John Stonborough F.C.I.P.R.

Reign on HR Parade

Normally I don’t give a damn, despite the fact that I have met most of players. But on this occasion, it didn’t need the Daily Mail to tell me that a great many people were aghast at the Duchess of Cornwall attending the Princess Diana Memorial on Friday. Until this row, people were getting used to Camilla – about the worst thing anyone’s said is that she is a bit idle. And Prince Charles has seemed much happier since he married her. The End, at last of a ghastly chapter and nothing to think about until the Succession.

And then Clarence House and the Prince set off this Category 5 PR balls up. It wasn’t hate mail they were getting by the sack load, it was post from a shocked populace. How could Camilla possibly attend the memorial – (I don’t think I need to re-hash the circumstances) Yes it was sweet of her husband to want his wife at his side, yes it was sweet of the princes to want to show a kind of family unity by inviting her – though I wonder what they really think. But no it wasn’t sweet or clever of Clarence House even to countenance it for a moment. Saving clients (be they aspirant kings, top politicians or CEO’s) from their own stupidity is a fundamental PR job. Its not easy and I should know. Being an advisor is not a popularity contest and you should be prepared to resign if you truly believe a course of action to be foolhardy, criminal or as in this instance, perverse.

Please, I kept saying to myself, please can Camilla have a diplomatic snuffle, a cough, shingles, anything, on the day and so avoid being there. Better still (and more honest) would be to have issued a short statement saying that it would not be appropriate to attend. The country would have appreciated that and her tenuous popularity enhanced. I am sure all this was discussed endlessly but nobody had the balls to stand up to the Prince himself and say, either she stays home chum, or I leave the job.

Today I read that The Spirit of Wisdom and Good Sense in the shape of our Queen has stepped in. She may not have liked Diana much, but she wasn’t about to allow another hate fest against her eldest son’s second wife – something he seemed quite prepared to allow, perhaps because as he once told me, he never reads the papers. Get reading, Sir.

The truth with a pinch of salt.

That last blog, back in May (I know I know, time just slips by) was very prescient. Who would have believed that the BBC and the other broadcasters would stumble so badly in the weeks since then? Even Blue Peter for Heaven’s sake tried to scam a quiz result and who couldn’t fail to be shocked when somebody doctored a bit of film about the Queen! I hear some old geezers (like me) who worked at the Beeb in the dim distant, chundering on about producers nowadays not coming from a BBC news and current affairs background. But that is no excuse, doctoring the evidence is doctoring the evidence what ever background you come from. It makes you wonder just how much else is fiddled with now that whole programmes are edited on lap tops on the kitchen table. And you know, I find spicing up the truth with a pinch of salt much more serious than pretending that somebody has won a phone-in quiz, when they haven’t. Why?, because that is, often as not, done out of panic as a live show unravels. But to sit in front of a pc and wilfully and maliciously shift the truth a nudge to the left or right with a mouse. That is in a wholly different league.