Her Majesty

by Robert Hardman

  The shocking death of Diana, Princess of Wales two years later was followed by a public reaction which surprised the media as much as it did the Royal Household. It was uncharted territory for both, the first royal event of the global twenty-four-hour television news era. Despite some of the rabble-rousing headlines in the run-up to the funeral – ‘SHOW US YOU CARE’ and so on – the experience had a cathartic effect on relations between the Prince of Wales and the press. When he travelled around southern Africa a few months later, with Prince Harry on board, he allowed a large media posse to accompany him in his plane. Harsher critics began to give him the benefit of the doubt, to focus more on his qualities as a father than as an ex-husband. But it was a slow process. The Queen’s press team were less keen on rapprochement. All that royal pain accumulated through the nineties would still take time to disappear. The Queen and Prince Philip were in no hurry to mend fences either. When the Queen came to celebrate her Golden Wedding anniversary in November 1997, the media was kept outside, barring a solitary seat among the two thousand available – for the Press Association. ‘Lack of space,’ explained the Queen’s new Press Secretary, Geoffrey Crawford. Two months earlier, the media had been assigned several rows of the same abbey for the Princess’s funeral. On some occasions, press arrangements harked back to the age of Colville. When the Queen went to open Sydney’s new 90,000-capacity Olympic Stadium in 2000, the stadium was empty but only a handful of cameras and reporters were admitted – to widespread guffaws. ‘Lack of space’ came the official explanation once again.

  Meanwhile, relations between the Palace and the BBC suffered another setback when the BBC announced that it would not be broadcasting the pageant for the Queen Mother’s one hundredth birthday, having originally indicated that it would. This gloriously chaotic carnival featuring all her three hundred patronages, from the Black Watch and the Special Forces Club to the Poultry Club and the Royal School of Needlework, was to be the highlight of her centenary celebrations and had long been planned for July 2000. The organiser of the event, Major Michael Parker, architect of the Royal Tournament and the great VE Day and VJ Day fiftieth anniversaries, had been happy to fit the event around the BBCI schedules. The Palace hoped that live coverage would ensure that the event was enjoyed by more than the 12,000 people who could safely be accommodated on Horse Guards Parade. With two months to go, the BBC pulled the plug completely. It was a baffling decision which surprised many within the BBC itself. It then became a political issue when the Conservative leadership accused Corporation executives of being ‘out of touch’. Officially, the BBC explained that it was covering a Service of Thanksgiving for the Queen Mother’s one hundred years and, besides, the pageant would clash with its popular soap opera Neighbours. Major Parker offered to reschedule his event to suit Neighbours but the BBC held firm. Publicly, the Palace described the decision as ‘an internal matter for the BBC’. Privately, they were dismayed. It looked like yet another case of the monarchy being sidelined by the prevailing ‘Cool Britannia’ orthodoxy within the new political and media establishments. The new BBC Director General, Greg Dyke, a card-carrying Labour supporter, had just arrived and was keen to make his mark. It was only a few months since the excruciating Millennium Eve opening of the Dome. ‘Old Britain’ had never felt older. But the matter was not quite dead. A young executive at Carlton Television, London’s independent station, spotted an opportunity to trounce the BBC. Carlton’s track record with royal programming had not been a great one. In January 1997, the station had screened a shambolic nationwide debate on the monarchy which had left everyone involved faintly embarrassed. One Government Minister had been so appalled by the bearpit atmosphere that he walked out before the start. Here was an opportunity for redemption.

  That quick-thinking executive was David Cameron, then Carlton’s head of corporate affairs (he would enter Parliament the following year). And during the weekend following the BBC’s decision, several ITV bosses received a call from the thirty-three-year-old future Prime Minister. Would they think about tearing up their schedules and reminding the nation that the BBC did not have a God-given right to screen all royal landmarks? They were all ears, as was Major Parker. More than a decade later, the Prime Minister is modest about his role in saving The Queen Mother at 100. ‘I think I just got the ball rolling, making a couple of calls and getting the interest of the boss and everything followed,’ recalls Cameron happily. ‘It was an opportunity for us. There were a lot of events like that where ITV just thought: “The BBC’s got it so we never will.”’

