A front row to history

Picture: Twitter/British Army

The flags have returned to full mast. Television presenters are wearing colour again. Politicians are back on our airwaves spinning their way through the cost of living crisis. Life after 12 extraordinary days is back to normal. 

“Don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to something else,” crowed the predictable tweets from the more reactionary quarters of social media last night as the Queen’s funeral, and a week and a half of blanket coverage of what has been, without wishing to sound hyperbolic, a properly historic event, came to an end.

On a superficial level, the days since news broke on 8 September of the Queen’s death have shown British pomp and circumstance at its most baffling. Anyone of a republican point of view, or simply indifferent to the role of monarchy in a modern democratic society will have found the enforced lockdown of anything extravagant in the wake of a frail 96-year-old’s death absurd: the abandoning of broadcast schedules, on-air presenters dressed uniformly in black, filling hours of rescheduled rolling programming with nothing but conjecture and babble.

Picture: The Royal Family

But to many, many more, the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and the accession of King Charles has been nothing short of history unfolding before us. From the moment daytime TV was interrupted by grave-looking newsreaders dressed in black, standing in front of Buckingham Palace, the auspicious moments kept coming. They were captured on live television in a manner no monarchic transition in Britain’s long regal history has ever previously witnessed: we were there at Balmoral when The Firm’s senior team arrived in united grief; there when the Queen’s body was transported to Edinburgh and there when it landed at RAF Northolt, emerging from the loading ramp of a giant, slate-grey Globemaster transport aircraft. We were there as it was driven slowly through rain-soaked west London streets to Westminster. There when more than a quarter of a million people queued for hours on end to see the late monarch lying in state, itself a demonstration of endurance, unquestioning loyalty and quirky fanaticism. We were there when the new King signed registers, met the newly-installed prime minister, and shook countless strangers’ hands in the devolved provinces. There as two estranged brothers and their wives went walkabout in Windsor. And there, finally, as members of an estimated five billion-strong worldwide audience tuned in for a six-hour funeral.

An opinion poll published shortly before the Queen’s death suggested that more than 60% of the UK was broadly in favour of the monarchy. In the days since, that manifested itself at the expense of anything else getting a look-in on the news agenda. Liz Truss, in post for just two days before HMTQ popped her clogs, had barely got going with her new agenda before she was reduced, temporarily, to a bit part role in the nation’s fabric. If nothing else, the mourning period gave us respite from the relentless churn of politics that have consumed our media for…well, forever.

The billions watching around the world, not to mention the tens of thousands who lined the funeral cortege route from Westminster to Windsor, on top of the thousands who assembled before giant screens in municipal parks, gave credence to the belief that the Queen’s death meant a lot to many, even those in places where she’d only ever been heard of. 

She was “the world’s Queen”, a remarkable comment, given both the political systems in place int the free and not so free world, but also our own post-imperial, ‘Little Britain’ inferiority complex. Somehow she even transcended her own status - an unelected head of state in several nations, featuring on at least 30 currencies, and with one of the wealthiest portfolios of any individuals on the planet. And, yet, when she said “We will meet again” in that resonant address during the pandemic, she touched further and deeper than any politician did during the crisis. There was a reason why, over these days, we’ve seen and heard endless vox pops conducted in high streets and market squares saying more or less the same thing - that they’d miss - in no particular order - her smile, her duty, her constancy.

If that hadn’t affected you, then the lump-inducing notes from the lone piper in Windsor’s St. George’s Chapel yesterday as they faded away provided the eeriest of musical beds for the lowering of the Queen’s coffin into the chapel’s vault. Anyone who has ever attended the funeral of a loved one will know that awful, irreversible moment of goodbye. It was etched on the face of King Charles as the camera framed him. I challenge anyone not to have been moved by it, or anyone not to have empathy for his family.  

