Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee celebrations planned amid protests and anger from Windrush community
- Many colourful acts, involving 10,000 people from the UK and Commonwealth, will participate in a pageant in London on Sunday for the monarch’s Platinum Jubilee
- Meanwhile the Caribbean is pushing for a formal break with the monarchy and the colonial history it represents following the Windrush scandal
On Sunday, more than 200 performers in vibrant saris will dance to Bollywood tunes around a moving, six-metre-tall (20-foot-tall) version of the queen’s wedding cake, powered by a hidden electric vehicle. Its top tier, featuring a rendition of the queen’s beloved corgis holding aloft a crown, pops up and down on a hydraulic system.
The cake was designed by Ajay Chhabra, a second-generation British Indian with Fijian heritage. Dubbed “the 10,000-mile cake” because it is whipped up with sugar, dried fruit, rum and brandy from all corners of the Commonwealth, from South Africa to the Caribbean to Australia and the South Pacific.
Chhabra’s party is just one of many colourful acts to parade down the Mall to Buckingham Palace in London on Sunday, the finale of a busy four-day weekend of festivities marking the monarch’s Platinum Jubilee.
More than 10,000 people from across the UK and the Commonwealth have been involved in producing the pageant, which is expected to be seen by 1 billion people around the world.
“In a world where things are very temporary and polarised, I think there are few things that bring us together,” Chhabra said.
Not everybody shares Chhabra’s point of view. While the UK is celebrating the Jubilee with pageantry and parties, some in the Commonwealth are using the occasion to push for a formal break with the monarchy and the colonial history it represents.