  It was utter chaos on the day. Bomb scares at several London railway stations meant that a morning rehearsal had to be cancelled and Major Parker had no choice but to send 8,000 civilians and 2,500 soldiers on parade in front of live television cameras with his fingers crossed. ‘It all came out quite fresh,’ he admits. But the results were astonishing. The two-hour live production gave ITV its highest early evening audience in seven years. More than seven million viewers tuned in followed by a further five million who watched the evening highlights. Over on the BBC, the allegedly untouchable Neighbours drew just 3.5 million viewers. Major Parker became Sir Michael before the year was out (his knighthood was not from the government but a KCVO – a personal gift from the Queen). It was all highly embarrassing for the BBC and a timely reminder of the true extent of grassroots affection for the monarchy.

  There was a similar misjudgement on Easter Saturday two years later when the news came through that the Queen Mother had died. The BBC newsroom had been rehearsing the event for years, and kept a stock of dark suits and black ties for precisely this sort of occasion. But, come the moment, as with the pageant, the senior management made the mistake of assuming that mainstream Britain thought as they did. ‘Don’t go overboard,’ the duty editor told newsreader Peter Sissons as he prepared to inform the nation. ‘She’s a very old woman who had to go some time.’ As Sissons recalls in his memoirs, he was also told to wear a burgundy tie rather than a black one. It was the wrong call. But the BBC was not alone. The following day, many papers and the twenty-four-hour news channels were comparing public reactions to the Queen Mother’s death with the scenes which followed the loss of Diana, Princess of Wales. The inference was that Britain cared more for the Princess than the last Empress. Aside from the obvious differences between the accidental death of a woman in her thirties and the departure of a centenarian, they had neglected to observe that the days immediately after the Princess’s death had been subdued, too. A week later, as people queued for miles through the night to file past the Queen Mother’s coffin, the comparisons disappeared.

  But there was an upside to all this. The broadcasters and the Palace were finalising their plans for the Golden Jubilee celebrations two months later. Sure enough, the BBC would not make the same mistake again. Greg Dyke and his managers gave producers the freedom to ‘go overboard’ as the big jubilee weekend approached. This was not a job for the more politically sensitive news operation but for BBC Events, the department which has produced all the big national and global set-piece occasions from Live Aid to Prince William’s wedding. It duly rose to the occasion, winning awards and acclaim for its well-judged blend of affection and professional detachment. The scenes were momentous and the BBC’s stirring footage would go on to serve as the main video content of London’s bid to secure the 2012 Olympics. The underlying message was simple: ‘Any city that can lay on a party like this can certainly stage an Olympics.’ When the winning name came out of the envelope, it was obvious that the International Olympic Committee had agreed.

  The Palace’s relations with the media were picking up. But there were still internal issues to be resolved. It had become an open secret that the Buckingham Palace press team were at odds with the Prince of Wales’s own operation across the road at St James’s Palace, particularly the Prince’s Deputy Private Secretary and de facto lobbyist Mark Bolland. Many inside Buckingham Palace felt that Bolland was sometimes promoting his master – and the futur
e Duchess of Cornwall – at the expense of other members of the family. But even Bolland’s critics had to concede that his work had paid off as widespread goodwill greeted the Prince’s marriage to the Duchess in 2005. By then, however, Bolland had left to start his own consultancy and the tensions between the two palaces subsided. Today, the old rivalries have gone. The Queen’s staff might use Red Boxes while the Prince’s are green. Her household might write menus in French whereas his are in English. But when it comes to communications (as Commander Colville would never have described his job) the prime strategy is a collegiate and uncomplicated one. It’s that ‘Mon United’ idea again.

