PR Disasters part 11

[HoldMyWine]

The ongoing dramas from Montecito courtesy of H&M.

I can’t see another thread but I made the same mistake last time …

I love that footage of the little Wales asking questions and DA answering so kindly.
The big mistake imo was not following the model they already had for a younger son, ie Edward. Make Harry an Earl on his wedding with a potential upgrade to Duke (for good behaviour) when Charles came to the throne. That would have marked them as the junior family from the outset.

And they must have decided all this before they even got (relatively quickly) engaged. The engagement interview included ‘hitting the ground running’ and other pronouncements of how much M would be bringing to the party.

Next thing, they’re married in a grander ceremony than Charles and Camilla, the future ‘majesties’, had. Shortly after, they’re off on official tours to Ireland and Australia, Fiji (remember the market huff?), Tonga, and New Zealand.

Then, pretty soon pregnant, it was them travelling all around the UK and then around Morocco.

With days of Archie being born Harry’s off to the Netherlands and Italy on his own for Ingriftus / Sentebale / Travelyst activities.

Then, they took a four-five month old Archie to South Africa, where Meghan may or may not have been ‘OK’. H did some solo stuff in neighbouring Angola near a cleared land mine field for five minutes to cos-play Diana.

All planned. All assisted by the Palace and Foreign Office. All to blatantly brand build.

It is all really, really strange, quite frankly, and it shouldn’t have been allowed, planned, encouraged, whatever. It was nothing like the treatment any other royals had, before or since.

Who knew what and when about the grifty brand building on the taxpayers’ shilling??

Just a Friday-night, Merlot-fuelled thought. The RF realised this was a way to get rid of H, and leaned in to it?

There’s a missing piece of the puzzle, that’s for sure.

Have we mentioned that Boeing has pulled out as the major sponsor for the Invictus Games over poor PR and a lack of transparency concerning the use of donations.
https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/policy/articles/prince-harry-invictus-games-trouble-191557773.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=tw&tsrc=twtr

The original US Warrior Games that Harry copied runs on £2million a year. The German domestic version of Invictus costs £200K - whereas Harry's bloated, high cost Invictus Games Vancouver cost £63 million.

So far nobody knows whether there will be enough to run the Birmingham version in 2027 - so far
£26 million from the former Tory government (Sunak?)
£4 million in corporate sponsors
negligible private donations

It's a PR disaster - especially now that the service personnel have been side-lined for the Harry and Meghan show! It seems to be going the way of Sentebale when Audi pulled it's sponsorship from the Polo club after Harry decided to monetarize the charity event for his Netflix show.

Thanks, @Lunde - I hadn’t read that link.

More trouble brewing for Invictus is the new composition of (skint) Birmingham City Council. It is now NOC = No Overall Control.

There will be horse trading overnight to try to get to a coalition or ‘rainbow’ agreement, but it’ll be tough.

The independent Gaza-focused candidates have won 10 seats so far, Greens 17, Lib Dems 12. Then Reform have 21, Lab 18, Con 17. This is not the same Council that agreed to host Invictus, not by a long shot.

There’s a big ‘rainbow bloc’ who are not keen at all on the IDF competing; Reform want to make local government cuts. They all need to make the books balance regarding (a) pay and conditions, and (b) the spiralling social care budget.

Without Boeing in the mix to bail it out, the Invictus Games is a relatively easy cut for a coalition council to make - especially when the guy who secured the frankly unconvincing ‘funding delivery vehicle’ from the then government was (Conservative) Johnny Mercer who’s not even an MP any more. No-one in Birmingham owes these people anything.

Let’s hope they cancel it. An easy win for a new council whatever the political allegiances. I doubt there’s anyone in Birmingham who wants it, especially if it means prioritising finances for IG that could be better used elsewhere.

I I agree too. I think Harry really believes he’s set up some sort of rival monarchy in the US with himself as King.

I can’t believe the Palace deliberately set H and M up . I do think it’s very strange that they were thrown into a whirlwind of tours and appearances straight away and given major patronages. This speaks of a total lapse of judgement in the part of the Queen. No one else was responsible. They must have known Harry was not fitted for the role in any way and Meghan was not prepared or suitable at all. Plus she was newly married and pregnant . Just utter lunacy. It was a recipe for disaster.

perhaps they were taken in by her whip smart attention to detail personna she likes to.promote. ( and i would include Harry in that ) And dont forget Harry couldn't wait for his beloved to.overshadow everyone else especially W and K so he would've been pushing the agenda
. They were going to hit the ground running and show everyone how it should be done !
However they grossly overestimated what it would involve and v soon they were hitting the ground sobbing instead.

But Meghan insisted she wanted to hit the ground running . She refused all advice .
As W and C had 3 very young children it was maybe thought a good idea for this supposedly attractive pair of newlyweds to represent the RF ?
Hindsight is a wonderful thing!
I do think the late Queen showed a lack of judgment with H and M however she ( and the rest of the RF) would probably have been accused of racism had they tried to curb their activities.

