PR disasters (IYKYK) thread 5

[AtIusvue]

For Meghan and Harry, As ever and Archewell posts.

Well Look ye, Look ye …. We have flower sprinkles in the wild!
I have spent a very enjoyable day at Caerhayes Castle admiring the magnificent magnolias and flower sprinkle cake was on offer in the cafe. I gave it a swerve in favour of some very tasty fresh tomato soup and a cheese scone. A lady laughed at me taking a photo and wondered what the cake was. I did notice no slices had been sold between me coming in and eyeing up the cake display and me leaving after eating my lunch.

Craggy Island Top Priest All Stars 🤣🤣
@TheAutumnCrow

@ShamedBySiri a cheese scone and tomato sounds lovely. I might have that for lunch tomorrow.

I personally think it's good they kept the titles. They might have looked sympathetic if they'd been wrenched away from them, whereas seeing them make such fools of themselves slathering Sussex over everything they do, declaring they must be addressed as ma'am and sir, being announced to empty rooms, demanding their kids are called prince and princess in a country that very emphatically rejects monarchy etc shows their true colours. And their jaw-dropping hypocrisy - what on earth happened 'call me Harry' and the backwardness of Britain for recognising aristocratic hierarchy?! If the titles had gone, we'd have missed out on all this.

I do worry though that it's seemingly being framed firmly as evil Meghan abuses poor naïve, vulnerable Harry. Whilst there's likely truth to it, he has also behaved horribly and shown himself to be an extremely unpleasant man. I hope this isn't preparing the ground for his return, where we're all expected to welcome him back with open arms, all is forgiven, conveniently forgetting what a total shit he has been...

The royal family is in real difficulty at the moment because of Andrew MB. I don't think they can afford leniency towards Harry and Meghan. Rather, they need to be tougher towards those family members who behave badly.

IMHO, the King's would be saving the charity not destroying it by having his courtiers pass along the message to the Trustees and MPs to do their jobs which they should have been doing anyway. The bonus for the King is that he saves his darling boy to boot.

If the Invictus Board was really supervising Invictus then H&M would have faced Sophie Chandauka 2.0...a person who stood up to H&M and said no. This is a charity and you can't exploit it for your private benefit. If the Charities Commission was really supervising they would have acted upon the red flags that are so glaringly visible...you could outfit a communist party plenary session!

H is destroying the charity. If Invictus becomes too negative and polarising sponsors will walk and the UK taxpayer has neither the mandate nor the bandwidth to step into the breach. And now a fine opportunity for wounded veterans goes wanting.

Backroom deals are part and parcel of politics so not sure how abolishing the monarchy would prevent what occurs daily in each and every republic...in each and every political system really.

It’s none of KC3’s business, what goes on at Invictus. Just like he wouldn’t start throwing his weight around at Help for Heroes, if it wasn’t being run to his satisfaction. He can choose whether or not to endorse IG by appearing in Birmingham, which I think is unlikely and would be unwise, and that’s about it.

One thing I strongly suspect is that Tom Bower reads these boards. No-one else ever twigged to the real risk of the Invictus > Birmingham > Israel IDF connection and wrote about it before. Not even the Morning Star, as far as I’m aware.

I suspect the BBC are fact checking the Invictus claims, especially the US wheelchair users getting up and walking away after the match they dominated.

The RF had meghan’s number fairly on imo. Unfortunately they were unable to do anything about it.

Here’s the new extract from Tom Bower’s Betrayal. It’s about Sentebale and Harry trying to take on Dr Sophie Chandauka (and failing)

archive.ph/pjQqR

Wow. Bowers paints a very clear picture of Harry's lack of understanding of a) charity governance and b) how his star has fallen.

That’s really shocking about the mismanagement of Sentebale funding.

How ironic that after all his complaining about the Royal machine, the men in grey suits etc, Harry can't work out how anything gets done in life outside that system of old boy networks, nod and a wink, privileged system. He claims to have wanted to escape it, but he's helpless outside it.

Wow, incredible insight into the goings on at Sentebale long before Harry imploded, seems like Harry is behaving similarly with Invictus and their board, except Invictus board don’t have the balls of Sophie Chandauka to refuse to indulge their toxic patron.

