Royal rumours

'The public demands openness'

Denials on behalf of Prince Charles have only fuelled speculation
Sunday Times Editorial, November 9

"Until Thursday night, when Sir Michael Peat burst into the nation's living rooms via their television screens, most people would have been only dimly aware of the latest rumours surrounding the royal family. Now, thanks to the Prince of Wales's private secretary, they are talking of little else. Sir Michael's description of the alleged "incident" involving Prince Charles and a royal servant as risible will have sent many straight to the internet or in search of somebody in the know...

"One of the oldest rules of public relations is that mud sticks. However absurd the rumours concerning the heir to the throne, and however blameless he is, some people will always believe there is no smoke without fire, that there has always been something odd about the Windsors."

Mail on Sunday Editorial, November 9

"The Prince of Wales's office has to deal with this sort of thing all the time and is used to the procedure. But on this occasion there was an astonishing departure from the routine. [The Mail on Sunday was] served with an injunction by Michael Fawcett [Prince Charles's former aide] and received a letter from the Prince's solicitors, demanding that we should not publish the claims.

"Sir Michael also invented an entirely new technique, unknown in the annals of public relations and unlikely to be repeated by anyone else. He issued a public denial of an allegation known only to a few journalists and courtiers in the first place...

"If these accusations are untrue... then those who surround and advise the royal family must recognise that it is their clumsiness that has helped to give them credence. They must stop acting in this bungling, panic-stricken fashion, which has simply stimulated innuendo and gossip to the point at which they are uncontrollable."

Magnus Linklater Scotland on Sunday, November 9

"Most commentators have remarked on the power of the 'gagging writ' and have accused Buckingham Palace officials of using the law to cover up the truth. In fact, what has emerged is something very different: the patent weakness of the law in the face of the overriding power of the internet, and the increasing tendency of tabloid newspapers to use 'nudge, nudge' journalism to get facts out into the open when they have not actually compiled enough evidence to support them in the first place...

"This is the laziest and most irresponsible kind of journalism there is. It is the equivalent of late-night pub gossip, with nothing more than second-hand hearsay evidence to back it up."

Andrew Roberts Sunday Telegraph, November 9

"These incredibly squalid rumours all derive from one man [George Smith, a former royal valet]... who is so discredited a witness that no responsible newspaper ought to have taken testimony from him, let alone paid him for it...

"Mr Smith ought to have been left to deal with his alcoholism, his psychological problems... [and] his chronic depression with the help of his doctors, not used by the Mail on Sunday as a tool to propagate foul sexual myths about the Prince. The greatest kindness would have been to allow him to try to rebuild his life, not to have flung him into the shark pool that is Fleet Street...

"There is one way for the air to be cleared, for the offending newspapers to be soundly punished and for normality to return to the reporting of royal matters - and that is for Mr Fawcett to lift his injunctions, for the newspapers to publish their stories, if they dare, and for Prince Charles to sue for libel... Any jury would appreciate his right for his life to be reported honestly."

Beatrix Campbell Independent on Sunday, November 9

"Out of these simmering scandals and the injunctions used to try and keep them out of the press, we are seeing the development of a historic collision between democracy and autocracy. This is a battle over what can be seen and known about the institution that presides over British society. The monarchy's success, indeed the survival of its sovereignty, depends on it being seen. Being visible and spectacular is the performance of its supremacy.

"The monarchy is... most at risk from republicanism when it sulks in the shadows, scared of its own secrets."

Mary Riddell Observer, November 9

"Even if the story were true, so what? Monarchists love the royals despite their venal ways, and republicans can think of worse failings than unprintable but legal indiscretions...

"The Prince of Wales has shown, once again, that he simply does not get the dangers facing him, or the nation he hopes to lead. Britons are accommodating. They tolerate a kleptocratic monarchy that has never understood what treasures belong to it and which are ours...

"The House of Windsor is almost scandal-proof. No flaky gossip-broker will directly bring it down. But the paying public does demand some openness. It does not want the fingerprints of a future head of state on the pillars of the constitution. If the Windsors, or their minions, give the impression that the law is at their personal disposal, Charles really might be staring at oblivion."

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