  As for the relationship with the press, it is now workmanlike and, arguably, as stable as it has been at any time since the mid-eighties. The Palace is not taking anything for granted. There is no complacency about happy headlines lasting for ever. Ever since former royal butler Paul Burrell made substantial sums selling his story, the Palace lawyers have tightened up their confidentiality clauses. Not only can staff be sued for indiscretion but they can be liable for indiscretions by others. If a chance remark to a gossipy aunt ends up in the papers, there will be trouble.

  The British media is now adjusting to a new royal landscape with a glamorous addition to the regular royal narrative. The hyperbole of yesteryear has given way to more measured coverage at home but the level of global interest in the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge has shown that the world’s appetite for a major royal production like a royal wedding is undiminished. Given the media circus which surrounded his mother and the paparazzi car chase which led to her death, Prince William, quite understandably, has a visceral antipathy to all forms of media intrusion. His engagement, stag night and wedding preparations were conducted with all the stealth tactics of a covert military operation. Yet he has endured less harassment than his father experienced during his own youth. And he has managed to maintain a largely satisfactory trade-off with the mainstream media, offering occasional photo-opportunities in return for relative peace. Whether that equilibrium can be maintained now that the Cambridges are a fresh global media phenomenon remains to be seen. What is beyond doubt is that the Duke of Cambridge will be in no mood for compromise, particularly when it comes to the privacy of the Duchess.

  There are, on the other hand, some media executives and editors who choose to assume that the monarchy has ceased to be of any great interest or relevance to the general public. It can be a dangerous assumption. In 2007, the BBC produced a publicity trailer for the five-part A Year with the Queen, the most extensive royal documentary series ever made. The trailer was a brief collage of highlights, one of which appeared to feature the extraordinary sight of an angry Queen marching out of a photo-shoot with the American photographer Annie Leibovitz. In fact, the Queen had been expressing irritation before the photography had started because Leibovitz had asked her to wear the cumbersome regalia of the Order of the Garter. Having struggled into her robes and ribbons, and after voicing her irritation, the Queen then soldiered on with the shoot like a true professional.

  So how did the trailer get it all wrong? It turned out that the scene had been re-edited by the production company for internal use. The result had somehow ended up in a selection of promotional clips sent to the BBC. This seemingly momentous royal explosion should have set alarm bells ringing, yet it was never checked with anyone who actually knew what had happened. Instead, the scene was simply unveiled at a press conference.

  The blunder cost two senior BBC executives their jobs, nearly sank the production company and forced the entire broadcasting industry to undergo a prolonged spell of therapy. In truth, there had been no intention to deceive. This was cock-up, not conspiracy, but it showed the folly of thinking that the monarchy can be handled as casually as any other reality show. Some members of the media like to describe the Royal Family as a soap opera. The mistake is to treat it as one.

  The Queen will never allow another director to get as close as Cawston or Mirzoeff, but she and her staff know that the monarchy must continue ‘to be seen to be believed’, that the ‘key driver’ of relevance is an ongoing process. The trade-off, as ever, is access. The result is the occasional high-profile quality documentary series such as Queen and Country, The Queen at 80 and Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work.* None of these more recent films has managed to record a family barbecue or a cosy chat with the Queen about her postbag. But it doesn’t matter. People do not expect to be surprised by her. They have a very firm idea of the sort of person the Queen is and they are very comfortable with it. For a society in thrall to the makeover and the relentless pursuit for the ‘new’, the Queen is reassuringly identical to the Sovereign whom millions saw tasting her son’s salad dressing back in 1969. Hers is a world which continues to change while the central figure remains resolutely the same. It is what we expect of our Queen. However, should she ever decide to throw another pair of tennis shoes at Prince Philip on camera, it is unlikely that today’s cameraman will cheerfully surrender the tape.

  * The act of placing the sword on the shoulders is known as the accolade – from the Latin ad collum (to the neck). Officially, a knight is not ‘Sir’ until the accolade is given. Because of the accolade’s military connotations and battlefield origins, clergymen cannot receive the accolade because they are ‘men of God’. If they become knights, they do not become ‘Sir X’- and their wives do not become ‘Lady X’. The exclusion only applies to Anglican ministers – a curious example of the Supreme Governor of the Church of England discriminating against her own Church.

