Personality and image of Queen Elizabeth II

The image of Queen Elizabeth II has been generally favourable throughout the years. Conservative in dress, she is well known for her solid-colour overcoats and matching hats which allow her to be seen easily in a crowd. She attends many cultural events as part of her public role. Her main leisure interests include horse racing, photography, and dogs, especially her Pembroke Welsh corgis. Her views on political issues and other matters are largely subject to conjecture. She has never given a press interview and is otherwise not known to discuss her personal opinions publicly.

Much of what is known about Elizabeth's personality and views has been compiled from impressions and descriptions by those she has met. Canadian politician Michael Ignatieff remarked in 2010, after a private audience with the Queen, how he was struck by her "wonderful sense of the absurd" and noted her "sense of humour, that sense of the absurd, that sense of comedy of life has survived 60 years of gruelling public life." After a weekend at Balmoral Castle hosted by the Queen, Canadian Governor General Michaëlle Jean recounted witnessing a relaxed, informal home life: Elizabeth and her family preparing a meal together—including a salad dressing devised by the Queen—and doing the washing up afterwards. Lady Pamela Hicks, a cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, commented on Elizabeth's personality as "individualistic". Hicks' mother remembers back to when George VI died. Elizabeth was in Kenya with her husband when she found out, "I’m so sorry, but we are going to have to go back to England," she recalled Elizabeth saying.

Opinion polls have regularly shown that Queen Elizabeth II has an excellent approval rating; coinciding with her Diamond Jubilee, the Queen had an approval rate in the United Kingdom of 90% in 2012. According to a YouGov poll in January 2014, the Queen was the most admired person in the United Kingdom with 18.74% of respondents reporting that she was the person they most admired, the highest percentage of all candidates. Internationally she was the 17th most-admired person in the world.

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