen

Politics professor Robert Johns revealed the results of his survey on the BBC Radio 4 Today program on Saturday.

Along with a team of four students from Essex University and the University of Edinburgh, Professor Johns travelled to the capital to survey those in the queue.

One in every nine people were chosen and handed an online survey to complete while in the queue.

Professor Johns said: “One is about how representative of Britain is this queue, and the answer to that was surprisingly representative whether you’re talking in social terms, in age or gender or ethnicity.

“The second thing we’re trying to find out how accurate is the term mourners, which seems to be the standard term for these people, but we were asking quite a few things about both the people’s motivations for going and how they’re feeling while they’re there.

“Gratitude rather than grief seems to be the best summary of what we’re finding and it’s a huge contrast from for example the case of Princess Diana.”

“This point about thanking Queen Elizabeth and feeling this had been someone who’d been around all their lives, really dominated over feeling sad or feeling very strongly about her.”

The University of Essex team also asked people queuing how they vote.

Professor Johns added: “One of the striking findings is that in terms of their party politics, this is a conservative queue.

"But, if you ask about their social attitudes, the ‘small c’ conservativeness is not there at all, this was predominantly remain queue.

“That’s obviously got something to do with the fact that it is easier to there from Greater London which is more remain, but even if you ask about things like their views on things like classic liberal-conservative things like the death penalty, this is a group slightly more liberal than Britain as a whole.

“It doesn’t at all conform to the narrative that these are kind of very conservative, very nationalist people, not at all.”