Wherever you stand on monarchy, there’s no escaping the fact that we’ve emerged from an incredible period of our nation’s history. The “ending of the second Elizabethan Era” has a grandeur to it, but it would be fascinating to know how historians will regard it decades or centuries from now. Television has amplified it: when the Queen ascended the throne in 1952, and was crowned in June 1953, hardly anyone had TV sets. At the end of her life, we’ve got them all in our pockets. Yesterday I spent the better part of ten hours in front of our TV, from the build-up to the funeral to its conclusion. Believe me, I’m no rampant monarchist, but I know a once-in-a-lifetime event when I see one. On various levels it was fascinating - the application of long planned-for protocols, arcane traditions, the single greatest collection of world leaders ever assembled, the mass of people turning out for one person. And this on top of moments such as Charles and his siblings resembling human waxworks for their 15-minute vigil at Westminster Hall, as members of the general public filed past, some in disbelief as to who they were seeing before them.

It was all part of a celebration of a life as much as commemoration of a long life lost. The hats, the outfits, the smiles, the corgis, the appearances with James Bond and Paddington Bear, the waving - there is a lot we’ll miss.

Picture: Twitter/The Royal Family

Can't wait for Season 21 of The Crown!

Picture: Instagram/@sussexroyal

Finally, we plunged in. After two complete seasons of the media raving about The Crown, with even me living down the road from the Old Naval College in Greenwich (where exterior scenes of Buckingham Palace for it were filmed), my girlfriend and I started bingeing the Netflix series over Christmas. As a battle-hardened veteran of The Sopranos and Breaking Bad box sets, I’ve always been somewhat averse to soapy shows that might appeal more to Hello! readers rather than gritty drama. Even more, I've always been wary of dramatisations of contemporary stories, especially involving actors playing real people who are still alive (they never seem to get the casting right). On top of this, most previous attempts at portraying the royals in film and television have invariably been awful, Helen Mirren in The Queen being a noted exception.

But in we went - and I’ve been pleasantly surprised by what we’ve watched so far. The casting has been almost exclusively terrific (standout performances by Claire Foy as the younger Queen Elizabeth and John Lithgow mesmerising as Winston Churchill), but more importantly, there has been less of a soap opera about it all and more an insightful depiction of British and global history in the second half of the 20th century. Episodes in the first two seasons have covered the Second World War, Suez, the Kennedy assassination, the complexities of royal heritage and duty, Churchill’s demise and the prescient scramble to succeed him within the Tory party, and even the suggested Nazi associations of the Duke of Windsor, the abdicated king. Like The Sopranos - and with clear parallels to an established family structure being challenged by modernity and its own moral ambiguities - The Crown has thus far been rip-roaring entertainment and thoroughly addictive. So, given last night’s blockbuster news that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex - Harry and Meghan, to you and me - are to "step back as 'senior' members of the Royal Family" and "work to become financially independent", you wonder how, in future seasons of The Crown, the royal soap opera that has periodically spilled into public life over the last 30 years will be portrayed by the show.

I don’t wish to be flippant. Every family has its rifts, and the Royal Family - while essentially being also a ‘firm’ - is not immune to them. As The Crown has depicted (and, so I’m informed, faithfully), the frustrations Prince Philip had as royal consort and Princess Margaret endured as the Queen’s sole sibling are possibly no different to those Harry and Meghan have now brought to a head. I’m no staunch royalist, but then again, I have no strong feelings about the royal family’s existence. For the most part, they’re good for the nation. It's not defensive PR spin to say that the royals contribute positively to the British tourist economy - you only have to listen to the gushing coming from coachloads of Chinese tourists as they press their noses up to the railings of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle - even if there is an increasing sense of republican scorn (on Twitter, obviously, but also in the readers' comments of the discreetly anti-royal Mail Online). Here, Harry and Meghan have run themselves into trouble. Flying on private jets while preaching about climate change is downright provocative, making the flak they're now facing over living rent-free in Frogmore Cottage (for now) which was renovated at a cost to the taxpayer of £2.4 million, understandable.

