NZ spin doctor likely fall-guy in royal farce

By NAOMI LARKIN

Former New Zealand journalist and Labour Party adviser Simon Walker looks likely to be the scapegoat for the royal family's anger over the "Sophie Tapes" controversy.

As Buckingham Palace communications secretary, Mr Walker - believed to earn 200,000 pounds ($680,000) a year - had the task of handling the fallout from taped comments made to a British tabloid newspaper by the Queen's daughter-in-law Sophie Rhys-Jones, Countess of Wessex.

Now British commentators are saying the high-flyer's job could be on the line and he is likely to become the palace's fall-guy.

His nightmare began after the Countess, who is married to Prince Edward, made indiscreet remarks to a News of the World reporter who posed as a sheikh interested in employing her public relations firm.

Among other things, she allegedly let slip that the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was ignorant about the countryside, that his wife, Cherie, was "horrid, horrid, horrid," and that Labour's Budget was "all pap."

Her indiscretions covered a raft of Government policy and did not stop short of the royal family - she labelled Prince Charles' partner, Camilla Parker Bowles, as "number one on the top 10 unpopular people."

As part of the ensuing damage control, Mr Walker did a deal with the News of the World, which agreed not to publish the tapes in exchange for an exclusive interview with the Countess.

But the deal backfired when a rival newspaper published the tapes, and the exclusive interview - allegedly sanctioned by Mr Walker - revealed intimate details of her private life and marriage to Prince Edward, the Queen's youngest son.

"There may need to be a scapegoat, and the handsomely paid Mr Walker is first in the firing line," the Guardian newspaper wrote.

In New Zealand, Mr Walker was no stranger to controversy.

As a television interviewer, he featured in testy on-screen confrontations with National Prime Minister the late Sir Robert Muldoon, who once dubbed him a "nitpicker."

He later became publicity director for the Labour Party.

In 1987, when he was a member of the Labour Party council, he prepared a paper for clients of his public relations firm predicting what the Lange Government would do if re-elected.

When the paper became public, David Lange, the Prime Minister, said he would not be seen in the same building with Mr Walker.

Mr Walker went on to head the New Zealand Centre for Independent Studies, regarded as a right-wing "think tank," before moving to Britain.

There he was hired to help the sagging image of Tory Prime Minister John Major.

Born in South Africa, Mr Walker studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University in England, where he was elected president of the Oxford Union.

He was seconded from his role as director of communications with British Airways to the palace job in a bid to update the royal family's public image.

His brief was to plot the long-term media strategy for the royal household, including developing its internet site.