Guests at the Queen Mother's 100th birthday
celebration will have to pay £500 for a prime
corporate seat.
The Army is organising the pageant on 19 July,
at a cost of £400,000.
It has decided to hire out 30 corporate boxes,
which seat 20 people at a price of £10,000
each.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said that
charging for corporate seats was an
"appropriate" way for the Army to recoup the
cost of the event.
The government is not
putting any money
towards the cost of
staging the event,
according to The
Sunday Telegraph.
It says the sale of
tickets will anger the Queen Mother, who
wanted guests to attend the function free of
charge.
It is believed to be the first time corporate
boxes have been available for hire at a major
royal event.
'Cool Britannia'
Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon confirmed that
a "substantial" fee would be charged for boxes.
He told GMTV's Sunday Programme With Alistair
Stewart: "I don't know about logos but a
number of individuals and a number of
companies expressed the desire to be part of
this marvellous celebration.
"And of course by doing so they will be
reducing the cost to the public purse and I am
sure everyone would welcome that."
Conservatives said the government would have
misread public feeling if it failed to foot the bill.
Shadow home secretary Ann Widdecombe said:
"I think they would probably be taking a very
different attitude if it were a piece of Cool
Britannia.
"Because it's a piece of tradition and we are
honouring a very long-established institution
and an extremely well-loved figure, they are
taking a rather cruder line."
BBC's defence
More than 12,000 guests will attend the
pageant which is being held two weeks before
the Queen Mother's actual birthday on 4
August.
7,000 people will be taking part in the parade
which will feature the dropping of one million
rose petals and a 25ft-high birthday cake.
Earlier, BBC1 controller Peter Salmon has
defended the Corporation's decision not to
televise the pageant live.
"No-one should doubt the BBC's abiding
respect and affection for the Royal Family and
the Queen Mother in particular," he told the
Sunday Mirror.
He said the BBC was devoting more than six
hours of television to celebrating the Queen
Mother's birthday including coverage of the
Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul's Cathedral
on 11 July and a special Songs of Praise from
Glamis on 19 July.
"The Pageant will not be left out," Mr Salmon
said.
"Our cameras will be there supplying news
bulletins and live reports to BBC News 24.
"Highlights will be included in an hour-long
round-up on the evening of 4 August itself."
~*~
Stamps are a family affair(BBC News)
The Queen Mother is a favourite with stamp collectors
Four generations of the Royal Family will
feature on stamps for the first time, as part of
a set issued to commemorate the Queen
Mother's 100th birthday this summer.
The Royal Mail is producing four 27p stamps
featuring portraits of the Queen Mother, the
Queen, the Prince of Wales and Prince William
- who has never appeared on a stamp before.
Photographer John Swannell has been
commissioned to capture the four generations.
'Enormous contribution'
Royal Mail stamps and collectibles managing
director Mark Thomson said: "Royal Mail is
celebrating the enormous contribution HM The
Queen Mother has made to the public life of
this country.
"She has lived through the most extraordinary
century and her life reflects this."
It is also marking the occasion with a Prestige
Stamp Book including a poem by Poet
Laureate, Andrew Motion, and a
Commemorative Document with a foreword by
the Prince of Wales.
The stamps and other products will be
available from 4 August.
~*~
William becomes cover star for Queen Mother's 100th birthday (UK Times)
PRINCE WILLIAM is to be portrayed on a postage stamp
for the first time. The photograph of the prince smiling and
dressed in a jacket and tie will be one of four 27p stamps
released to mark the Queen Mother's 100th birthday on
August 4.
The stamps, which also feature portraits of the Queen
Mother, the Queen and Prince Charles, were taken from the
first group portrait of the four generations of the royal family
staged at St James's Palace last summer.
"I am sure Prince William will be delighted to be able to help
mark his great-grandmother's 100th birthday in this way,"
said a spokeswoman for St James's Palace.
The stamps will be released with a foreword by Prince
Charles and a poem by poet laureate Andrew Motion.
The stamp marks a new advance in William's public profile as
he reaches his 18th birthday on June 21. He was recently
photographed on holiday in Klosters with his father and
brother and palace advisers are considering how to ease him
into his first public duties.
At Klosters, the prince answered for the first time a series of
questions posed directly by reporters. Observers commented
on how William, once shy and nervous in the media spotlight,
was confident and at ease. He laughed and joked with his
father and brother, Prince Harry. Later, in a nearby
restaurant, the two boys mingled with the ITN film crew,
taking a close interest in how reports were put together.
William leaves Eton this summer and is thought to have made
Edinburgh University his first choice for higher education.
The Queen Mother's centenary celebrations will begin on
June 21 with a glittering reception at Windsor Castle. The
party will also mark the 70th birthday of Princess Margaret in
August, the 50th of the Princess Royal in the same month,
and the Duke of York's 40th last February.
Festivities will continue with a national thanksgiving service at
St Paul's cathedral on July 11. The following week there will
be a pageant on Horseguards Parade. Celebrations have
been partly marred by the BBC's decision last week not to
screen the Horseguards event.
The culmination of the festivities will be on August 4 with an
appearance by the Queen Mother on the balcony of
Buckingham Palace following a carriage procession along the
Mall.
~*~
DUP attack on Queen's as it
plans to drop the crown (UK Times)
Vincent Kearney
THE DUP is not amused. The party that likes to say no is
opposing plans by Queen's University, Belfast, to introduce a
new corporate logo that will take prominence over a
90-year-old one which features the crown of Queen
Victoria.
The coat of arms, granted in 1910, will still be used on
graduation parchments and the university's official stationery
and publications, but the new logo, a large letter Q, will be
used on other publications and marketing material.