However, their very public and, it would appear, premature, flounce from the Royal Family has been coming. Harry has never been a fan of media scrutiny, both because it cost him his mother but also because it encroached on him personally, and by marrying a successful American actress, whose career thrived on publicity, fault lines were increasingly being exposed as he grew further into his 30s, especially with no clear royal role for himself. That the couple chose to spend six weeks out of the spotlight as what has been termed "a break" from royal life, should have been seen as a precursor to last night's announcement, modishly issued via Instagram. Rumours had been circling for a while that they might be considering relocating to Canada, and the sight of the couple on Tuesday visiting Canada House in London to thank the country for its "hospitality" during their Christmas holidays with Meghan's mother should have been a clue as to their mindset. The big shock, however, is that their announcement came without the knowledge of Buckingham Palace. Royal insiders have expressed genuine dismay, suggesting that the Queen herself was blindsided. Perhaps worse, still, not even Prince Charles was aware, a strange situation since you'd have thought his youngest son would have at least floated the plan in advance. The Palace's official statement, carefully written but full of nuance, said that discussions with Harry and Meghan on their decision to step back were "at an early stage" and that: "We understand their desire to take a different approach, but these are complicated issues that will take time to work through." Not only a signal that the Sussexes had jumped the gun, but that their cry for freedom was not going to be relieved easily.

These are, then troubling times for the Royal Family. Not quite existential-troubling, but not far off. 2019 was, in the history of royal anni horribiles, a peach: Prince Philip's actual car crash last January was eclipsed by his second son's metaphorical car crash on Newsnight in November; an apparent rift appeared between Princes William and Harry as the latter broke away from the Cambridge's foundation in June; and, then, there have been continuing attacks on the tabloid press by Harry and Meghan suing the Mail On Sunday over the publication of a handwritten letter she had sent her estranged father. As someone who has spent most of his working life in corporate PR, I know that nothing ever happens publically without good reason. It's normally just a good idea to be in full control. For the most part, Buckingham Palace is normally in control. The Crown has faithfully depicted many of these episodes. The Queen's 2019 Christmas speech, accompanied by carefully arranged and deliberately selected pictures of members of her family - but notably sans Harry and Meghan - was no accident. The Sussexes are said to be less than happy about that. And then the release on Instagram of a staged portrait of the Queen, Prince Charles, Prince William and Prince George, was a very clear statement of succession, even with Charles standing on a step and appearing taller than his lanky eldest son (Charles is not tall - I know, I've met him). This is being interpreted as part of the inevitable succession of the crown: Charles is said to be thinking of restructuring the family firm, slimming it down and giving it greater social relevance in the 21st century as one of the last functioning monarchies in the world. That process has already begun, effectively, with Prince Philip officially retiring from royal duties last August at the age of 96, and his second son, Andrew, being retired involuntarily following that Newsnight interview. Harry following suit, "while 'continuing to honour our duty to the Queen, the Commonwealth, and our patronages'," reduces the First Team squad even further, though this is a little like Chelsea shedding one ageing player, losing another to a failed drug test, and Eden Hazard moving to Real Madrid.

Few can blame Harry and Meghan for wanting a different life for themselves and their son Archie. Harry, in particular, has had to bear the burden of unwanted attention since birth, inflamed by his mother’s death, and then having to endure living in his brother’s shadow as a young adult. His brief tours of duty in Afghanistan may have given him an outlet for fraternal company, but he was merely following royal tradition (his uncle, Andrew, spent the Falklands War piloting Sea King helicopters as decoys for Argentinian Exocet missiles). What gets under the public skin, however, is money. We pay for the royals whether we like them or not. Choosing to just not be one should be something that is discussed, discreetly. No wonder it has caused the Queen "disappointment and hurt", according to sources. Princess Margaret's portrayal as a younger woman in The Crown as a society player struggling to find purpose as the monarch's sister, holds many parallels for Harry today. The press obsession with his mother (which, incredibly, continues today in the UK's mid-market tabloids) has inevitably and tragically informed his view of how the media has treated his own wife. With, now, a baby son in their midst, it would appear that this particular redhead has conformed to stereotype and gone rogue. Good luck to him, I say. It does make the prospect of future episodes of The Crown even more enticing. Just don't expect Meghan to play herself.

