Don’t Mess With Her Majesty

Does the Queen have the best PR in Britain? How much of that is skilled flak work, and how much is down to herself?

Is she much revered because she has been well advised, or because she is fundamentally decent?

Mostly the latter, no?

Early on in her reign, at least in The Crown, the Queen’s Secretary “Tommy” Lascelles was instrumental in helping shape her message.

Although HMQ’s willingness even at a young age to overrule him when she saw fit was clear.

As the years went by there was a growing role for Prince Philip. He was a moderniser although his influence over the comms faded after an ill-fated fly-on-the-wall TV documentary in 1969 which was seen by the Palace as a bit of a disaster.

The programme has never been repeated and neither has the exercise.

Over the years the plan with HMQ has been “less is more”. Sadly, that left a voracious media chasing down the younger royals with disastrous consequences.

But HMQ herself is pretty Teflon – probably because she has done such an obviously good job.

Her public comments are rare, but well ordered.

At the height of lockdown when she invoked Vera Lynn – “We will be with our families again. We will meet again.” – even those of us totally indifferent to royalty could see the point of her.

She occasionally strayed into politics.

Enoch Powell once complained that her 1983 Christmas message had been “a party political broadcast on behalf of the (Indian) Congress party”.

Powell felt the Queen should focus her interests on the folk back home, not in India or the rest of the Commonwealth.

The score at the end of the row with Powell? Queen 1, Enoch 0.

She gets it right many more times than she has ever got it wrong.

Perhaps PR-ing the Queen is a relatively easy job, since nobody wants to hear bad things about her.

PR-ing the rest of the family, well, that’s a much tougher gig…