The Palace seems to be Leaking like a Sieve

[Meanderings]

These people are apparently worried about what Harry will write in his memoir but we've somehow managed to get a play by play of what has gone on this week.

From blocking Meghan's visit to Balmoral to how the joint greeting of well wishers came about.

Please note that these writers are making it clear they are speaking to Palace sources.

Now when H&M start speaking (in defense of themselves), people will complain.

Prince William and Harry’s reconciliation is just for mourning, not for life

Bombshell text from William to Harry that sparked an unexpected show of family unity after the pair failed to meet at Balmoral in the hours after Queen's death, writes RICHARD KAY

Even reputable journalists can only report the news as given. So many journalists wrote that Diana and Charles's marriage was good as they were told this by the Palace when the marriage was already falling apart.
Remember it is in the interests of the Royal Family to maintain certain images. So just as we were constantly told the Queen was well, until she was hours from dying, so we are constantly told all their marriages are very happy until they suddenly divorce.
Remember it is PR and take everything with a pinch of salt. We do not know these people, only what they choose to show of themselves.
It is why the leaking of Charles and Camilla phone calls in the past was so damaging. Suddenly we were reading exactly what they said when they thought they were not being overheard.

And even she didn't stick to her own policy

She "complained" and sued The Sun newspaper twice.
Once for leaking her Xmas speech.
The other for stealing a picture and publishing it.

She also famously issued a press statement to deny Prince Philip's affair rumours in 1957.

Were the phone calls leaked? I thought they were hacked? That is a real difference.

Did she? I didn't know that one.

So she "explained" as well.

This "never complain, never explain" is just a pile of bollocks, isn't it!

As always the press make up their own "rules" and "protocols" and people believe it!.

My favourite made up "protocol" is they are not allowed the wear different colours of nail varnish, other than nude. 😁
Who came up with that one? Daily Mail by any chance?

What's your favourite made up "protocol"?

@MaulPerton I don't dispute this: Reporting the truth is only one of the functions of news reports. They also simultaneously propagandise, both intentionally and unintentionally.

I do dispute that means we can't separate out these functions. "Yesterday, Harry and Meghan attended the queen's memorial service" is a fact. "Harry and Meghan's attendance at the Queen's memorial service was fraught with family tension and rivalries" is not.

I do think a lot of what's written is completely made up or comes from someone so obscure that calling them a 'palace source' is rather stretching it a bit.

And while I have no specific experience of the palace press office I know at my own Government Department we get journos ringing up all the time with stuff that a 'source' has told them. Most of the time it's completely rubbish and if there is a source it's a disgruntled junior employee.

Ive definitely had papers run with a story after we've told them that it's carorgorically not true as they just cite their 'source'. Sometimes it is a SPAD doing it for or on behalf of a Minister but often it's not actually someone in the know! And the Guardian is just as bad as the rest of them when it comes to doing that!

Anti-Meghan stories sell papers and increase clicks. I'm not sure truth really comes into it. Newspapers and gossip accounts are businesses who just want to increase circulation. None of us will ever really know what goes on.

What's your favourite made up "protocol"?

That HRHs curtsey or bow to other HRHs who come higher to them in the order of precedence. They don't. Precedence guides who enters a room first or last or where people sit at formal events.

And even she didn't stick to her own policy

She "complained" and sued The Sun newspaper twice.
Once for leaking her Xmas speech.
The other for stealing a picture and publishing it.

Taking action against media companies that do unlawful things is slightly different to not complaining when they publish rubbish about you, though!

The motto doesn’t mean they’ll just stand by and let anyone say and do whatever they want, it means they won’t get drawn into what would be an endless patterns of denying this story, denying that story, accepting that the first bit of that story is true but not the rest etc etc etc. And recognising that they don’t want to be the ones fighting with the pigeons (and just ending up covered in shit anyway, even if they are right 😂)

They were hacked. As was Diana with her Squidgeygate tapes which were recorded before 1990 too and printed a few years later.

@antelopevalley it’s not just PR that’s governing what was of is in the papers, especially regarding the Queen’s death. It’s also privacy, public interest and defamation laws. The press used to (and probably still do) know a lot that they can’t publish or sit on for a long time.

The optics might have been a problem. You'd have tabloids reporting that Meghan was at the Queen's bedside, Meghan was there ahead of her grandchildren, Meghan was favoured over other family members etc

That’s a very good point.

I can imagine it would have been a very big deal to have Meghan around. She has in the past talked about what happens behind closed doors. This was a time, when no one will have wanted to be on their best behaviour or have wanted what happened in Balmoral discussed in future.

It will also have been pertinent to have respected the Queen’s wishes. I can well imagine she requested her death be a very close family, private affair when so much of her life was public. Afaik, none of her other gcs were summoned, let alone their spouses so my thoughts are she may have wished to just be with her children rather than her grandchildren as well.

Journos and TV commentators never lie or 'embroider' the truth....and the moon is made of green cheese.....

@NotLactoseFree Both points, are, in fact, undisputable. Unless you are there to witness the event yourself, you will never know if a report of "Yesterday, Harry and Meghan attended the queen's memorial service" is a faithful reproduction of the facts, an amplification of them, a minimisation, a lie, or something else entirely.

Relatedly, this is why H & M's strategy of insisting on reporting to the world 'their' truth, as opposed to 'the' truth, is so puzzling. They are effectively sabotaging themselves by admitting to only ever conveying a partial, biased and subjective representation of the facts. Admitting to subjectivity, and yet expecting their declared-as-biased version of events to nevertheless stand without question, is a rookie error in public relations sack Omid and SS for being charlatans

I’m so sorry to tell you that this isn’t true - Queen Elizabeth was not loved my the majority of humanity (said as an anti royalist who nonetheless is very sad she died).

How do you know she assumed she was going?

How do you know she would have known?

@skullbabe

omid scobie her spokesperson said they were both going and then after an hour made a corrected statement saying only the Duke was going.

Fascinating - I wonder where this information has come from?

How many invites made by the queen to visit Balmoral did they decline while she was still alive I wonder.

@Ohnonevermind Is it really any of your business?

@skullbabe I think it's a pretty safe assumption. Meghan has at least an average intelligence and easy access to this kind of information as does Harry.

@antelopevalley why so pointlessly rude to ohnonevermind?