Princely pawns
by John Diamond
The Sunday Mirror," reported Monday's Mirror in the last paragraph of a 600-word news story, "regrets that Princes William and Harry are upset" at the paper leaking details of their surprise present for their father's 50th birthday. The notquite-apology was buried towards the end of a piece on the gaffe which until this point had referred to the Sunday Mirror merely as "a paper", but of course regretting that the princes are upset isn't quite the same as apologising for causing them to be upset.
But then I don't suppose the Mirror Group expects to lose too much sleep about royal discomfort nowadays. After all, what's the worst that can happen when a newspaper upsets a prince?
Not even a rap on the knuckles from the Press Complaints Commission, judging by the various unsanctioned leaks, dodgy photos and unlikely conjecture which has appeared in the press since the editors promised to lay off the princes until they achieved majority. But oh! How different it was all going to be.
You could sense the relief when, three years ago, Prince William started at Eton, and the Palace, via Lord Wakeham of the PCC, made a formal request that the press leave the boy alone for a while. Here at last was a plea with which the press could sympathise. Young boy, a bit shy, new school, just like any other boy except for the funny uniform. Of course too many photographers are going to make him feel uncomfortable. Would the press lay off him? Of course they'd lay off him.
Especially as the request came with the hint that all his most important rites of passage would be accompanied by a photo-call. For the first time it seemed that the press understood not just the letter of the law, but its spirit.
It was all hooey, of course. William has made as many press appearances since the agreement as ever he did before it. Stories about his girlfriends, his dancing partners, his exam results, his emotional response to his mother's death, his father's mistress, have appeared in the papers regularly, interspersed with, most cynically of all, stories about how upset William was to read the stories about his girlfriends, his dancing partners, his exam results.
It wasn't until Princess Diana's death that the papers magnanimously agreed - more or less - to stop using paparazzi pictures of William taken away from school. This came as something of a surprise to those who thought that such an agreement was part of Lord Wakeham's Eton warning, but it turned out that this had been little more than emphasising the clause of the PCC's voluntary Code of Conduct which deter-mines how the press should deal with minors.
But just 10 months after that apparent agreement The Mirror published a school photo of the Prince and found itself landed with a writ for breach of the photographer's copyright. In fact The Sun had already paid £13,000 in an outof-court settlement when it ran the same picture the year before, after a reporter had posed as a relative of another boy in the photo to get a copy from the school photographers.
When Lord Wakeham had first called for the press to lay off William he said of him: "He is not an institution, nor a soap star, nor a football hero. He is a child."
As of last month, of course, he isn't. At 16 William is, in most legal respects, an adult and falls outside the scope of the Code of Practice's childhood clause. To that end there is talk of extending the special provisions for both the princes until they leave university.
But what's the point? As much as the press may affect to understand the thinking behind the Palace's original plea for restraint it seems as if the editors, fearful as ever that rivals may steal a march, have never intended to do anything other than follow the rule of the Code to the vague and loophole-ridden letter - which is to say they will only refrain from publishing that which they can be pretty certain nobody else will publish. ALL of which would be an open-and-shut case of press hypocrisy were it not for the behaviour of the Royals and their chums. Take the recent story of the accidental meeting between William and Camilla Parker Bowles - a story which on the face of it seemed to be precisely the sort of breach Lord Wakeham had meant. That the Palace let it be known pretty soon after the story had appeared that it had absolutely no intention of seeking any remedy through the PCC tells us two things.
First, it's confirmation that the PCC isn't quite the Star Chamber that the likes of the Telegraph's Charles Moore would like it to be.
Second, that the story almost certainly came from either the Palace, the Prince of Wales's office or from the Friends of Camilla who have been placing stories in the press in the hope that Mrs Parker Bowles will eventually be the official and publicly accepted royal consort.
Obviously the Royal Family can't complain about intrusion into the princes' lives while courtiers are rushing around trying to get their particular royal patron the best headlines.
All of which explains why Lord Wakeham has been able to make regular speeches on how well the press has behaved since he gave the big warning. To the extent that no editor has been brought up before the PCC on a matter of royal coverage he is right. But the only reason that hasn't happened is because every time there is a potential breach of the regulations the Palace and the press come to some ad hoc agreement which circumvents the PCC altogether.
To say the press has obeyed Lord Wakeham's strictures is to talk of the cartoon parent who says to his misbehaving child: "If you don't stop it by the time I count to five, there'll be trouble. One, two, three, four, five. OK, by the time I count to 10 - and I mean real trouble."
© Associated Newspapers Ltd., 22 July 1998