University authorities say the change, unanimously approved
by its governing senate last month, will help distinguish
Queen's in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The
University of Ulster, which has campuses in Belfast,
Londonderry and Coleraine, has a coat of arms, but also
uses a simple logo consisting of the letters UU.
The Democratic Unionists, however, say the change is
another attack on unionist heritage and culture, motivated by
a desire to pander to nationalists. The party points out that
the playing of the British national anthem at graduation
ceremonies was stopped in 1995 after nationalist protests.
Ian Paisley Jr, a Queen's graduate who led an unsuccessful
campaign to retain the anthem, believes the introduction of
the Q logo will lead to the coat of arms being dropped. He
plans to meet members of the DUP association at Queen's to
plan a protest campaign.
"The coat of arms is a vital part of the university's history," he
said. "It is a disgrace that a university named after Queen
Victoria no longer plays the national anthem which honours
the monarch, and is about to relegate the coat of arms
featuring the crown as the institution's primary symbol.
"I don't care what the authorities say. As far as unionists are
concerned this is yet another attack on British culture. The
university has shown itself to be unsympathetic to unionists
and this decision will increase the chill factor."
The university rejects the criticism. Tom Collins, the director
of communications, said a new corporate identity was one of
about 100 recommendations made by a review group in
1998, which had made it clear there was no intention to
abandon the crest.
The logo was commissioned after Citigate Lloyd Northover,
a London-based consultancy with an office in Belfast, said
the coat of arms had been undermined through inappropriate
usage. Only 25% of those questioned recognised it as the
university's crest.
The overhaul, which cost about £90,000, also redrew the
coat of arms to make it easier to reproduce and to make
each of the symbols - the Red Hand of Ulster, the book of
knowledge, a harp and a seahorse representing Belfast -
more distinct. The crown of Queen Victoria is at the centre,
set against the cross of Queen Alexandra of Denmark.
Collins said the university authorities valued history. "The
consultants found deep loyalty, reverence and respect for the
crest as a symbol of quality and tradition, and that support
was equally strong among nationalists and unionists. But the
research also found that the crest does not mean much to
people outside the university.
"It was felt we needed a modern logo that would be more
identifiable. The new logo will be our primary marketing tool,
but the coat of arms will remain a core component."
John McAuley, president of the students' union, said:
"Paisley is attempting to make a non-political issue into a
political matter because he wants to make political capital
from it. Unionist students have not objected to the new
logo."
~*~
Duchess led parade into
Queen's boudoir (UK Times)
Richard Woods
THE Duchess of York
took her dinner guests
on an "improper" tour
of the Queen's private
rooms at Buckingham
Palace and let them
inspect the clothes in
the monarch's
wardrobe, according to
an account of the
reminiscences of the
royal adviser Lord
Goodman.
The distinguished
lawyer, speaking to the
writer David
Selbourne, allegedly
described the duchess
as a "very foolish woman" who "sleeps around". Extracts
from Selbourne's diary of his conversations with Goodman
are published today in the News Review section of The
Sunday Times.
Goodman, who was one of Britain's most influential figures
for more than 30 years, also spoke extensively about Prince
Charles, whom he advised over the separation from Diana,
Princess of Wales. According to Selbourne, Goodman said
Charles was having her telephone tapped.
Goodman had a reputation for discretion about the private
lives of his powerful clients; but he gossiped to friends,
particularly in the final years of his life. In May 1992, three
years before he died, he told Selbourne he had been giving
legal advice to the Duchess of York but had withdrawn his
services.
As an example of her "folly", Goodman cited an invitation that
he had received from her to dinner at Buckingham Palace,
with some 20 other guests, at a time when the Queen and the
Duke of Edinburgh were away.
"When the meal was over," Goodman said, according to
Selbourne, "and the guests were still at the table, she asked
us whether we should like to see the Queen's private
apartments. I felt considerable unease at the proposal,
thinking it was an improper suggestion to make in the Queen's
absence, and upon a matter to which she would have been
unlikely to have given her assent.
"Nevertheless, we appear to have set aside our anxieties on
this score, and accompanied her as she led the way to the
Queen's private sanctum."
Selbourne writes that Goodman "described how the
crocodile of guests had filed into the monarch's rooms and to
an inspection by some of them, led by the duchess, even of
the Queen's wardrobe".
In July 1992 Goodman told Selbourne he had been retained
by Charles in the wake of Andrew Morton's revelatory book
Diana: Her True Story. Goodman thought the princess was "a
very sick person", Selbourne writes, and that Charles "may
not be the most appealing of individuals".
Later that year, Goodman allegedly told Selbourne that the
prince "doesn't appear to want to be king, as far as I could
gather", and in another conversation he predicted that the
monarchy "will not survive long into the next century".
In December 1992, writes Selbourne, Goodman complained
about the way Charles treated him: "He expects to see me at
any time he chooses." A car sent to take Goodman to St
James's Palace had been too small for the bulky lawyer to get
into.
According to the writer, Goodman said: "Charles is a decent
fellow, but he is in great distress, and has told me that he has
nothing to live for." He went on, says Selbourne: "When I
was master of University College, about one in 30 students
who came to see me was seriously depressed, and one in 70
suicidal . . . I would put him in the second category."
Selbourne also recalls a conversation when Goodman
described Diana as "scheming" and "quite wicked", so much
so that Charles had been "driven to record her telephone
conversations". The writer says Goodman made the "gnomic"
comment: "She has a knife at his bedroom door."
Goodman said Diana had thought the prince was "a knight in
shining armour" but after marrying him had found he was
"unable to show her any feeling . . . It is foreign to his nature",
writes Selbourne.
The diary also records Goodman's remarks on other figures,
including John Major ("char-acterless"), Tiny Rowland ("a
Nazi"), Camilla Parker Bowles ("ugly") and Harold Wilson,
his first powerful patron ("chronically suspicious").