The longest road accident in history - and it’s not over yet

Picture: BBC

It is Friday, by my reckoning, which means it is now a week since news surfaced that Prince Andrew, Duke of York, KG, GCVO, CD, ADC(P) and Vice-Admiral, Royal Navy, had granted the BBC an interview that would hopefully clarify his relationship with the now-deceased paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. One week on, the news cycle shows no signs of abatement. In the interim, Andrew’s interview with Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis has gone to air and, rather than quelling interest in his association with Epstein, has opened up a whole world of hurt about the duke’s lifestyle, expenditure, domestic arrangements and health, and afforded Woking a publicity jaunt that it was rather hoping would have just been provided by the launch of the Beeb’s new dramatisation of The War Of The Worlds, which kicks off just outside the Surrey town.

Standard Operating Procedure for anyone in the PR business is that when a reputational crisis breaks, you do all you can to reduce its impact, to diminish its effect, to get a grip on the news agenda and hopefully tackle the subject matter so that it runs out of steam of its own accord. Well, that’s the theory. What has happened with Prince Andrew is the media equivalent of an Atlantic hurricane gaining strength and even acquiring new energy somewhere over the Azores. The big difference is that normally such storms are reduced to torrential rain and winds causing disruption to the rail network by the time they reach British shores. In the case of Andrew, this tropical depression has spiralled out of control.

As someone who has spent the last 25 years (bar the last month or two...) in corporate communications it’s easy to be the ‘Monday morning quarterback’ on a story like this. But, sometimes, a crisis is so heaving that it never goes away. That is probably where we are in the case of Prince Andrew. Those of us who ply their trade in PR will have been in nodding unison over the last seven days at how all of the best-practice wisdoms of the industry have been blown into the gutter like autumn leaves as Andrew's attempt to repair his reputation backfired spectacularly. Indeed, anyone (including me) who has crowbarred into a PowerPoint presentation Warren Buffet's much used quote about reputations taking 20 years to build and 20 minutes to destroy will have been grinning sagely at the smarts of such a notion of the fragility of public perception.

It must start with the decision in the first place to do the interview with Maitlis. 2019 is clearly turning out to be another annus horribilis for the Royal Family, what with the Duke of Edinburgh’s automotive tribulations, his grandson Harry’s self-declared war on the media (somewhat justified, given the weirdly obsessive attention afforded he and Meghan by the Mail group turning themselves inside-out to find another angle) and the reporting of a certain froideur between the Cambridge and Sussex households. The last thing the 93-year-old Queen needed was her somewhat casual second (and, it is rumoured, favourite) son becoming embroiled in an association with a particularly repellent individual like Epstein, replete with compromising photographs of the duke with his arm apparently around the waist of Virginia Guiffre, née Roberts, who, she alleges, was trafficked by Epstein for the sexual gratification of his associates (“He knows what he has done,” she has said of Andrew, whose own comment on the alleged incident was: “It didn’t happen. I can absolutely categorically tell you it never happened”). In the words of Dickie Arbiter, the veteran royal correspondent and former Buckingham Palace spokesperson, it was an “excruciating” interview. “My guess is that he bulldozed his way in and decided he was going to do it himself without any advice,” he told the BBC. “Any sensible-thinking person in the PR business would have thrown their hands up in horror.”

Picture: BBC

This is not the first time that a member of the royal family has been embroiled in foul matters of the flesh (and that story about the true identity of Jack The Ripper has never really gone away), and given the track record of all our monarchs and their scions over the centuries, ‘Randy’ Andy’s alleged behaviour as the party prince will probably pale by historic comparison. Not that I’m endorsing or apologising for anything he is supposed to have done. But moral judgements aside, the bit I’m most interested in is the decision to take up the BBC’s offer of an interview to begin with. Ever since the first stories appeared of Andrew’s relationship with Epstein, there wouldn’t have been a television channel, radio station, newspaper, magazine or website that wouldn’t have wanted an opportunity to ask the prince to explain himself on the record. But even with the interest - and coverage - reaching cacophony level in recent weeks, even giving Harry and Meghan some respite from their own battles with the press, there was still no reason to cave in. 

