Two recent gaffes — one royal, one not so royal

I can’t remember Queen Elizabeth II ever making a remark in public during her long reign that would offend anybody

When it comes to diplomacy at the highest level, nobody can beat the British. A supreme example is the one where Queen Victoria hosted a banquet for the King of Afghanistan. Whether or not it is apocryphal I have no idea, but it makes the point rather well. Everything was going rather well until the royal foreign guest feeling rather thirsty after the pudding, picked up his finger bowl with both hands and tipped it over into his mouth. There was a sudden hush, then some feverish whispering. And then, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, the royal monarch picked up her finger bowl and drank the water, and all the lords and ladies of the realm followed suit.

But things aren’t the same any more. Earlier this week, the Queen made a faux pas, which was followed by an indelicate remark by the prime minister, both of which were caught on camera and re-broadcast with considerable relish by the media. Queen Elizabeth II was heard complaining that the Chinese delegation had been rude to the British ambassador in Beijing. This was during a standoff about security. The fact that she brought this up showed how much it still rankled, even after seven months. And then, British Prime Minister David Cameron made an indelicate statement about Nigeria and Afghanistan being “fantastically corrupt”, just when he was hosting an anti-corruption conference later in the week. However, coming back to Elizabeth II Rex, I can’t remember her ever making a remark in public during her exceptionally long reign that would offend anybody, or give the press something to chew on. Of course, there has been the odd remark which is occasionally leaked to the press. But an extremely efficient staff at Buckingham Palace can always issue a denial when the occasion demands.

Whether this was just an innocent remark, or a message to the Chinese, or a statement of fact, we will never know. Perhaps, it is all three. One of the British officials who were considerably peeved was Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne who has been building a special relationship with the Chinese. Beijing took notice of the remarks and censored the relevant passage from the BBC broadcast. One consequence of what happened will be some hasty efforts to repair the damage through diplomatic efforts. Another will surely be a reconsideration of how Palace events are filmed and the terms on which footage is released. The Palace’s idea of success will be ensuring that such a thing doesn’t happen again. Chinese state media, however, referred to British journalists as “barbarians” for publicising Queen Elizabeth’s comment and added that Britain’s media was “narcissistic” and “reckless”, and accused it of blowing the story out of all proportion.

Things have been quite different with the Duke of Edinburgh whose quips are often droll in a nasty sort of way. Remember that time in Papua New Guinea in 1998 when he said to a British trekker, “So you managed not to get eaten then?” Or his remarks to a black politician, Lord Taylor of Warwick, in 1999, “And what exotic part of the world do you come from?” Or that time he addressed a female sea cadet, “Do you work in a strip club?”

His son Charles, for that matter, is a chip off the old block and is, at times, one-up on the old sailor. In 1997, after the Hong Kong handover, he described China’s ageing leaders as “appalling old waxworks”. And in his 3,000-word handwritten dispatch, entitled ‘The Great Chinese Takeaway”, which was circulated to friends, it exposed his views on the awful Soviet-style display of goose-stepping Chinese soldiers. Nawaz Sharif must have breathed a sigh of relief when Cameron didn’t mention Pakistan. But there’s always a next time.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2016.

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