. BUT THINGS ARE CHANGING
Nicholas Owen offers a television royal correspondent's view of the post-Diana monarchy THE BIG TEST for any spin doctors attendant upon Her Majesty may well come next year. The Queen could visit Ire- land. She would go to the part which sev- ered its links with the Crown in the Twenties and has since been the source of opposition to much of what this British institution stands for. It would be a tour humming with historical and political sig- nificance, when the potential for royal gaffes to muck things up will be very high. Spin doctors at Buckingham Palace and across St James's Park in Downing Street will burn much midnight oil as they pre- pare for the event. The job, at the Palace end, will definitely be in new hands by then. The point often missed lately is that the 'spinning' of the Queen and her court, the rebranding evi- dent since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, has mostly been the work of the old guard. If spinning Her Majesty means making her more accessible, more in touch with a 'broader range of people' — they avoid saying 'ordinary people', for who can be ordinary in this celebrity-crazed age? then that old guard must be puzzled. For what more can be done? In Malaysia, the Mother of the Common- wealth signed a football, endured a pop music recording, and coached very young Malaysians at an English lesson. Back home, on a tour of distant Cheshire, the royal car drew up beside the big 'M' sign, even if the Queen managed to avoid sam- pling a burger and fries. She did inspect yellow buckets in one store before dis- cussing the merits of rival training shoes in another.
After some prodding from No. 10 fol- lowing Diana's death, the ideas for this image-changing are executed by a press office team led by Geoff Crawford, a genial Australian who has spent much of his career in his country's diplomatic ser- vice. They are smiled upon by the Queen's private secretary for the last eight years, Sir Robert Fellowes, and his deputy Sir Robin Janvrin.
It was Crawford who went on the all- important 'recce' to Brunei and Malaysia preceding the Far East tour, widely thought afterwards to have been pleasingly successful. He was assisted by Mary Fran- cis, one of the Queen's assistant private secretaries, on secondment for the last couple of years from the Treasury.
They put the Queen's programme together with two objectives in mind. The first was to avoid the sort of flare-ups that turned last year's India and Pakistan expe- dition into a disaster. This was largely achieved by making sure Robin Cook had with him a Foreign Office minder — and Gaynor.
Second, and all-important, was the desire to show this new, switched-on monarchy in action. Palace people some- times make out that business is basically going on much as before, evolution carry- ing the Crown gently and sensibly forward. It is nonsense. Some fundamental changes have occurred. Once, State visits were to demonstrate and underline the fraternal feelings and respect of one nation for another. The pictures and stories sent back home were not intended to show the Queen as one of us. Now the need, appar- ently, is to do just that.
`Private' meetings are avoided. Reporters are no longer kept at a safe dis- tance. One or two often join the entourage to see and hear the exchanges with that `broad range of people'. Broadcasters are not stopped from picking up royal conver- sations. In the old days, any microphone held close enough to catch the words would be knocked aside — sometimes by police bodyguards, often by the Palace press staff themselves. Into this world of Queen-as-ordinary- person comes Simon Lewis, fortyish, fresh from spinning the often-maligned gas industry and paid much more than Alastair Campbell. Lewis had nothing to do with the Far East tour, so we have yet to see what will be proposed by the svelte man `I'm not entirely oblivious to the fact that you feel I'm too young for this appointment . . who, by all accounts, is close to the Blair circle.
I am told he got the job of communica- tions secretary largely because the Duke of Edinburgh was impressed by two points.
Lewis is eager to appear on television to defend the royal family publicly. Crawford did it in the week Diana died, but is not a natural. It seems Lewis also suggested reviving a lobby system to brief the broad- sheet newspapers regularly on develop- ments behind the Palace gates: classic spinning. I gather he may have dropped that idea already. That would be wise. Any routine that excludes the tabloids will only make them utterly determined to print other stories that will be 'far from helpful', as spinners might put it.
One step forward and one step back, therefore. To earn his large salary, Lewis will need other projects. The Buckingham Palace whispers are that he will try to ensure 'greater co-ordination between members of the royal family'. That is spin- code for curbing the chattering to select media types that the old guard suspects happens along the Mall in St James's Palace. The Prince of Wales's court some- times appears to be operating in rivalry. Centuries back, clashes of arms would have followed. Nowadays the battles are fought out over discreet lunch tables.
Simon Lewis may have a bigger and graver task ahead. Tony Blair's professed fondness for the Crown may ebb away, especially if the economy staggers seriously and ministers cast around for cutbacks and for top people to show they are ready to make sacrifices. It is quite possible that the Palace wunderkind will find himself falling out with his tough opposite numbers work- ing for the government.
All that may happen partly behind the scenes. Should Lewis go further, be bold, and persuade his 72-year-old Queen that against all her instincts the time has come to be interviewed? The Duke and Prince Charles do it occasionally, and so did Princess Diana, although every spin doctor knows that that was, again, not helpful.
But the Queen? 'She is such a pro,' one of her advisers said to me, discussing the advantages of having her discussions made available to the airwaves. However, Ma'am has said she would not submit to a John Humphrys-style interrogation. How about the Des O'Connor television show then? Tony Blair's staff were delighted when Mr Blair sat on the sofa and told mother-in- law jokes. Maybe Simon Lewis is the brave man who will suggest that, 46 years into her reign, the Queen could exchange quips about, say, the Queen Mother and what she gets up to on holiday.
Perhaps not. But he ought to get out the big folder marked 'Ireland' and start think- ing how to make that royal assignment a trouble-free triumph.
Nicholas Owen is ITN's royal correspondent and a presenter.
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