The extraordinary scenes on Saturday as the Queen welcomed an American actor into her family cloaked an uncomfortable reality. Despite the apparent public appreciation of the pomp and pageantry, the monarchy’s hold on its position is nothing like as stable as the hysteria might suggest.
Nor should the 230 pages of coverage of the event in Sunday’s national newspapers blind us to the fact that the days of newsprint are numbered too. Without denying that there was an intense and genuine public interest in the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, we need to remove the blinkers to view it for what it is: a turning point in Britain’s history.
In truth, two institutions, monarchy and the press, are walking hand in hand towards their doom after 400 years of interdependence. Viewed rationally, we can see how popular newspapers – which is an oxymoronic term nowadays – spent months manufacturing synthetic public excitement about the marriage. Their coverage, far from reflecting modernity, was marked by all the old tropes: fawning fascination, carping criticism, preposterous speculation and the elevation of the trivial to an implausible level of significance.
It culminated in a televised spectacle where many thousands of people turned out to witness the wedding in Windsor along with, so breathless TV commentators told us, “millions across the world”. But if we stand back from the hype and the superficial glamour to see beyond the surfeit of royal coverage, in print and on screen, there is a larger question to ask. Do Britons really care about the existence of the crown?
We should see this for what it really was: a media-confected event played out over many months. Who did the Daily Mail think were craving to read the 42 pages it published about the couple on the November day last year when their engagement was announced? Can editors who filled Sunday’s newspapers with hundreds of pictures be certain they were fulfilling some kind of public demand? Surely they played a leading role in stimulating it?
Although editors lay claim to “the public interest” as justification for their disproportionate coverage of the Windsors, they can hardly point to readership figures as proof they are satisfying people’s appetites. Circulations fall by the week and, unlike those days when Diana was the Princess of Sales, there has not been, until this weekend, the least sign of a similar Markle sparkle. And it will pass as quickly as it arrived.
In truth, it can be seen that tabloid editors’ choice of material continues to play to a gallery of generations past. The baby boomers got off their knees in the 1960s and their children and grandchildren have shown no inclination to return to the age of deference. In fairness, some young people were attracted by the ballyhoo, in part because protocol was being overturned. A prince, sixth in line to the throne, was “allowed” to marry a divorced, non-British TV actor of mixed race.
Even republicans could see positive virtues in blue blood being mixed with red; black skin being matched with white; royalty being conjoined with commoner. As for tabloid editors, they played their usual hypocritical game. They lauded the inclusiveness of the royal family. Well done, Harry, said the Mail, for bringing us “a hint of the diversity that characterises contemporary Britain”. Terrific stuff, Harry, for the choice of “charming, confident and articulate Meghan”, said the Sun. “We praise him for his choice of bride,” enthused the Daily Express.
The sycophancy masked a covert reality, because editors had unleashed their reporters to hunt for skeletons in the Markle closet. In digging for dirt on her past they were delighted to come up with a motley collection of embarrassing relatives. Surely, one hears them say to themselves, it is the public’s right to know about these people, even if they have played little or no part in Markle’s life. These “discoveries” were probably factored in by the prince’s advisers well before the couple’s engagement. Harry and Meghan would have understood that they would just have to grin and bear it.
Nor should all the sins be laid at the doors of the press. Broadcasters have, as so often, followed an agenda set by newspapers. Channel 4’s “documentary” last week, Meet the Markles, plumbed new depths of superficiality in its specious mission to show what papers had previously revealed: the prince’s wife has a dysfunctional family. The unsubtle message: look at them and laugh.
But there is another side to this story. Despite the intensity of the press interest in Markle, there has not been a return to anything like the intrusiveness of the 1990s. That is entirely due to the way in which the royal family has dealt with the media in the post-Diana era. More particularly, it is about how Charles’s two sons were sheltered from the press after the death of their mother and then, in their adult years, have sought to protect themselves.
The princes have not attempted to conceal their disdain for newspapers. Their antagonism may be understandable, given the treatment suffered by their mother, which culminated in the paparazzi pursuit that resulted in her death. Their hostility was further fed by the revelation that, during their teenage years, reporters were prepared to break the law to discover details of their private lives by hacking into the phones of their aides.
Ever since, they and their advisers – with the blessing of Prince Charles – have employed an arm’s-length strategy with the press. The castle drawbridge was raised to minimise access to the princes’ lives with a surprisingly successful exercise of news management. In the process, by calling the shots, they have redefined the relationship between the royal family and the media. Aggression has been met with aggression. The princes have taken legal action to protect their privacy and used Ipso, the press regulator, to restrain the activities of audacious reporters and photographers.
Editors have had to come to terms with the unpalatable fact that William and Harry have gained a victory over them. There is no longer a market in Britain for sneak photographs. Indeed, the papers now have to rely on William’s wife, the Duchess of Cambridge, to provide intimate pictures of their children.
Clearly, editors are still hoping to wrestle back control from the Kensington Palace news managers, as illustrated by the shenanigans over Markle’s father and the opening of chequebooks to gain interviews with the Markle relatives not invited to the wedding. It was the first leak in the princes’ press dyke, but it was a one-off and its only result will be to reinforce their determination to keep the media at bay.
Outsmarting the press is all very well, but there is a considerable risk for the future of the royal family in a post-Elizabethan Britain, where monarchy’s hold on the affections of the people, especially among the young, is anything but assured. Much of today’s loyalty towards the crown rests on respect for the Queen. By contrast, neither Charles nor William appear likely to generate the same popularity as the current monarch. It is not at all far-fetched to suggest that the coming generation will find it increasingly incongruous to have an unelected head of state.
And there is the paradox. If the princes wish to create a better relationship with their hostile or apathetic “subjects”, they will need to rely on the loyalty and support of the media, including the loathed press. Papers may be heading for the dustbin of history but they have a way to go yet; and while they exist, experience suggests they will still be calling the shots.
Or perhaps there could be a very radical, even revolutionary, outcome on the distant horizon. Dare we imagine a Britain in, say, 2040, in which there is no national newsprint press and no monarchy?