  * The barbecue has been a royal staple ever since the Duke saw his first one in Finland. ‘It was a great way of bringing the family together and that has developed as time goes on,’ says the Duke of York. ‘We all have to do it now. If the Duke of Edinburgh isn’t there or he doesn’t want to do it, he says: “You do it.”’

  * Despite the disastrous trailer, A Year with the Queen was completed and successfully broadcast as Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work. Here the author must declare an interest. He wrote it.

  7

  Her and Us

  ‘Happy people are why you are in the Happy People Business.’

  Lieutenant Colonel Gordon Birdwood and his little team are ‘hunter-gathering’ in the Palace garden. So far, they have snared a pretty good bag – a trio of commissioners from the Girl Guides and a young Royal Naval officer and his wife for the Queen. As for the Duke of Edinburgh, they have a couple of Water Rats and four ladies from the Air League. But they will need to keep on hunting. It’s going to be a long afternoon and the Queen and the Duke will expect to meet several hundred people between the moment they arrive on the Palace lawn and the moment they enter the Royal Tent for a cup of tea. From a distance, any monarch since Queen Victoria would instantly recognise this gathering. The royal garden party has been a staple of the summer season for more than a century. Aside from the clothes – fewer morning coats, fewer hats, shorter skirts – it looks much as it did when the Queen was a little girl. It sounds much the same, too – the clink of teaspoon on porcelain over a medley of popular tunes from the Band of the Irish Guards in one corner of the garden, alternating with the RAF Squadronaires in the other. Like everything else around here, of course, the way the Queen interacts with the rest of us is reassuringly familiar – except that it is completely different. From the way she draws up her guest lists to the way she sends her invitations, serves her food, hands out her honours, tours her countries, chooses her representatives and opens up her property, the relationship between our Queen and us has changed with no one noticing. No one, that is, except the Queen.

  At the start of her reign, this lawn would have been covered with debutantes, members of the county set and people wearing uniforms or mayoral chains. Today, it is just the uniforms and the mayoral chains which survive, although the latter are unlikely to get a royal introduction. ‘I’m not looking for people who have already met members of the Royal Family,’ says Birdwood. ‘So I don’t want Lo
rd-Lieutenants, High Sheriffs or commanding officers. We’re after troopers and senior ratings and people who might be backward in coming forward rather than people who are forward in coming forward.’

  Birdwood is one of the Queen’s Gentlemen Ushers, that utterly dependable band of retired senior officers who, on occasions such as this, help things along and steer people in and out of the royal trajectory as effortlessly as possible. Today they must select suitable guests for the Queen and her family to meet. And by ‘suitable’ they are not referring to their rank or the shine of their shoes. ‘Clothes are immaterial. You get some fantastic people who are really scruffily dressed,’ says Birdwood who will soon be promoted to Senior Gentleman Usher. He simply wants people who will enjoy talking to the Queen and who won’t clam up. ‘And you don’t want her meeting three groups of submariners in a row.’

  The garden party is the largest event in the Queen’s social repertoire. There are four main ones every summer, three at Buckingham Palace and one at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh. With a few exceptions, guests are never invited more than once, the argument being that it really is a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience for as many as possible. Roughly 9,000 people will be asked to each one and around 8,000 people will turn up (the numbers are slightly higher for Edinburgh). They don’t talk about ‘refusals’. The Lord Chamberlain’s Office, which sends out garden party invitations, refers to ‘declinature’. Inevitably, infirmity and distance keep some people away. But it means that, during the course of her reign, the Queen has had two million people to tea.

  The guest list is a sociological work of art which takes a small, parttime team – the Garden Party Ladies – months of planning in a Palace basement. For each party, there will be 1,200–1,500 ‘sponsors’, organisations which have a ration of invitations. These range from charities to government departments which are then supposed to scatter royal recognition as widely as possible in their own sphere. The Scottish Office, for example, receives 1,500 invitations each year whereas a tiny charity might get a quota of two invitations every three years. The Lord-Lieutenants will also feed in their own suggestions.