Queen receives gift from Cabinet

Ministers forked out around £200 each to pay for a signed silver gilt platter to give to the Queen.

The present marking the Queen's fifty years on the throne was unveiled to the Cabinet last Thursday.

And Mr Blair delivered it to Buckingham Palace on Monday night.

The plate carries the signatures of the 23 Cabinet members and is made of silver gilt, a gold coloured metal.

It has been created by a team of five craftsmen and designers, it is reported.

Downing Street confirmed earlier this year that the government was to follow in the footsteps of previous Labour premier James Callaghan by giving the Queen a Jubilee gift.

Lord Callaghan's Cabinet presented the monarch with a silver coffee pot to mark her 25 year reign in 1977.

Ministers each handed over £25 for that gift.

Lord Callaghan told this year's BBC documentary "Queen and Country" about how the Silver Jubilee gift was chosen.

Suggestions

He said he had quietly inquired of a Buckingham Palace official as to whether he had any ideas for a gift.

Suggestions from colleagues which included a saddle and a clock set in Welsh anthracite had been rejected.

Lord Callaghan told the programme: "He said, 'Do you know, you'll hardly believe this, but there is only one coffee pot at Windsor that will serve twelve cups of coffee, and so when we go to Balmoral we have to wrap it up in a bit of newspaper and take it with us.

"So Audrey, my wife, bought a very nice silver coffee pot that served twelve cups of coffee."

The Queen asked all the Cabinet to the palace for the presentation of the gift and later had their names engraved on the coffee pot.