I agree. I also think that QE2 saw H as being more needy than W and made the mistake of giving him most of what he wanted - spoiling 'the toddler' to make him happy - stopping only at the Sandringham summit. Perhaps she saw some of Andrew in him (what we'd call his boorishness and petulance) and thought this was the best way? Who knows - I was a huge fan of the late Queen but she did have some blind spots.

MM had her US team on board before and during her time with RF - her agent, PR firm and lawyers would all have been whispering in her ear and whipping her up into a frenzy for all the riches and A lister Hollywood status she could have - and they would also have a substantial, possibly once in a lifetime cut. Even if they were dormant activity wise - yhe were all plotting and scheming hence the declaration that they wanted to be financially independent - these deals were basically done. That’s why OW ‘visited’ IMHO MM had already booked her return ticket before she left the US. She was indeed furiously brand building whilst in the RF. The biggest risk she took was having Archie in the UK - if PH hadn’t played ball she would have been stuck in the UK for life - but by then she was confident that she had him led by the nose….

I don't understand this talk about how the RF should have just allowed Meghan a low profile existence and she was pushed into a high profile role that she couldn't handle. The woman is a publicity-driven nightmare. She would never, in a million years, have lived quietly learning about royal life.

Maybe this is the new narrative to allow a way back in? Poor Meghan was pushed into high status roles before she was ready and that's why they left. The poor darling. Now she has had time to come to terms with it all - not, as we thought, making revolting fruit messes, that was just a cover, but actually studiously learning all about royal life whilst living in California - she's now ready to make the sacrifice and return to a life of having expensive couture bought for her and never having to pay a security bill. Hooray etc.

What bollocks.

Well William told Harry to slow down to get to know Meghan first and Harry was livid. Could you imagine the wrath, had he been told his beloved, would need to learn the ropes first? Not a chance in hell.

No, that’s very, very far from what I’m suggesting.

I’m actually wondering how the British monarch and royal family were apparently powerless to prevent an alleged avaricious chancer blatantly brand-building with the ‘spare’ from pretty much Day 1 of becoming his ‘girlfriend’?

A family that was extremely connected, rich, powerful - that contained the Head of State and heirs of the UK and Realms - was bested by a two-bit grifter?

I’m just curious. What did Harry threaten to do to them, and why did they cave?

And to think they’ll have known all about tawdry Sarah and horrendous Andrew by then. What a bloody weird set-up.

As I said earlier , I think the RF were worried about accusations of racism had they tried to slow things down .

I agree.

with hindsight the RF should have done lots of things differently with H&M, but they had already created a monster with Harry, letting him think of himself as equal to William. The Queen definitely took the path of indulgence, thinking that if she gave him what he wanted he would be happy. Instead he just became more and more spoilt, entitled and angry.

We all saw his reaction in Spare about how he felt about how Meghan was treated despite having the red carpet rolled out and being allowed to step up as a working royal straight away. He was outraged at the suggestion she should continue acting. He would certainly have been furious if they’d not allowed her to become a working royal immediately, or insisted on a smaller wedding.

I think the RF were still hoping Harry would come round once he had everything he supposedly wanted so they chose (unwisely) to pacify him.

The other thing that would have been much harder for the RF is the racism angle. Fuelled by H&M themselves, and without people knowing anything about Harry’s real character (or Meghan’s), I think the idea that they were being treated unfavourably because Meghan was mixed race would have taken root much more seriously and been far more difficult to shake off.

They were between a rock and a hard place once he’d already met Meghan - although I don’t disagree they made plenty of mistakes along the way.

But (bear with me here!) that would mean Harry threatened to falsely accuse them all of racism very early on, at the ‘girlfriend’ stage, and they all just caved - the monarch, the heirs, the wider royal family, the security services, the government, the royal households …

… and they all just said, ‘oh ok, Harry, do whatever you like, have whatever you like’; which would mean that our system of government is absolutely pathetically weak and very easily blackmailed. And it means that it remains compromised.

Such uselessness at the top doesn’t add up to me.

I’m actually wondering how the British monarch and royal family were apparently powerless to prevent an alleged avaricious chancer blatantly brand-building with the ‘spare’ from pretty much Day 1 of becoming his ‘girlfriend’?

This is true of all families where someone forms a relationship with someone completely appalling. What can you do? I think it's misguided to imagine any steps could have been taken, beyond suggestions to take time (from William), frank statements about suitability (Prince Philip) and polite reluctance (the Queen). It's not 1534 - you can't lock someone in the Tower because they've had their head turned.

Such uselessness at the top doesn’t add up to me.

Once again, it's everyone else's fault. Interesting.

Doesn’t say much about the levers of power, that a pair of fucking grifters couldn’t be prevented from damaging them.

What levers of power? What do you actually think could 'be done'?

No it’s the fault of the pair of fucking grifters, to quote someone who actually knows them in SoCal.

I’d like to know how they got away with it. And still are.