Rightly or wrongly, the royals are never like us. They’re not meant to be approachable, accessible. They’re meant to exist as noble national figureheads. The accountability that other public figures - politicians, business leaders, senior clergy - are expected to provide has never been in the royal brief. So, whatever internal PR advice within Buckingham Palace was being offered or even imposed, someone - perhaps Andrew himself - stupidly ignored it and mistakenly agreed to sit down with Maitlis, some months, we understand, since Newsnight first proposed that they did.

If this was a choice based on the fact that alternatives - the atrocious egomaniac that is Piers Morgan comes immediately to mind - would have given an even more pugilistic encounter, they were patently wrong. In fact, Maitlis, a formidable interviewer, gave Andrew a fairly measured ride. And yet still he messed it up, chortling in some of his replies to serious questions about his friendship with Epstein, and making trite remarks about how he “kicks himself daily” for not ending the relationship sooner. And, still, no contrition at all about those Epstein is alleged to have trafficked and facilitated the abuse of, including the as-yet unexplained relationship with Guiffre-Roberts, who has recorded a BBC Panorama interview that is only going to extend the news cycle into a second full week. 

It was without doubt one of the worst interviews ever given by a public figure trying to extricate himself from scandal. In the meantime, Andrew has been withdrawn/is withdrawing from public duties. To all intents and purposes, his mum has sacked him, albeit - we read - with his elder brother’s influence. Charles, currently on a royal tour in New Zealand, could not have been flying the flag at a worse time. And with the Queen gradually handing over greater responsibility to her heir, it presented him with an opportunity to exert his authority. This might sound like fratricide, or even the sort of Machiavellian politics normally found in an episode of The Sopranos, but it perhaps proves that the House of Windsor has learned from the anni horribiles of 1992 and 1997 - the former being the original of the species, the latter being the year of Princess Diana’s death. As grim as those periods were, the royal family learned vital lessons in how they managed their PR, with the Queen herself proving to be more of a moderniser than anyone gave her credit for. And that includes her appearance with Daniel Craig in that James Bond skit for the London Olympics. 

The Queen’s decisive action to fire her own son is brutal, but effectively smashes the glass to put out a real fire that was in danger of doing serious damage to the entire royal operation. We might have sympathy for Andrew, but ultimately his lifestyle, and seemingly directionless career since he left the Royal Navy in 2001, brought this on himself. Choosing to address it on camera was the mistake that unravelled it. It certainly wouldn’t have been my advice to a CEO, knowing that the media properties of the notoriously republican Murdoch and Rothermere families would have erupted into a feeding frenzy that stupidly even managed to knock a general election no one wanted off the front pages. Actually, make that the front several pages, and counting. A week later.

Last Sunday, the front page headlines chimed in unison: “Not one single word of remorse” (Mail on Sunday), “No sweat . . . no regret” (Sunday Mirror), and “I didn’t have sex with a teen, I was at home after a pizza party” (Observer). A week on and even the normally impassive Times has run ten separate stories today on the duke’s denouement, including new angles and the outcome of a YouGov survey revealing that only 6% of the 1600 people questioned believed Andrew was telling the truth. No wonder corporate sponsors of the duke’s various philanthropic ventures have been quietly and not-so quietly walking away.

Now, that is precisely what Andrew himself needs to do. His brutal removal from frontline royal duties means that he will now be reduced to cameos on the Buckingham Palace balcony during Trooping The Colour, though I imagine plans are already in place to smuggle him in to church on Christmas Day for The Firm’s traditional outing en masse. But, to return to the central premise of this post, it’s about PR, not royal duty. Andrew’s actions have affected the corporate reputation of the royal family, and that, in corporate or regal life, cannot be countenanced. The story isn’t over, still, with the very real risk of US investigators probing Epstein and his associates looming. “If push came to shove and the legal advice was to do so, then I would be duty bound to do so [be investigated],” Andrew told Maitlis in the interview. Again, no contrition, just a man sinking ever further into quicksand that was quite demonstrably signposted.