The statement regarding the Queen's Covid diagnosis suggests panic behind closed doors, writes Daniela Elser. Photo / Getty Images
OPINION:
Buckingham Palace has put out a highly unusual statement about Her Majesty's positive diagnosis, suggesting the situation could be dicier than they are letting on.
The writers of the royal press releases clearly don't get paid by the word. Take the 61-word number which came out after Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex appeared on global TV streams to strafe the royal house last year or the 41-word doozy that was released in January to announce the (overdue) ousting of Prince Andrew from his remaining official posts.
On Monday, we have a 46-word statement, telling the world that two years into the pandemic, the 95-year-old Queen has Covid.
Here is the short statement from Buckingham Palace in full about the Queen getting Covid.
— Chris Ship (@chrisshipitv) February 20, 2022
Both Prince Charles and Camilla tested positive for it in the previous 10 days. pic.twitter.com/JZ2olOwkqT
However for a vast outfit that contains a well-oiled press office, this latest release is remarkable for all the wrong reasons.
The opening sentence reads: "Buckingham Palace confirm that The Queen has today tested positive for Covid."
It then goes on to assure the public: "Her Majesty is experiencing mild cold like symptoms."
English teachers and sub-editors the world over are wincing at this mangled abomination of language, which is clearly missing a word in the opening sentence, needs a hyphen between "cold" and "like" and has an incorrect subject-verb agreement.
By contrast, go back through the trove of other examples of official communication and it is impossible to find even a single other example of the palace communications team putting out something with such glaring and basic errors.
It's a very telling flub which hardly points to cool heads being as unflustered about Her Majesty's diagnosis as they seem intent on professing. No matter that only hours after this press release went out, the Queen also put out a statement congratulating the British curling teams on their Winter Olympics wins, it looks very suspiciously like the Covid announcement was dashed off and made public with a very concerning, and highly unusual, degree of haste.
The Queen has sent a message of congratulations to @TeamGB’s curling teams following their success at #Beijing2022#TeamGB
— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) February 20, 2022
The Buckingham Palace staffers do not seem particularly like they are keeping calm, even if they are doing their darnedest to try to carry on.
As it stands, their handling of questions about the nonagenarian monarch's health have hardly inspired much confidence or faith of late. Earlier this month, Prince Charles was diagnosed with Covid for the second time, only for his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall to subsequently also return a positive test result.
Immediately after the Charles news broke, questions flew about the Queen's Covid status, given that he had seen his mother only 48 hours earlier.
What followed were terse-lipped palace comments saying they would only update the public when there was "something to say". Palace sources refused to even confirm to the Telegraph "whether she [had] taken a test, let alone its result".
It all felt very cagey and after the events of recent months, the question is, can we really trust the palace to be straight?
Back in October last year, the world got a shock when, days after Her Majesty appeared sprightly and cheery at a Windsor Castle reception for business leaders, the palace announced that she was cancelling a visit to Northern Ireland and that she had "reluctantly accepted medical advice to rest for the next few days". Royal watchers' brows furrowed and monarchists clutched their commemorative tea towels just that much tighter.
Then, the Queen was hospitalised for the first time in eight years, a fact that the world learned not via some suitably restrained statement, but thanks to The Sun.
At the time, the BBC's royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell took the unusual step of accusing the palace of having failed to provide the "complete picture".
The fact that the Royal Standard had continued to fly over Windsor Castle, even when Her Majesty was nearly 40km away in London, only further added to the feeling that aides had been attempting to cover things up.
While a royal spokesperson did confirm the hospital visit, it was to say that she had only undergone "preliminary investigations" and "remains in good spirits" followed by a total refusal to offer even the vaguest details about what might be ailing the usually indefatigable Queen.
This was a departure from the palace's MO during previous instances when the Queen had been unwell, during which very broad information was generally released to manage public concern. For example, in 2013, the previous time she had found herself in a hospital bed, the palace revealed it was because Her Majesty was "experiencing symptoms of gastroenteritis". No one wants to think about the Queen vomiting but the need for directness seemed to trump the need for dignity.
Sure, generally speaking, when it comes to the sovereign, balancing her very human need for privacy with her responsibilities as he head of state is a delicate and tricky act. However, in October last year, Buckingham Palace's refusal to proffer even the slightest detail about what might have been ailing the 'Top Lady' (as Diana, Princess of Wales called her mother-in-law) only fuelled speculation that the situation might be dicier than anyone was letting on.
The most generous thing you could say about the handling of the situation was that it was ham-fisted and unintentionally evasive.
So, how much store can we put in what the palace is telling us now?
All the reporting currently coming out of London is stressing the point that there has been an outbreak of cases inside the walls of Windsor Castle, thus very conveniently redirecting any potential blame away from Charles. Given the palace's recent form on this front, do we buy it?
Since March 2020 when the pandemic started, the Queen has been firmly ensconced in what is known as HMS Bubble, a very carefully calibrated protective mechanism that saw only a small coterie of trusted staffers working in rotation to keep Her Majesty and Prince Philip safe. That system has worked perfectly, until now, and until just after Charles contracted the virus. Curious, no?
This whole situation highlights what is only going to become a more pressing and painful headache for the royal house, which is, how to manage news about Her Majesty's health.
Last week, the Queen met with military top brass at Windsor Castle with a video taken showing her bluntly telling them, "I can't move." Not only that, in the brief clip the great-grandmother looks somehow smaller and more hunched. There is no escaping the fact that time is marching on and that even crowned heads of state can't escape the inevitable ravages of age.
In the coming years (and yes, I'm hoping that Her Majesty has quite a few of 'em left in her) this issue of how the palace puts out information about the Queen's wellbeing is only going to become more acute and tricky.
At risk is public trust and faith in the royal family at a time when support for the whole gilded box and dice has been sorely tested again and again. (Looking at you, Prince Andrew and Prince Harry.)
With the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Year having officially kicked off earlier this month,
Buckingham Palace might be resolutely intent on projecting an image of a united royal family cheerily getting on with the job – but that blithe optimism looks like it's increasingly flying in the face of cold hard reality.
Obfuscation and opacity simply will not cut it.
Hopefully, the Queen will be right as rain in no time. That and someone in Buckingham Palace learns how to use spell check. With the eyes of the world of Britain and the world on them, they simply can't afford to stuff this up.
• Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia's leading media titles.
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