DESPITE the presence of around 2,000 Australians, the
Queen's posterior remained unsullied during an hour-long
service at Westminster Abbey yesterday. Paul Keating,
whose hand famously guided his sovereign through a
crowd, was the only former Prime Minister of Australia
who declined an invitation to join a junket to London this
week to celebrate 100 years since the British parliament
passed the act which gave his country its nationhood.
It did not deter former leaders Bob Hawke, Sir John
Gorton, Malcolm Fraser and Gough Whitlam, along with
five state premiers and prime minister, John Howard. Mr
Howard is the man who ensured that the Queen remained
Queen of Australia by holding a referendum last
November. It held out the prospect of a republic, which
most Australians clearly want, on unacceptable terms.
The Most Rev Peter Hollingworth, Archbishop of
Brisbane, told the congregation that it took two
referendums before Australians decided to be one nation
rather than separate colonies. "The constitution they
eventually got in 1900 belonged to the people, which may
be why we are now so unwilling to change it."
The Queen of Australia smiled. She and her posterior are
safe for a few years yet.
~*~
Adviser who wanted to sell royal lands
appointed by Palace(Electronic Telegraph)
By Matt Born
THE man who once advocated selling off the Crown Estate - the land and
buildings owned by the Queen - has been appointed head of public relations
at Buckingham Palace.
Simon Walker, 47, will take up the post in September after being seconded
to the Palace as communications secretary from his job as director of
communications at British Airways. He will replace Simon Lewis, 41, who is
returning to Centrica, the successor to British Gas, following a two-year
secondment.
Mr Walker proposed the Crown Estate sell-off while working in the No 10
policy unit during the last 18 months of John Major's premiership in a report
he co-authored for the European Policy Forum in 1997.
Its assets include more than 250,000 acres of farm land in England and
Scotland, 15,000 acres of forest in Windsor and Glenlivet and vast tracts of
Somerset and Windsor Great Park. The Estate also owns residential and
commercial property in central London, including Kensington, Millbank and
the site of the Royal Mint.
Mr Walker later acknowledged that "there could be problems of ownership
with the Royal Family in some cases". He was unavailable for comment
yesterday and the Palace also refused to comment on his proposal. Mr
Walker, who is married with two children, is regarded as an efficient, if
unspectacular, public relations man.
His appointment is part of a reshuffle of the Royal press office before the
Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations in 2002. Mr Walker's brief is to plot the
long-term media strategy for the Royal Household, including developing its
internet site.
It is understood that he will continue to receive his current salary of more than
£200,000, about £75,000 of which will come from the Civil List with British
Airways paying the remainder. Born in South Africa, Mr Walker studied
politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford, where he was elected
president of the Oxford Union and enjoyed a close friendship with Benazir
Bhutto, who later became prime minister of Pakistan.
He has worked as a journalist and public relations consultant in New Zealand,
Belgium and Britain. He was a partner at Brunswick, the City public relations
firm where his clients included Sibneft, the Siberian oil company, and BA.
He joined British Airways in 1998. Appointed by Robert Ayling, then chief
executive, he was given the task of repairing the damage caused by the tailfin
fiasco, when the Union Flag decorations were replaced with abstract
"multicultural" logos.
Industry sources say Mr Walker had had only "modest success" in
re-establishing the airline's brand, adding that his long-term future has been in
doubt since Mr Ayling was ousted in April.
The Queen has registered her two private homes as trademarks and plans to
sell merchandise under the brand names of Sandringham and Balmoral.
Venison, glassware, household utensils and clothing are among the proposed
items which will be sold under the names of the Norfolk and Scottish
properties.
~*~
Sofia mourns 28 victims of Spanish
crash(Electronic Telegraph)
By Tim Brown in Madrid
SPAIN'S Queen Sofia yesterday embraced and kissed the grief-stricken
parents of the 28 victims - 21 of them schoolchildren - killed in a crash near
Soria in the foothills of the Pyrenees on Thursday.
She led thousands of mourners gathered in the football stadium of the town in
north-east spain for the funeral service at which 80 priests officiated. The
queen walked in front of the lines of coffins, her emotion reflecting the grief
that has taken hold of the country.
The children, 17 boys and four girls aged between 13 and 16 from two
schools near Barcelona, died when a lorry carrying pigs appeared to lose
control, swerved across the main road and crashed head-on into their coach.
Twenty-two died at the scene and six later in hospital. The cause of the crash
is not yet known.
The children were on their way to a camping holiday near Burgos in north
central Spain. Four teachers at the schools and a mother of one of them were
also killed as were the drivers of both vehicles. None of the 31 children on the
coach escaped unhurt. Of the 11 injured, several are in a critical condition.
Jordi Pujol, the head of the Catalan government, who attended the funeral,
declared three days of mourning for the region. The victims' parents had been
driven from Barcelona to identify their dead children and attend the service
before escorting the coffins home.