Dr Sophie sounds formidable! She comes across as intelligent, capable and clearly the only grown up in the room. Harry, by contrast, appears thin skinned and completely out of his depth. He can’t see past the end of his own nose, let alone recognise real expertise when it’s standing right in front of him.

The irony is that he clearly fancies himself as Johnny Depp, when most people see him as far closer to Amber Heard.

I would very much like to know who was footing the bill for the bottles of champagne rejected by the Sentebale donor representative (Haruhisa Handa’s executive director) Midori Miyazaki, in the New York restaurant?

And will she sue?

It’s a grifter’s world out there at the top. Do they ever pay for anything, when the charities they ‘work’ for will fund their lifestyles, up to and including private school fees, SVUs, champagne, business class travel (if not first class or private jet), staff, and security. Possibly housing.

Invictus is so opaque with their expenses, publishing the balancing of the books would be a disaster for the organisation I think, hence why they are so secretive about the detail. I think it just might be a case of misuse of funds by their patron and his wife. I expect it will be exposed eventually, they can’t hide it forever, particularly that they are benefiting from public funding to hold the games in the first place.,

I firmly agree with you that KC3 should not in general and ordinary cases "throw his weight around" at charities.

Where I diverge from your viewpoint is the impact of H's behavior at Invictus on the UK's diplomatic relations.

The President of Nigeria is in town next week. And right before his visit this hits the press here and will make the rounds back home in Nigeria on how badly his countrymen were treated by a British Prince at Invictus after Nigeria provided generous hospitality to said Prince and his wife.

If President Tinubu asks KC3 what he is going to do about such disrespect to his people and the answer is "Well, We are a helpless King...We couldn't possibly remove darling boy from Our website or ask the Invictus Board/Charity Commission to do their jobs despite Our country's claims of good governance."

Now extend that conversation over all the Invictus participant nations. IMHO, KC3 needs to stop enabling his darling boy and do his duty to prevent damage to the UK's diplomatic standing, because it is quite clear from H's actions that H will not self-govern.

Harry claimed he suffered psychological harm at being told the brand audit revealed people think he plays the victim and he’s not special 😂

If only he had been told that years ago when he was younger! Might have put him on the right path!

Was there a rumour that MM would come to the UK this summer for the ‘12 months to go IG celebrations’ - and would another member of the BRF also endorse or is it just all fingers crossed for the Big Dog (KC3) rocking up in 2027.

‘The survey also discovered that Meghan had little brand value in America. Across the globe, she actually damaged Harry’s remaining brand value.’

So they know she isn’t liked and holds no brand value. We know Spotify and now NF have dropped her because they obviously think the same. Why on earth is she so deluded to think that As ever will work?

The description of that meal has obviously come from Dr Chandauka because of the detail. I wonder whose opinion he’s referencing when he calls Midori Miyazaki ‘loud’!

I think it’s pretty clear to most people, and certainly the President of Nigeria will be aware, that Harry no longer represents either the RF or the UK. It would be completely inappropriate for KC3 to get involved in the governance of Invictus. It’s nothing to do with him.

The interesting thing for me in this second extract is the meeting between Dr Chandauka Midori Miyazaki in NY. Who told Bower that Miyazaki expressed offence a second time that Harry felt exploited for having to perform for money? And who told him that she took such umbrage that the request to double donations resulted in her ending the meeting? Why would Dr Chandauka ask for twice the donation after she’d just heard Miyazaki was offended on her donor’s behalf? And why did Harry reach out to Miyazaki to try to undo “his” employee’s “damage” (the loss of all donations at all) and not Miyazaki’s boss, the man who holds the purse strings? That should have been a principle-to-principle conversation with a lot of groveling on Harry’s part. Most importantly of all, after Harry told Chandauka that he’d only get the donation back, Chandauka remained and Harry and the donation left! It’s just a shocking, appalling lacking of understanding by him of how these things work, that you have to sing for you supper, that nobody just gives you money for nothing. Which begs the question: why does Harry this this way? Because that’s how it always was for him. And Andrew, as we’ve now seen. It’s their family’s way. And yet not all of them seem to have turned out like this. Or are we just not hearing about the others? Is the machine that protected Harry until he left, still working to shield those he left behind?