London – Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her 90th birthday today with a family gathering and a cake baked by a reality television star, as a new poll finds Britain’s longest serving monarch is as popular as ever.
The queen has reigned for more than 64 years and shows no sign of retiring, even if she has in recent years passed on some of her duties to the younger royals.
A new poll suggests the British public want it to stay that way, with 70 percent saying she should reign for as long as possible, the highest proportion since 1981.
Support for the monarchy remains high at 76 percent, according to the Ipsos-Mori poll for King’s College London.
“The queen is hugely popular, she is liked personally and is felt to have done an excellent job,” Roger Mortimore, a professor at the Institute of Contemporary British History at King’s College London, told AFP.
Today’s celebrations will be low-key, with the main public events, including a military parade and lunch for 10,000 guests on The Mall outside Buckingham Palace.