The real Sophie scandal is that the gossip is not filthy enough
FRANK JOHNSON
It is too soon for any of us to be able to do justice to so vast a canvas as the Embarrassment of the Countess of Wessex; but herewith a few interim observations.
The News of the World's revelations, when at last they came on Sunday, were a disappointment. All week many of us had allowed ourselves to believe that they would be about the most senior members of the royal family. One does not have to be a republican to have looked forward to them. We monarchists believe that the monarchy is impregnable. Anyone who thinks it can be brought down by indiscretion is someone who regards it as what Disraeli, not referring to the monarchy, called 'a transient and embarrassed phantom'. In Britain, governments, political parties and premierships are transient and embarrassed phantoms. They rise, fall and succeed one another. The monarchy endures none of those things. To believe that it is in danger of doing so is to be not much of a monarchist. So it is safe for monarchists, as much as for anyone else, to enjoy gossip about the monarchy.
We may go further. We may argue that gossip about the royal family, by humanising them, makes the monarchy stronger. It makes them human. We find it easier to sympathise with humans than with abstractions. 'Constitutional monarchy' is an abstraction. A royal family with troubles and weaknesses, as well as strengths, is human. Hence constitutional monarchy is strengthened.
We should not follow the modern practice of regarding Bagehot on the monarchy as holy writ rather than just his opinion. He was a Whig-Liberal propagandist. He described what he thought the Victorian monarchy should be, not necessarily what it was. But he was on to something when he wrote of royal weddings, 'A royal marriage is the princely edition of a universal fact, and as such it rivets mankind.' Bagehot used 'rivets' here, not in the modern sense of an audience riveted to screen or page, but as binding, or riveting, together a sense of common experience. A royal family which gossips, or is the victim of gossip, also rivets mankind. Most of us gossip, and are gossiped about.
In that light, Mr Harkin — the Countess., partner in the wretched public-relations firm — turned out to be a pathetic gossip. The material with which he sought to impress the bogus Arab sheikh was next to useless. All week we had been led to believe that he would offer us tales of drugs and
gaiety. The implication was that the drugs and gay talk would be of drugs and gaiety among the royal family. True, he produces for the News of the World's sheikh the usual speculation about Prince Edward's preferences; but he turns out to know no more about the subject than the rest of us. Or, if he does, which we may doubt, he does not tell the 'sheikh'. He goes on to depict himself as a procurer, but for the 'sheikh', not for any British princes or princesses. But none of us is interested in the 'sheikh', except as a source of information about people in whom we are interested.
When we reach drugs, Mr Harkin says, 'I don't do lots of drugs, but, you know, the odd line of coke I quite like. . . . ' Here our patience with him should finally snap. Let us hope that the bogus sheikh's did too. We are not interested in whether Mr Halkin snorts the occasional line of cocaine, or whatever it is one does with cocaine. (For some of us, still, it has never been one of our vices, and we are not sure of the terminology.) We assume that, as a person whose living is in public relations, he would line the occasional snort every now and then. What all week we had allowed ourselves to believe was that the News of the World's tapes would have him saying something like, The Queen doesn't do lots of drugs, but, you know, the odd line of coke she quite likes.'
Mr Halkin and the Countess gossiped with the false sheikh because they thought it would help their firm win a contract. Apparently, it needs all the cash it can get because in the dark world of PR it is not a leading force. Little wonder it is not, considering the quality of the gossip it offers potential clients. Gossip is one of the services clients want from PR firms. If they relied on Mr Halkin, sheikhs would do better in a Canary Wharf media pub. Perhaps Mr Halkin has resigned for embarrassing not the monarchy
but the firm. The firm should issue a statement regretting that the poor quality of its gossip on this occasion has brought the firm into disrepute, and reassuring clients and potential clients that on every other occasion its gossip has been impeccably filthy.
This latest royal 'crisis', then, came about not because of what was said, but because of what for a week we were led to believe was said. Oddly, that is not the News of the World's fault. By publishing what was really said, it cleared the air. Nonetheless, crisis there was, if in the end a minor one. The Queen dealt with it with admirable ruthlessness. Her statement condemned the newspapers"entrapment, subterfuge, innuendo and untruths'. But that was not the statement's most important aspect. The palace, and government, condemn newspapers for that kind of thing all the time. Any reading of the rest of the statement must conclude that she was also ordering her son and daughter-in-law to find another line of work. Monarchs cannot always be loyal to favourites, or even — all of the time — to their own kin. The monarchy must come first. To that end, favourites, kin or loyal supporters must sometimes be rebuked; betrayed, even.
Most newspapers interpreted the statement as rebuking the Countess. So there was something heroic about the front-page headline of the most royalist of papers, the one for which I daily write, the Telegraph: 'The Queen Speaks Out For Sophie'. I know for sure that the Telegraph's royalism is truly held. It is of a piece with its view of God and Man. The Palace should reward it with a string of royal exclusives. But it will not. If the past is any guide, they will go to the papers which monarchy fears — the Sun, the News of the World and the Sunday Times — not to the paper that fears for the monarchy. Rightly so. Monarchs often have to sacrifice those most loyal. When Parliament demanded the head of Charles I's favourite, Strafford, the king sent Strafford to the block, not any parliamentarian.
If the Queen, or her son, finally decides to teach the press a lesson, the victim might well be not the editor of the News of the World. It may not be enough. 'The tabloids are still behaving appallingly, ma'am,' a Palace press spokesman will tell her. 'Only the Telegraph is saying that HRH Prince Philip is not gay. You must make the press fear you.'
Her Majesty: 'I will teach them a final lesson. Behead Charles Moore.'
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